This is a crazy hobby/passion we all have and I've been at it for the last 35 years sinking lots of dough in it. I am getting there to that elusive audio/home theater system nirvana. IMO, the room has the biggest influence in the quality of the ultimate quality of the sound system. Case in point, my previous home, I had a dedicated audio room with very high cathedral cieling and it was a rather large living room. I had plunked down over 200G in 1988 to a system that was featured in Audio/Video Interior magazine called "Cathedral of Sound". The system consisted of Duntech Sovereign 2001 loudspeakers, Bridged Cello Performance Amplifiers(8 chassis including 220V power supply), Cello Audio Suite, Cello Audio pallette, Wadia and Accuphase transport/dac, Nakamichi Dragon DAT, Goldmund Reference RO turntable, Day Sequerra Broadcast monitor, etc. Well the sound of the system was just unbelievably close to live sound. I moved to a place that no longer had the high pitched cieling but also of decent sized room. With the same equipment, I no longer had that magical acoustics and sound from my system. One by one I started to sell the electronics, changed speakers, but nothing I have done truly restored the kind of sound that I was getting before. I remember that one of the biggest improvement that I made with the sound in my new place was when I got 8 dedicated 20 amp isolated ground MC 10 gauge 35 amp peak capable lines. You got to have your fundamentals correct.

My current configuration is getting there but not quite the sound I remembered having in my old place. I think the biggest improvement I made was when I got Dynaudio Evidence Temptations. The next biggest improvement was with the source, followed by speaker cable, interconnects and power cords.

I am about to replace this behemoth E-Cube dual 18 inch subs with dual prototype 15 inch subs with factory provided DSP equalization system which I can not disclose the manufacturer name for now. This ought to be interesting.

It is not evident from the pics but I have a large 1,600 sq ft listening area that expands out to three adjacent rooms beyond the listening position. Hence, the reason why I need a good subwoofer system to augment the bottom 1/2 octave I'm not getting without subs.

I think a good room correction possible nowadays with good DSP systems such as Rane, Tact 2.2XP, DEQX can go a long way in improving the sound and is definitely on my plate to try.