I'm never going to hear a megaspeaker in a good room am I?

Have your system's front wall, at an outside rear wall of your house. Mount a  40 foot long (or more correct length) bass horn to the structure. It has been done. Yea, you will explain to your wife why it is very necessary......

.... "maybe stereophile should stop reviewing them".... Hey, a guy can dream, can't he? 🤢

@goose --

I have listened to systems from $100K to $800K in different and well designed rooms. My biggest take away has been, gee they sound really good but to me it's amazing how little you can spend and get really good, satisfying sound in a well designed system.

Well put. A friend of mine the other day was reminded, when listening to an older stereo system at his father's widow, what had initially materialized as a forming factor for his set-ups to come and what is, to this day, still the essential sonic reference from which he works and seeks to achieve - albeit ever more cultivated and scaled-up; the 2-way original Snell J's (the org. K model applies as well), a Sugden A48 integrated amp and lastly, a bit anachronistically and reflecting the present day source evolvement, a digital streaming source. A beguilingly coherent, close to wide bander imprinting, tonally rather natural and, dare I say, inherently musical sound - that's what this older system is about.

I would agree in this set-up to be my essential sonic template as well, and largely it's closely reflected, I believe, in both my friend and I's current set-ups with 2-way main speakers, though augmented in both cases with a pair of subs. It always comes down to that when listening to other speakers nowadays, whether they emulate the simplicity, coherency and natural, effortless musicality of those older systems (the Snell A II's were also great), and no multi-dollar or multi-way speaker will come close for costing that amount or exhibiting such complexity alone. The simple, sonic beauty of those older systems is hard to beat let alone come close to, and yet they didn't cost a fortune, nor would they today. 

By and large I don't get the craving for high-end stuff that's offered today. It's mostly posh, über-cultivated, over priced, skimpy speaker, marketing bloated and sonically downright uninspiring, not to say boring. Honestly, from what I've heard these latest years of expensive speakers (as well as the ones priced from cheap to moderately expensive), none of them gives me any pause or longing to replace what I currently have, in fact most of them fall short in vital areas.

The total price of my set-up (incl. 2nd hand products) amounts to just about $17k, though the retail price of my DAC/preamp alone is over $10k. Go 2nd hand, go DIY, go pro and/or studio gear, go BIG and let physics have their say. Be an audio rebel and don't give a bleedin' hell about what the "hifi" industry would have us play along with; indeed, theirs is an agenda, sometimes even of false hierarchy, we should not assimilate. 

Erik:
"Half a second?? Delay between direct and reflected? That's 550' long! :) How do you accomplish that? That's no longer going to be a reflection but a distinct echo.

Like duke was suggesting, most think a 10-20 millisecond delay is ideal."

Hello Erik.

RED ALERT!  RED ALERT!  RED ALERT!
QUICK!  QUICK! 
STOP THE PRESSES! 

noble100/Tim  made a mistake! And it's a HUGE one!
COLLOSSAL EVEN!   
He typed half a second when he meant 10 milliseconds!

WHAT A DOPE!!!
QUICK, JUMP ALL OVER THAT IDIOT!
BIGGEST MISTAKE SINCE THAT ORANGE DOPEY BABY GUY!!
QUICK, CALL CHIEF O'HARA! HAVE HIM SEND UP THAT BIG BLACK BAT SILHOUETTEY THING IN THE SKY! 
OH MY! NOW I'M CLUTCHING MY PEARLS!
OOPS!  I WET'EM!

Geez, C'mon Man,
  Tim       

Hi noble100
I’m sorry you took my question so dramatically. It was meant to point out a typo which I wanted some clarification on while being humorous. It also shows I actually read the post attentively.

My apologies if it came as too flippant for you.

Erik