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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 ...

bobbydd

Showing 1 response by jji666

jji666
573 posts
 

Do the best you can and then enjoy the gear and the music. How do audiophiles sleep at night suspecting that their system is only 97% of what it could be? How can you stand it?

I guess that is Darwinism at play. The happy, satisfied tribe got wiped out by the angry tribe that took their nice river view. So the angry tribe propagated.

To answer the OP directly, it’s because room treatments is more like terraforming wherever you are stuck, and the angry tribe doesn’t want to terraform, they want what’s over the hill where the happy people live. And when they conquer that, there’s another hill with a happier tribe beyond. We could all use to be reprogrammed to be a little more satisfied and a little less "grass is greener."

Now I'm going to go back to swapping cables and installing my new gear...

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