Near field speaker setup

Thanks for all the feedback. Nice setup millercarbon, that took a while to drink in! Im onboard with the "every little thing" in sum does matter.

Im using an apple laptop -> Tidal -> Yggdrasil DAC -> Naim Nait 5i setup. Very happy with the way it sounds but for some reason in this hobby my mind keeps wanting more, after partaking in some extra curricular activities :), I moved in very close with this system as I describe its crazy the way the music sounds, hard to see how it can get better and Im certain it can since my system is not that high end.
I’d like to move to tubes and been looking at a PrimaLuna setup. I have a bottlehead headphone tube amp with sennheiser hd600 (pretty basic stuff) and that sounds incredible as well. Plan on fooling around with room acoustics as described from some of you today.
Anyway, having a fun time with all this hope you all are too, thanks again!

-Richard

Look real close at my system. Its hard for most to fully appreciate because we are so bombarded with the importance of big box components, but the little things you hardly see actually account for a lot of the great sound. They also are extremely cost effective and universal. When you upgrade the system with new speakers you get rid of the old ones but when you upgrade with something like Cable Elevators, BDR Cones or Synergistic HFT those things stay and are used and make your system shine for the rest of your life, without ever spending a penny more on them.

That said, I would be looking at Raven. Okay technically I am looking at Raven. https://www.ravenaudio.com/product/nighthawk-mk3-tube-amplifier/ Having had a couple tube integrateds and knowing they are the sweet spot in audiophile amps I did of course look at PL. Their main problem being China. And that is one very big problem. Sound wise they are probably close enough to come down to side by side. They are in other words well within tweaking range of each other, which again gives the edge to Raven.

Why do you find this surprising? The #1 key to imaging is simultaneous arrival. Speakers in phase and perfectly equidistant is mainly what does it. This is why you can hear imaging from a laptop.

Move the speakers too far apart and two bad things happen. One is the direct sound from the speakers fades relative to room reflections. The other is the sound coming more from the sides starts to be like headphones. Instead of being in front of you where evolution is telling your brain it should be it starts to sound like its inside your head. So of course the effect starts to break down. 

This already is more than enough information to figure out the rest. Anything sound reflective competes with the direct sound from the speaker and diminishes the effect. The bigger and flatter and harder the more reflective and worse it is. This is why its so important to keep speakers away from side and front walls. 

Or if they are small and close then the same goes for the desk top. Or in a living room situation a coffee table is a lousy thing to have.

Equipment rack, TV screen, same deal. Take a look at this https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
Front and center between speakers is the worst place, so the amp is down low on the floor and back farther than the speakers and there is no rack, except the turntable stand, which is located even further back and off to the side. 

There’s a huge amount more that goes into getting crazy good you are there imaging but having the speakers far away isn’t really an advantage at all, at least not in any way I can think of. And I am all over this like white on rice.