Well theres the proof, Art Dudley is on crack. Maybe he thinks all rooms sound alike. Ask him if he would consider double blind testing. If someone says something strange enough and has a bevy of believers, someone is bound to believe him. I could go on, but my point is that I used to believe these people too, until they stated enough crap that I would have to be even more of an idiot to follow them. This is a real button for me. As always, trust your instincts more, not your fears.

In general my ears are my guide.  Numerous times my expectations have been upended by what I heard.  Art Dudley's ideas on how speakers should energize a listening room interest me because it gives me some idea about what he looks for in his listening experience. I have slowly come to realize how different some peoples desires for their listening experience from my own.  

I have a friend who has a highly treated room.  He loves and attends live concerts.  His goal is to recreate that in his room to the degree he can.  I've been there.  I listened.  It it an interesting experience.  This setup is not the ultimate in imaging and sound stage.  It is a powerful experience however.  But it seems a reasonable trade-off.  Since, I have closed my eyes in various live concerts and know what?  There is no image information and sound stage at a large amplified event.  His setup does justice to his goal.

I on the other hand listen to a lot of live recording of jazz sets or studio recordings.  I've become very attracted to good imaging, detail, and soundstaging.  Looking back at changes I've made I see they were mostly all to improve those qualities though I didn't know it at the time.  I was simply responding to what sounded more pleasing to me at the time.  

I now understand better how different some peoples listening goals are from my own.  Art Dudley strives for his own particular listening goals supposedly.  How applicable they are to others in general is hard for me to grasp.  He obviously doesn't like a dead room.  Well, I don't either.  It takes a lot of watts to energize a dead room and that may be the undoing of a highly treated room.  Not that is should sound bad. I didn't think it was bad but it limits what your amplifier choices are.  I'm listening to a ZKIT1 on 89dB speakers as I'm writing this.  The sound is sweet.  The detail is great.  This couldn't be approached at all in my friends listening room.