My experience is probably illustrative. I never paid much attention to placement with my Gallo 3.1's, which seemed to have a really wide dispersion and were not sensitive to much moving around. When I changed them for Yamaha NS-5000's I found myself having to read the books on placement and investing in a laser measuring tool. It paid off, but I did have to push them into the living room, which messed up the furniture layout and now dominate the room. Luckily, there's no WAF (or unluckily). I also found I needed much longer speaker cables, and finding high end used ones were difficult, since a pair of 15' cables (my rack is not centered) really costs the moon. The other thing is that the Yamaha's are marginally more difficult to move, but nothing like the behemoths tested in the magazines. However, while they have the advantage of 12" woofers, therein lies the reason a lot of speakers have smaller and multiple woofers and smaller footprints. So with most of us having speakers in living rooms, that's a pretty good argument for sealed box acoustic suspension, tall and small footprint speakers. If you got 'em, somke 'em, which means if a dealer sells this type of speaker, I would think they would sell that benefit. If not, then its up to individuals and the publications to educate on this aspect, the latter which I don't see doing anymore.
Speaker positioning: why do audiophiles neglect this so much?
Went to a recent seminar featuring Jim Smith, well known author of the book "Get Better Sound" and hi fi set up guru.
The basic gist of the discussion was that the most important elements of a high end stereo installation are listening position and speaker positioning, in that order. The actual hardware (speakers, amplifiers, source, cables etc) are of less importance relatively speaking.
Yet it is clear from this web site and it's contents, that set up is discussed much less than the actual hardware.
When I look at the Virtual Systems page on site, I'm estimating that, maybe, 10% of the systems posted are close to well set up. Thus, hardly any of the featured hardware is performing close to it's maximum potential.
Shame, and why is it so? Not sexy enough to talk about system set up in depth? Lack of knowledge? Or is it simply too hard to do and too complex a subject?
Just my 2 cents ...