Speaker placement

There's perhaps nothing more important than speaker placement. Where those two boxes sit in the room vs. where you the listener sits, largely determines how your music sounds. And here's the sticky part. There are multiple right places, each sounding quite different. I have watched many an expert set up speakers and each has a completely different approach that results in very different placements. If one watches Wilson Speaker setup expert Peter McGrath work, you'd notice him first walking the empty room clapping his hands and speaking into the air to find the best starting point for the setup. Contrast that with REL Subwoofer owner, John Hunter, who starts with but one channel and spends hours moving it about the room discovering the best place for bass. At the end of each expert's process, the sonic results are wonderful yet sonically night and day different. Now think about your own best efforts at speaker setup. No doubt what you have achieved sounds different indeed from what they would have come up with. I am in the middle of writing the first in a new series of books called The Audiophile's Guide. The Stereo offers a detailed step-by-step setup guide for getting the most out of your 2-channel audio system. Following my instructions, there's no doubt your system will take a leap forward in performance. But, here's the thing. My setup methods are different still than experts McGrath and Hunter. And so, yes, once set up, music and its image on the soundstage will be different yet again. I think the point of this post is to point out just how much difference setup makes. It's easy to imagine otherwise.