The system checks all the boxes. Reference-grade gear. Careful matching. A symmetrical room. You sit down, cue something spatial—and the instruments appear where expected. Left is left, right is right. But nothing ventures behind the speakers. The stage comes across as accurate... but shallow. There’s presence, yet little distance. It feels like the band’s pressed against the wall.
Sometimes the thing holding back your depth isn’t the room—or the speakers. It’s what’s between them.
What to Do
Look at the center of your setup. Is there a tall rack, a flat TV, a glass shelf, or a shiny brushed-metal DAC display sitting right between the tweeters? Try removing it. Or move your gear to the side, even temporarily. If that’s not an option, lower the rack’s height and cover it with something soft: a folded throw blanket, foam, or thick wool. The goal isn’t to deaden the room—but to eliminate hard early reflections in the centerline.
Aim to keep the space between your speakers visually and acoustically open—at least three feet tall and six feet wide. Enough to let sound launch without bouncing back at you.
Here’s Why That Works
Our ability to perceive depth is deeply dependent on phase coherence and timing. Flat, reflective surfaces between the speakers scatter early wavefronts. That scattered energy mixes with the direct signal—just a few milliseconds delayed—and smears the cues your brain uses to place sound in space. The result is imaging that sticks to the speaker plane. No matter how precise the gear, the illusion flattens.
But clear that path, and the change can feel dramatic. The center image doesn’t just lock—it lifts. Instruments push back into space. The room between the speakers becomes a venue, not just a gap.
And once it opens up, you’ll stop seeing what was there—and start hearing what always should have been.
