What affects front to back depth in room/ system?

Thanks for the replies so far. I'm going to get a photo up tomorrow so you can see my room/setup. @baylinor: For 3 years, I had the system setup with speakers on the short 15' wall (rooom is 15x20). I didn't understand why at the time, so I bought new speakers thinking larger drivers (went to 10" from 8") would have improved the bass response, but it didn't. I ended up going to Acoustic Fields and did there free room consultation. Dennis suggested setting up the speakers on the long wall. I did that and boy- what a huge improvement. Everything was better- no comparison. I'm don't understand the physics behind it, but certainly can appreciate the positive difference. I think I must have had a nasty node/ cancellation in previous room configuration. For good measure, I was thinking about switching back again (at some point) just to double check.

What I thing would really help at this point is to be able to hear a truly great system. I need a benchmark. It would also help me understand what is possible and not in 2 channel audio. Anyone here in SoCal have an awesome room/ system I can take a listen to? 

Meow?

Interestingly, I came across this video tonight. I swear Paul can read my mind sometimes.

After watching Paul’s video, it sounds like what I’m hoping for can be found in a surround sound system, but that’s not my cup of tea. I’m becoming a bit of a purist at really like the simplicity of 2 channel. At some point, I hope to get speakers to where I can get rid of my 2 subs.

I also made it over to my local audio shop and took a listen to this today. I’m not sure how good this system rates in the big picture. It consists of a $40K T+A integrated solid state amp, 30K Fyne speakers, Chord Dave DAC, one of the Hi-Fi Rose streamers, and all Nordost cabling. It sounded great, but in the end soundstage and depth were not too far apart from what I have at home. Here’s the setup I listened to:

and here’s my setup at home:

It sounds like I need to finally get going on my room treatment. I’m not sure there’s much left for improving speaker position in the room. My speakers dissapear 90% of the time right now. I need to finally buckle down and learn how to use REW.

Earlier I spun the Mofi Brothers in Arms and on "So Far Away From Me" I get the sound wrapping around the room- almost like it’s giving me a hug. My thought is: somewhere there’s a treated room with a properly setup system that can do this full-time. I’m holding on to this as a goal.

Not seen in my photo is the rest of the gear that’s against the back wall. I will try going back to the short wall for the setup, but will need to muster up the energy for that chore first.

@8th-note The BSG QOL Processor sounds interesting. Do you recall how much it cost?

@o_holter One of these days, I need to hear Quads. For a long time, I’ve heard so many great things about them.

@testrun Wow, that Moon River is a spectacular recording. It's ASMRish! Soundstage is massive!

@audphile1 The depth doesn’t change much at low volume, but I can tell when I’m at the right volume. There is a volume where the pressure in the room is just right. Too little and it’s a bit dull. Too loud and it overwhelms/ excites the room. Using my phone and the DecibelX app, around 70-75db works well.

@dsnyder0cnn my room measures 15’x19’ (4.57m x 5.79m).

The front of the speakers are 4’6" (1.37m) from the front wall. Middle of tweeter left speaker to middle of tweeter right speaker is 7’8" (2.3m). side of speaker to each side wall is 4’11" (1.5m). Ear in the listening position to front of speaker baffle (tweeters are at ear level) is around 9’3 (2.8m)" -same for left and right. I have about 2’ (.6m) from ears to the back wall.

The speakers are about 1 1/2’(.45m) closer together than what it would take to make an equilateral triangle, but this is where they work best (keeping the biggest emphasis on best bass and the right size mouth I hear singing the song).

@wolf_garcia ​​​​and @tablejockey I was just spinning the UHQR Aja tonight (just got it after seeing them with the Eagles last week). Man, if everything sounded as good as that album does, I wouldn’t need to fiddle with all these fidly bits.

@skinzy I’m starting to think the same thing. I’m really curious to see what the difference will be after I treat the room though.

@axeis1 I have Robert Harley’s book (which is pretty great) and of course Paul McGowans- which was quite helpful at the beginning.

@labpro Thanks for mentioning Acoustical Sciences Corporation. I checked out their tube traps a while ago, and was seriosuly considering those.

While we’re here- I’ve been thinking about going with Acoustic Fields (Dennis is who suggested I move speakers from the short wall to the long wall instead...which was a great improvement. The only thing is I don’t see any posts on here about them, but see some of the others. Does anyone here have experience dealing with Acoustic Fields/ Dennis or opinions/ feedback?

Just a follow up: I got the sound I was looking for. Here’s are the 5 changes I needed to do bridge the gap:

I’m not sure if it’s ok to mention names and models of items here or if it’s frowned upon, so I’ll leave it out to be safe. If ok and info is desired, let me know and I’ll post em’.

Each of these were performed 1 at a time to ensure I can identify changes (good or bad) or if no change. I then listen for a couple days to assess/ evaluate the 1 tweak, then would move onto the next one.

First: the main speakers needed a litle bit more toe-in and had to be spread a little farther apart. More coherent and focus in center image, improved bass, less side wall reflections.

2nd: upgraded from one good power cable on my pre-amp to the latest/greatest of the same model. It immediately sounded better and cast a huge soundstage, but was also a little bit thinner sounding and "phasey" sounding at the same time (compared to the old one). After 3 days of listening, it settled in and again and the thin and phasey issues were gone. What was left is better bass and I can hear soft quiet sounds in music I couldn’t make out before (during parts of songs where there is whispering etc) I can now hear the words. Crazy!

3rd: (buckle-in): I changed the stock fuse in my streamer/DAC to a "fancy-pants" fuse. This was an incredible improvement in bass, noise floor reduced, better imaging, layering, and depth. I can’t friggin’ believe it. I used this same very fuse in an integrated tube amp I have since sold and I don’t recall it making that much of an improvement like it did to my streamer/DAC. This upgrade made me stop looking at the next upgrade. I’m happy again with this streamer/DAC again. This fuse upgrade just saved me an s-load of $.

4th upgraded 2 already decent power cables on my class d mono block amps to the next models up. I had a feeling these might have been the bottleneck. and I suspected correctly. These weren’t exactly cheap to upgrade. This tweak made the biggest difference of them all.

Lastly, I experimented with moving one of my subs out of the corner of the front wall and put it on a small solid wood table/stand about 2’ off the ground. The table was about the same size as the sub. This smoothed out the bass in the room, but also took away some of the punch. I then took it off the floor and found a spot in the room where the sub responded positively/ improving the upper mid and bottom end. I ended up placing it just off to the outside of the right speaker about a 1’ away and just behind it. I then tuned both subs so one is crossed over for more of the rock bottom and the other one a little higher to get more punch and chestiness.

I’m now contemplating picking up a couple more of those fuses for the mono blocks. I’m finally at a point now where gear is done. I feel that the gear and setup and tweaks was the first 50% and this is now mostly optimized/ as good as it’s going to get. Now onto the next frontier/ other 50%: room treatment. I need to learn REW to take RT60 and measure bass etc. I’m pretty good with computers/apps, but this one is a bit intimidating. Any help here would be appreciated. I already have the U-mik-1 and a mic stand and laptop ready to go.

@klh007 Thank you for the recommendation. I'm happy where I'm at currently with the fuse situation, but will definitely keep it in mind if (when) I get upgraditis later on. 

@ghdprentice 

Preamp: I went from a Shunyata Delta NR (v1) to same cable but the most current version (v2). 

Mono block power cables x2: I went from Shunyata Venom V10 NR to Shunyata Delta NR (v1)

Fuse in pre-amp: stock to Synergistic Research Purple

Fuse in streamer/dac: stock to Synergistic Rearch Orange