Setting up

I want to share something I believe you'll resonate with: the ritual of system setup. Let's briefly walk through the process.

• Place the speaker pair away from the rear wall
• Separate left and right channels a comfortable distance
• Toe them in slightly towards the listener
• Connect all cables

You fire up the system playing your favorite music and give a listen. Perhaps the center image isn't as defined as you would want, so you effect a little more toe in–perhaps separate them less–and dial that in. You make many adjustments including replacing this cable with that, a USB optimizer or not, a different phono cartridge or slightly greater tracking force–maybe VTA adjust–small room changes like adding a diffuser or an absorber, level adjust on the subwoofer, till finally, it all sounds pretty good. What have you accomplished? Have you optimized speaker placement for the room? The equipment? Both? And what of headphones where the room does not matter? You choose headphone models, amplifiers, cables, the same decisions of phono cartridge and setup, USB this or that, and associated equipment to suit your tastes. And here's the thing. Each decision you made is based on your source gear and amplification chain. If vinyl, with its relatively poor high frequency response and channel separation, you adjust peripherals to compensate. If digital, different choices are made. And those differences in setup are all based on the chain itself. Change any element in the chain, your choices must all be reevaluated. Are you with me? Let's pick the thread up again tomorrow.