Hope its not too late to post but this is a fascinating area and one I think which limits my systems sound and probably many others. A number of very good points were made but I have a bit different perspective. We rennovated our main family room/dining room which has vaulted ceilings and opens into at least 2 other rooms. It was only afterwards that my wife, who loves music, suggested it ok that we put in a new stereo. The 2 channel system (we have no intention to go to home theater) plays music throughout the house and really removes any need for considering multiple speakers or other systems. The big issue with us is that a piano also sits in the room, and 'crowds' the stereo, limiting speaker positioning, but it can't move till we do another reno. Other issues that are important and affect the sound quality are a bay window (you comment on this in your web site), lots of hardwood (even with a rug) and proper positioning of a listening chair. I am reluctant to consider a formal consultation because I think there may not be much that can be done currently till we move the piano out (ie there may be good suggestions but they will be hard to institute because of poor WAF). I think that a dedicated listening room may not necessarily be an ideal situation because having the set up the way we do now lets us enjoy the music a much larger part of the day. By the way, the subject was very interesting and I think not enough attention is given. Thanks for doing this, I hope to be in touch when we start thinking about new renos in about a year to see what we can change with advance planning. Sorry if this seems like idiotic rambling.
the Listening Room
Many of you may know us, we design listening rooms. While we offer fixed prices for different levels of consultation, no two listening rooms are the same and some vary wildly. I am interested in hearing what you all want to get out of your listening room. I have my own biased opinion, that the listening room is often the most important component of any system (and unfortunately frequently ignored to a large degree). Let's suppose that you could get an acoustical engineering group like ours for free, but you still had all other constraints. You could a great deal on materials to impliment the design but you still had whatever other considerations you have in your life (I don't have space for a dedicated listening room, I can't have ugly acoustical treatement in the room, I can't move walls in my house). Try to be qualitative rather than quantitative. I'm not really that interested in hearing about the specifics of rooms--I'm more interested in hearing about end result goals, such as: I need sound isolation (I like to listen loudly at night and don't want to wake up my wife), or my room sounds dead--I feel like I have a head cold when I walk into it. The other aspect that would be very helpful, at the end of the post, please put a percentage of 2 channel vs HT or multi-channel you listen to. You may even be in the camp: "the room doesn't matter much, I like buying new pieces of equipment instead" That okay too--I'd like to hear from you as well. Some people may not understand the importance of room interaction on the sound, that's okay too--if you had free consultation what would you do or ask in order to get a better listening room.