That gear rack sitting between your loudspeakers is doing more damage to your soundstage than almost anyone realizes.
It is one of the most common setups in audio. Two speakers flanking a piece of furniture, with the turntable, DAC, preamp, and amplifier stacked tidily in the middle. It looks balanced, it keeps the cables short, and it feels logical. The trouble is that everything sitting in that center position acts as a giant acoustic obstacle right at the spot where your speakers are trying to render a phantom center image, the place where lead vocals and solo instruments are supposed to materialize out of thin air.
Why then, you might ask, do we do exactly that in our reference Listening Lab at PS Audio? And at shows?
The answer is simply: we have two goals, to show off the equipment and to make great sound. We've gotten pretty good at it but at the proverbial end of the day, it'd sure sound a lot better if we didn't.
Sound launching from your two speakers is doing two important jobs. The direct waves arrive at your ears and tell you where things are placed left to right. The early reflections off nearby surfaces arrive a few milliseconds later and tell your brain about the size and depth of the recorded space. A cabinet stuffed between the speakers reflects, diffracts, and scatters those waves in a chaotic way. The result is a vocal that sounds smaller than it should, a soundstage that hugs the speakers instead of opening up behind them, and a phantom center that loses its body.
If moving the rack out is impossible because of room layout or aesthetics, there are ways to soften the damage. Keep the rack as low as you can, ideally below the level of the tweeters and midranges where most of the imaging cues live. A taller cabinet that sticks up between the speakers is the worst case. Power amplifiers and power regenerators on the floor or on short stands—just like we do.
The phantom center is not magic. It is a fragile illusion built out of timing and amplitude differences your speakers send to your ears.
Treat the space between your speakers with respect, keep it as open and acoustically quiet as you can, and that illusion will pay you back with a soundstage that finally lets the music breathe.
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