Speaker positioning: why do audiophiles neglect this so much?

rauliruegas always ends his posts with " enjoy the music not distortions." I could not agree more. Distortion is always measurable and there are usually ways to decrease these distortions... if you know what they are and what is causing them. 

If you want the best performance out of your two channel system you have to know what you are dealing with by measuring it. Throwing fancy cables and fuses at the problem praying they will work is an odd way to go about it when devices are available at a reasonable cost that allow you to understand what your system is doing and point the way to improvement. It is entirely possible to get relatively inexpensive systems performing at a very high level, higher then systems costing 10 times as much. Back in the early 80s we constructed a system around Rogers LS3 5As on stands, Levinson electronics and RH Labs subwoofers in a carefully treated room that was positively stunning. What we had was very expensive measurement gear that today with the computer power we have is a mere fraction of the expense and available to everyone.

There is some equipment that is incapable of SOTA performance but, there is a forest of inexpensive gear that is capable of performing at the highest levels if you know what you are doing with it. 

What is it exactly that we are trying to achieve?  Certainly there can be no argument that we want the lowest levels of IM distortion and noise. You want to start with the flattest frequency response ideally from 18 Hz to 20 kHz and even more importantly the response curve should look the same in both channels ideally within 1 dB of each other. This can be very tough to achieve. It generally requires a purpose designed room and the clever use of room treatment or under less ideal circumstances digital signal processing. If both channels are not doing precisely the same thing you can not expect to achieve the best imaging. Any asymmetry in the room can cause serious diversions of the response curves. I learned this the hard way. I put a window on the outside wall of my listening room thinking it would not cause too much trouble. It caused a 10 dB variation in the frequency response above 12 kHz in the right channel that caused me to burn out a high frequency balance control trying to correct it. This Summer we are removing that window and boarding it up.

The problem with being a true audiophile is that you are always thinking something could sound better. Some people throw money at the problems others throw luck and money. I prefer to throw thought and as little money as I can get away with. One more thing. Do not replace your own thinking with someone else's. Humans are way too dangerous for that. Marketing is the fine art of lying your ass off to get anybody to buy your stuff. You would be best served by blocking it out entirely.

@mahgister , I am "incredibly" honored that you think I am wrong and what trash can did you find that paper in? LEV? Give me an FN break. FBS is more like it. I think you need to stick to philosophy. You might try Marxism. 

@retiredfarmer , good recording is always a nice plus but that is really a different subject. We are talking about what comes out not what goes in. The system including the room have their own signature regardless of what goes in.

@richdirector , It is always nice to be happy but, you are out to sea without a compass. You have no idea what your system is doing. You are just happy with the results even though the results could be even better if you knew what was going on.  

@johnnycamp5 , You risk damaging your reputation by agreeing with me:-)

The listening position and speaker position are very important IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ROOM. The speakers and the room have to interact properly to achieve sota imaging and sound that is not strident. Most people have to do the best with what they have in regards to the room. Few of us have the opportunity to design rooms specifically for two channel reproduction.

I do see systems that make me scratch my head. I also see systems that make clever use of the resources at hand. I certainly think people would be better served by analyzing their situation and managing the acoustic environment than pissing money away on silly fuses. 

Another problem is that most people have no idea what they are striving for. They only know what seems to sound good to them and they have no idea what that is because they have never measured it. 

You will hear rather frequently of people complaining about sibilance thinking it is a problem with either the recording or their equipment. I would guess that 95% of this is poor control over room acoustics. 

Most systems I am invited to hear have this high frequency haze over the sound due to high frequencies bouncing all over the room. A cymbal does not come from one specific location but all over the place. You can locate the fundamental but the harmonics are spread out making the cymbal much wider than it should be. 

The best systems are going to sound dull at first. They will always play at louder volumes without strain making you think they are nowhere near as loud as they actually are. There will be little if any sibilance behind female voices and imaging will be pinpoint and holographic, instruments and voices in space not splattered against a wall. The image will not extend beyond the speakers unless the engineer is resorting to trickery. You should feel the music even at lower volumes. 

What are you listening to? Any idea? Have a graph of your system's frequency response? Group delays? The response of individual speakers? Out to sea without a compass would be the likely description.