That big black thing in the center of the photo is Geddes Summa loudspeaker, by the way.

Earl Geddes and Duke LeJeune, Summa loudspeaker and groovy vapor lamp

1. If a component or amplifier is deliberately skewed to sound "pleasant" it will make a difference. For example, in the setup I listen to most nowadays, 90 HZ to around 3300 HZ are driven by a SET 45 amp connected to a vintage driver (8 inches). Is the resulting sound accurate? Heck no! Is it pleasant? In spades!

2. Some DACs and CD players are deliberately rolledoff, or HAVE to be rolled off (Wadia for example) by as much as 2-3 db in the high octave. This can create again, an inaccurate but pleasant sounding effect.

3. Several cables, esp. speaker cables, with appreciable LC or R can skew the frequency response of the amplifier-cable-speaker sub-system. TO some this can sound pleasant.

Overall, ther is NO doubt to anyone who has spent much timein this hobby that the speaker-room interaction makes the bigest difference: since speakers generally have the most distortion, and the most skewed freq response.

thanks
-akhilesh

I am not going to go into a long explanation of my point of view, but in the last 25+ years in this business, my experience is that EVERYTHING matters. I do agree that speakers are a very important part of the equation, but 90%? Sorry, can't go with you on that one.

BTW, I thought the lamp was cool as well!

I dont know if its good or bad,I can just adjust my soundsystem til I think its best,without any reference!

Cheers
Mike.e

When I was at Ford in the aerly years of OEm audio wars, the markeyting guys insisted on flashing lights. Theye didn't have to mean anything and it didn't matter if sound quality had to be sacrificed - there had to be eye candy or no-go. Nothing has changed.