Location of compoments.

I think as long as the equipment rack isn’t within the plane of the speakers it’s fine to have the rack on the front wall. My speakers are a good three ft. in front of the rack, so no issues. It’s those poor guys who try to combine home theater and music that have to worry since the rule of thumb is to have the speakers closely flanking the gigantic big screen tv. Now that’s a no no for good imaging with music.

I have the equipment on the side and use monoblocks at the speakers. So the balanced interconnects are 20 feet long, and the speaker cables are about 24 inches long.

Clearly, doing what Smith recommends is more troublesome if using an integrated amp.

Most speakers require empty space between speakers and dampened front walls. Normally I can close my eyes and hear the shape of the rack in between… it kills the imaging. I’ve tried fairly low racks. But the best is only the amp on a low amp stand.

Spit between the preamp and amp. Yes, it’s painful, putting a lot of money into the long interconnects but can be worth it. If you have found the perfect interconnect to go between preamp and amp… then save up, or just bite the bullet and order a long pair.

You can create a good sounding system or a great sounding system. The difference is effort and expense in the small stuff. For most of us, we get the components right, then the positioning, then cables, direct lines, treatments, lifters. Each makes another small contribution… ultimately leading to a spectacular sounding system.

Some folks are happy with very good sounding. That is fine. The real question is which kind of person are you? If you get a peak experience from achieving exquisite sound then all the extra work and expense is more than worth it.

why is it bad between the speakers? Is having anything between the speakers bad or specifically the rack?

I have not had any electronics since 1972. OTOH, since my systems have been multichannel since around 1995, there is another (identical) speaker in the center between the left and right speakers. There is a power amp on the florr behind each one.

The rest of the equipment is placed where is it most convenient for me to access it because cabling is cheap.

No electronics since 1972? Are you a wizard?

I just have the amp sitting near the floor between the speakers connected to my gear on the side with the XLR inputs and 7ft speaker cables connecting the speakers

He notes that, if possible, do not locate your audio rack between the speakers, better off to one side. 

And if your components are not in a rack, if one doesn't own a "rack", then what? 

I have never understood the issue of having the equipment rack between the speakers.  It is generally placed back of the speaker plane. Stereo imagine after-all is an illusion created by our brain, based on how the vibrations coming from the left and right speakers are hitting our ears.  There is no "center speaker".  Sound-stage is created by the mixing on the recording.  Unless your equipment rack is placed in the path of the music being sent out of your speakers, can it truly make much of a difference.  And I say "much" as sound waves do not move in a straight linear path, and there could be some reflection off the rack.  But being able to "hear the shape of the rack", and in most rooms, could we really hear the difference?  Moving your own rack would be the only true test, but I personally have not heard a noticeable improvement in my system when moving the rack to the side.  

Not worth it. Get better cables and components and keep it where it is rather than spend more money on a longer version of the cables you are using now. Also it’s best to go with longer balanced cables to amp and keep sp cables short. 

Mono tube amps next to speakers with short runs of speaker cable. XLR interconnects from output of line stage, which are long, equipment on sidewall. 

+1 @bigtwin You can have your equipment between the speakers, but should avoid placing reflective surfaces (eg., equipment racks with glass doors, TVs, etc.). Equipment should not be stacked up and should be distributed at lower heights say less than 4 ft. Sound stage imaging, depth, etc., are an audio illusion generated inside our brain based on sound largely coming from the speakers and to a lesser degree sound reflected from front wall, floor, roof, side walls, and yes from any reflective surfaces from equipment rack. By moving your equipment rack to the side will not completely eliminate the problem since any sound reflecting from that surface still contributes to the overall presentation. I used to have my TV in between the main speakers, but I always covered the TV with a black cloth to minimize reflections.

Agree with @ozzy62 - the details of what you're putting in the middle, and how (flush with baffles, or further back?) makes all the difference. I do gear to the side for one system, and in the middle (but pushed back) for another. Both do great, and I'm not stressing one way or the other. The logistics of each room dictated the positioning. 

