Having owned several upper middle level amps (Krell FPB, Levinson, Pass, BAT etc. . ), preamps (ARC, Aesthetix, Ayre, McIntosh, etc. . ) and digital electronics (Esoteric, Levinson, DCS, EMM Labs, Wadia) and a slew of decent speakers (B&W, Von, Thiel, Wilson [4 dif pair], Gemme, Maggies, Martin Logans, etc. . .), I can say with absolute certainty that in 3 of the 4 different listening rooms I have set up in my house that acoustic treatments make as big or bigger of a difference than pretty much any single piece of electronics.
If you are blessed with a very good room, consider yourself lucky. But if you haven't player around with room treatments to some degree it is impossible to recognize the impact they can have.
Hey, Elizabeth, I have always had a lot of respect for your comments. This past weekend I was in Chicago picking up a pair of Thiel speakers and the shop had a used pair of SMG-A (??? I think that's the model) Maggies used - and they actually fit in my truck after putting in the Thiel CS6's, so I bought them ( to a large degree on your Maggie comments). Now I just need to figure out what to do with them (my 7th pair of speakers in my house!!!????) I have an pair of Bel Canto Ref 1000 lying around, are these any good with maggies?