Best spot for my rack.


In a 20' x 14.5" room, with acoustic treatments all around, and my speakers 5' out from the short wall, where is the optimum position for my rack?
richardmr
My room is 23 X 12 and I have it (my Rack) on the long wall,
down near my listening position. My speakers are on the short
wall with my mono amps in between them. The compromise with this setup is a 25 ft. rca IC running between my rack and my amps. Certain preamps may have trouble driving
a longer rca , as I found out about mine. I am having a smallrack made ( only 17" high) and am moving my linestage down between my speakers , so it now will only have to drive a 1 meter cable. I would say, if you can keep the rack short,or two short racks side by side, it may be the better option.Advantages of this setup would be no high priced long cable,which definitely is no sonic advantage. My big rack will stay where it is with my phono stage now having the task of driving my rather long, very expensive cable. it really comes down to the soundstage being affected by bigger racks in between your speakers VS. any potential problems
with long IC s. If you can go all balanced with it, the longer cable in to truly balanced designed components would be a good option to consider.
I assume you are asking just from a sonic point of view. Also, I assume the quality of power is the same in all parts of the room. In this case you just have cable length and isolation to worry about. Best cable length is between the speakers, but it is the worst isolation. Best isolation is behind the listening position, but it is the worst cable length. Most people recommend a side wall placement to balance cable length and isolation effects. I have gone with between the speakers for best cable length and dealt with isolation by getting really good stands.
There are only 2 ways in my opinion that work well to position the rack between the speakers:
1) have very low racks that keep all the equipment clearly below the height of the tweeter and midrange of your speakers
2) have enough space behind the speakers to the wall so that the distance from the front of the speakers to the front of the rack can be a meter or more
If you can't achieve either 1) or 2) I think the best is to go for a longer interconnect and only place the power amps (or monos) between the speakers, again, as low in profile as possible. Corner positions for the rack are not ideal either. Too close to the outside of the left or right speaker is bad also, a meter distance should be minimum. I would not put it too close to the listening position either.

Joerg
PS: My system picture is not up to date, the placement has been changed according to what I wrote above. Clearly better soundstage :-)
Agree with Audionut, keep the rack low.

I lowered mine from 36" to 26" last week so the transport resting on the top shelf is well below the level of the midrange drivers.

Sounds and looks better, keeps cables at better position(s) at same time.
The best place for your rack is in another room. If you have an adjacent room that could be used, run the speaker cables through the wall.

Of course, I'm a luddite who doesn't use remotes. If you use your remote all the time, another room probably doesn't work for you.