My new rack is 32 inches tall and 65 inches wide (the top is about a foot below my tweeter) and the front of the cabinet is about 18 inch behind the front baffle of my speakers. My speakers are fairly far apart and around 2 foot away from the rack which is centered. The bottom of my 75 inch flat screen is about the same height as the top of my speakers. It's about 3 feet behind the front of my speaker. I should probably try covering it to see if it makes any difference.

Putting the gear to one side would not work well for me with a single stereo amp. 

@whart

Hey... another Audiogoner with a Marshall half-stack in his listening room! 

I also go with the short speaker cables from monoblocks and long interconnects to my racks that are on the right side of the room.  Galen Carol, a TX audiophile dealer always recommended such a setup.  I think having open space between the speakers helps with soundstage depth and imaging; my amps are nearly hidden behind my Apogee Duettas (my system is pictured in the Virtual Systems section).

Above all on the list to getting better sound is to have a ladder next to your head 

 I do gear to the side for one system,

@mulveling , do you go with long speaker wires or long interconnects?

shouldn't those horns not be next to the ceiling and wall?

I have always read it sounds better with short speaker cabels running higher resistance and more wattage over shorter distance.my xlr in millivolts running longer does not lose signal much if any.you get a 6 dB gain with xlr opposed to rca.monoprice higher grade is very reasonable for the price on xlr and we'll built 18 gauge 4 wire shielded.so mine are monoblocks next to the speaker with short speaker wire on low very expensive harbor freight carpet dolly.you can't see the dolly cuz the amp is much bigger and covers it up.out of sight out of mind.the speaker wires are 8 gauge to minimize resistance..the pre amp on stands low to ground between speakers.this requires separates of course that increases the higher cost  as now you need monoblocks to be close to the speakers.then you get into power conditioners one for each side as my power has spikes several times a wk..enjoy the music and experimenting cuz it stimulates the mind.

@mulveling , do you go with long speaker wires or long interconnects?

I've done both ways - most of the time I've used 5m XLR (preamp to amp) with normal ~ 6ft SC's, but recently reconfigured it to shorter XLR's with 16ft long SC's. And that works great too! Ideally I like to have silver in my SC's, and that becomes cost prohibitive at longer runs, so overall I'd pick longer XLR's. 

I have followed Jim's advice in all areas. Jim has devoted his life to improving system's performance and given that he has only one goal in mind, personally think I'd be foolish not to. One set of balanced interconnects for the long run. Works for me!

"Normally I can close my eyes and hear the shape of the rack in between"…

Well, okay then (sounds like good clean fun-;).

DeKay

I have a weird shaped room and between that and space considerations, having the rack between the speakers is my best option, but it's a compromise. I have a nice solid center image, good imaging, and a big soundstage, but it's easy to tell it could be better.  I set up a pair of speakers to demo for a sale recently out in front of the speakers I'm keeping and the imaging was more precise and the soundstage had more depth. 

@whart: We’re suppose to listen to your opinion on hi-fi sound when you have a Marshall amp rather than a Fender? Just kidding, unless you have a Charvel guitar plugged into your amp. A Les Paul is marginal, but since I love AC/DC I guess I have to accept a Gibson SG. One combination I've never seen or heard is a Telecaster (my favorite electric guitar) paired with a Marshall. But I can imagine Brad Paisley playing that combo.

As for racks, I prefer a 34C, pear shaped please. And capped with puffies.

It is preferable not to have racks between the speakers - mainly on account of diffraction. However provided the rack is even a little behind the plane of the speakers, it's not an absolute disaster. Sometimes, as in my own case, there is simply nowhere else in the room to locate the equipment.

@bdp24 - Pete Townshend played his Tele with Marshalls in the '60s. And Jimmy Page may well have as well. But then, the JTM 45 is a hot rodded Bassman anyway so there is Leo Fender DNA in Marshalls anyway.

