When did you put the most effort in setting up your audio system?


We all have this moment at the time you have put yourself through a lot of things when setting up your audio system. Please share your experience when you think in the past or present, you did put in so much efforts. 

 

To share my own experience, just to compare two different speaker products, I bought both products in new, held on to them for 4-5months. During the time I had them, I changed amps(2 different power amps), DACs(5 of them borrowed, bought and returned), speaker cables(3 times). Even after all these, I couldn't make up my mind which to keep, then let my sister, who wanted to have a pair, to choose whichever she preferred in design. Crazy... Now, I kinda know what I want, but I don't think I can put myself through chasing all those components just to test out two different products in speakers. 

So now, I am more careful choosing speakers with my existing system then take my time choosing different components. I think I know which components I am deeply attached to. 

Feel free to share your own experience. Leave a piece of your audiophile journey here, we all respect the craziness (or nerdiness) with total disregards in common logics. In Korea, audiophiles call themselves mental patients(hwan-ja in Korean pronounciation), who just do all kinds of crazy things to seek for their satisfaction in audio. I want you to join and share this patient journey, haha.    

 

128x128monacousticusa

OP, 2 things about setting up the Quads were 1) Controlling the back wave which included finding the correct distance from the back wall, toe in, and finding the correct height off the floor. This last item was the most difficult, everyone thought they sounded best on stands (which came with them) which I found, after long experimentation, no to be so (in my room at least). 2)Figuring out how to handle the back wave was a bit time consuming, but when done I had an outstanding soundstage. And, FWIW, I was fairly anal in those days. :-)

The most effort? Hmmm....that's a tough one.

Learning patience and wisdom when thinking about making a purchasing decision.

That includes (especially) used gear.

It can be an expensive journey.

One of the most interesting journeys for me has been the constant refinement of the system, not by adding or changing components, but by fine tuning things like speaker placement, adding direct 20amp circuits, etc. That's what's taken the most time and experimentation.

 

Every little change makes an impact, and while I will continue to tweak the above, have really enjoyed learning about how everything impacts and plays off one another.

@newbee Ah, getting the position right  can be a tough one, but in the end, it is a journey that makes it worth while. Especially with ported speakers, room acoustic is crucial and one of the reasons, our designer, Jun is also obsessed with is creating the amazing harmonics. People can get caught on for ages. 
@coralkong Go on, share your story in pursuing your pre-owned items. 

@christianb5s4 So which refinement experience would you say it was well worth your time and effort the most? 

@monacousticusa

Thanks for your comments.

My systems are shown under my UserID. There are lots of photos and my components.