A popular statement in the world of photography is that there is a "special look" to images captured with larger sensors/film formats that you simply can't get from smaller sensors. I fail to see that as long as I keep the settings the same for both cameras and taking the crop factor into account regarding both the focal length and the aperture (and the ISO for image quality equivalency).

Of course there are certain lenses that can't be manufactured to certain specifications, but I'm referring to comparisons where the equivalent lens exists for both systems.

Is there any truth to the statement that there is a "special look" to images from large sensors (correcting for the focal length/aperture and ISO) or is it simply a gear talk fallacy?

**Clarification:** I'm fully aware of that it's easier to achieve the shallow DOF look with larger image sensors and it could very well be the reason behind the statement. However I'm only interested in if there is anything special with the larger formats when correcting for the aperture/focal length and ISO.