@yoyoyaya: Townshend played a Tele in the 60's? That I did not know. I saw The Who in '68 and '69 (fantastic!), and neither time was he playing a Tele. In '68 he was still smashing his guitar to end the set, and there is no way to break a Fender guitar.

@bdp24 Must have been cool. I didn't see the Who until much later on, 1982 It's Hard tour. Before the concert in Vancouver in rehearsal Pete decided to swing his arm around the guitar and the whammy bar went right through the middle of his hand. Doctors said there could not have been a better spot for the impalement- no severe damage. 

Don't know which guitar this was. 

Mr. PT played a lot of different guitars.

My current setup is totally between the speakers, but back against the wall.  I bought a pair of long XLR cables and moved everything into an alcove to the left of the speakers and I lost a bit of soundstage on the left, so I moved everything back.

@mclinnguy  I thought that was the stairway to heaven.  
I saw the Who in 1981 in KC and, while he didn’t impale his hand, his fingertips were bleeding such that, by the end of the show, you could clearly see an arc of blood with each windmill (I had good seats).  

Amp on low stand between speakers 

Rack on other wall via long XLR's 

 Agree about rack off to the side. I have my amp on the floor between speaks, slightly behind them. Rack to the left, slightly behind them. 3m balanced IC pre to amp and 6 ft speaker cables. Excellent center image.

Like most things in life, it all depends.  Especially if you have a TV between your speakers which are all in close proximity--bad idea.  

In the case of my audio room, a small rack is 5 feet behind the speakers.  If anything, it probably helps imaging by maintaining perfect symmetry in my room.

Remember Michael Green, the guru of speaker placement/imaging?  He also felt this was the way to go.  

So it all depends.

Do what your room and budget will allow.

Just no TV between the speakers.

In response to ozzy62's query: 

No electronics since 1972? Are you a wizard?

Here is my corrected post:

I have not had any electronics situated between my L/R speakers since 1972. OTOH, since my systems have been multichannel since around 1995, there is another (identical) speaker in the center between the left and right speakers. There is a power amp on the florr behind each one.

The rest of the equipment is placed where is it most convenient for me to access it because cabling is cheap. 

@bdp24 - was he playing a Riccy when you saw him? Great that you had the opportunity to see them then. To be fair, most of his Tele playing was with Hiwatts.

@drmuso- it's actually a hand wired 2061 reissue so it is smaller than a real stack. I've talked to Galen- seems like a good dealer, I have nobody in Texas I regularly work with other than a genius tube repair guy whose real love is pre-war amps. 

@bdp24 - I've had a little Fender and also have a small Vox which has that chime-y quality of the bigger Vox amps. I'm not much of a guitarist, was a keyboard player. but Rob Stoner helped me learn how to play guitar. There is a Les Paul standard here that was done by CV? Guitar with the pick-ups wired out of phase to emulate the Peter Green guitar. Using an Echoplex clone preamp/booster, it has huge bite and is way too loud. I have an American Tele-- with a standard Fender pick up and a hum bucker, maple neck. I forget how Fender branded it- a hot rod. It is not a custom shop job.  I actually like playing that guitar better.

@grislybutter -I was too lazy to reformat the photo when I pointed to it. If you have it on a phone and tilt it sideways you can see there is a little more room than that distorted view presents. The horns are highly directional and unaffected by the their position relative to the sidewalls. I have adjusted the volume of the integrated woofers to blend with the midhorn which means that a lot of the deep bass is coming from the bigger 15" subs, which I DSP'd using a separate line from the line stage. 

@mclinnguy The Who didn’t play in Vancouver in 82, their NW coast appearance was Seattle that year, then Vancouver in 89, I saw both concerts. 

(I lived on Vancouver Island from 71-92)

Mono Blocks on Mapleshade boards between and behind speakers, rack on the side...also try to keep rack and amps  not too close to wall, to keep away from all the wiring in the wall...

