I just moved my audio rack from just behind the speakers to the left of my listening sofa. The sound definitely improved. I suspect it has to do with a reduction in vibration. My speakers have side firing woofers. Also, I have noticed that placing anything in between the speakers, even a foot or two behind the tweeters (a tv) degraded the imaging quite a bit. I have noticed this phenomena with three different speakers. I have read / heard two different and opposing viewpoints on wether speaker wire length or interconnect length should be longer. The manufacturer of my speaker cables, Nordost, recommended ideal ic length of 1 meter, and speaker cable of 12 meters. Their technician said I should not go over 2 meters for an ic, but going 5-6 meters on the speaker cables wouldn't make a difference. This makes sense given the much higher signal levels going over speaker cables. I have heard this same advice from my local dealer. Also, I notice that interconnect quality seems to affect the sound more than speaker cable quality.
