I guess what we have here is a good lesson in humility. It's fine to start off with general formulas. Your right that as one gets deeper into this obsession, the more individualistic the system becomes. The only thing that we all have in common is to have a system that pleases ourselves.
I tried to follow the "Golden Rule Formula" to the letter of the law for room dimension and speaker position, but found it to be impractical due the speakers that I have which are Khorns. Instead, I tinkered with rear speaker position and levels to get the imaging that was missing from using only front speaker Khorns.
I was told by the maker of the subwoofers that I bought that I MUST place the subs in room corners to get the best effect. That was impractical, because the Khorns were there. To solve this problem, the subs were positioned above the Khorns in the corner. Although unorthodox, the setup works.
As mentioned in responses to this thread, cables should be treated as seriously as the other main units in the system. I spent a bundle on cables after listening to this philosophy for the past year. Personally I found little difference between the top of the line Nordost and it's middle of the line Red Dawn. It certainly was not worth spending $2,500 more per meter. However, I found a big, big difference between the middle of the line Madrigal Proceed, and the top of the line Mark Levinson amplifiers.
I know that most of you think Wilson Puppies are God's gift to mankind, however, I have found them to be too tame and sound weak. To me nothing even comes close to the dynamics and lifelike sound of, please forgive me, Khorns.
The purpose of this thread was to see how close most of you came to a general consensus of priorities. The general consensus of priorities for experienced "Goners" is simply to have a system that pleases the individual.