I’m the poor guy constrained to combined Stereo and AV with a TV and the “rack” between the speakers, which are 4ft from the wall.

I had a cover made for the TV - it helps with imaging for sure.

Good news is I’m moving and the AV system will be separate.

Bad news is, I’ve got a dedicated listening room but it opens to the main living area.  No clue how this will sound but new adventures await.

@macg19

I stand corrected, yes it was ’89. I assumed it was the It’s hard tour, and looked up the album which came out in ’82.

According to this he did it on stage at that Tacoma show, I just remember his hand being bandaged up in Vancouver. And it was a Strat. 

https://guitar.com/news/music-news/simon-phillips-recalls-pete-townshend-fender-strat-incident/

Many thanks to all for your responses, 

Quick question? What brand of longer XLR balanced 

cables to purchase? Budget is around $1,500 for the pair.

Thanks again. 

How can a rack on the side not mess with first reflections ? 

How can a rack on the side not mess with first reflections ?

Because you don’t plop it onto a 1st reflection point lol. Ideally it should be at around the same depth into the room as your seating position, or even further back.

If you have a turntable source (like me), sometimes moving the rack further away from speakers has its own benefit. IME, much more of the problematic stray energy is structure-borne, not air-borne. If you use subwoofers w/ vinyl - good luck lol.

@lovehifi22
For long XLRs, I don’t go crazy on the exotics. I hit up the used market for whatever of the older-line Audioquest 5m - 6m cables I can find, preferably with air tubes. These use good quality metals, and don’t mess with the sound in any particularly vexing way. Their older copper models like: King Cobra, Jaguar, Panther, Columbia, Colorado, Water, Earth - are all very good, and still sound good in long runs. I don’t need their expensive new lines’ "Zero" tech. On shorter runs and if I feel like splurging - sure, I love silver.

King Cobra, Jaguar, Panther, Columbia, Colorado, Water, Earth

Sounds like a jungle. 

Yep @yoyoyaya, Townshend was playing a 6-sting Rickenbacker in ’68, but I seem to recall him taking it of for the last song, smashing a cheaper guitar instead. He rammed the headstock into the speaker cabinet, which if memory serves me was a Hi Watt. The speaker cabinet may have been a dummy, no drivers inside. The guitar made quite a racket, though.

John Entwistle was still playing a Fender bass, and proved himself to be an amazing player. Massive tone too, the best electric bass I’ve ever heard live. And then there was Keith Moon. A possessed madman I tells ya!

The show in '69 was them performing the whole Tommy album, no smashing of instruments.

My components sit directly on the vinyl tile covered concrete basement floor. It's a huge pain for the turntable but great for everything else. No vibration issues, no wobbly and expensive racks and no acoustic complications. 

Another scenario Jim Smith brings up with components in the middle are all the lights that are there. His point is that your trying to create a believable soundstage and all those lights are very distracting. You just end up staring at them. I tried it and for me it makes a big difference. I auto shutoff any display that I can, the rest gets covered with blu tack.

I find it hard to determine the non-obvious soundstage cues looking at anything- I can only do determine soundstage fine details, especially depth, with my eyes closed. Many times I hears the drums etc. are coming directly from the speaker, but after closing my eyes, and shaking the head to remove the memory of the speaker position, then focusing on the sound it turns the image is several inches left and a few feet back of the speaker, after opening my eyes to confirm. 

And speaking of lights, one of worst things someone can do is have a dimmer switch in the same circuit as the system. 

I confess I have a dimmer switch in my audio room, but the system is on its own circuit. The dimmer still throws noise into the AC, I know this, as well as all the other dimmer switches in the house, but haven't done anything about it yet. If it is off no noise will be produced, and I have gone back and forth listening with it on and off and if there is a difference it is small- much smaller than changing ethernet or digital cables. (Or having a 3 foot rack between but a few feet back of the plane the speakers.) At least the bulbs are old-school incandescents and not LED.