Just to be clear--I'm not talking about good rooms. I'm talking about great rooms. There is a huge difference. You can get lucky with dimensions, and absorption--but we are talking way beyond this. A room completely engineered to perform optimumly as a listening room. Once you've heard a room like this--there is no comparison. Now, it does not make a bad system sound great--in fact it exposes weaknesses of the system--but also strengths. It basically delivers the truth of what a system has to offer, but in this hobby you don't have to spend a lot on equiment to have a good well balanced system (in terms of components). Even for a $5,000 system, basic room treatment should be addressed. For a $20k plus system it's almost a crime not to address the room, and for any "state of the art" systems, not engineering the room is really wasting the ability of the system. So there really is a balance--that may have not been clear in initial post.