@grislybutter There is no sound stage at most live concerts.
@patrickdowns Nice beginning!
I was born in 54. Up till age 4 my dad had to play me records on his Zenith console system. I could not reach the top. I pestered him constantly to play records. On my 4th birthday my parents went out to dinner, I guess, leaving us alone with Mrs. Viles, our elderly babysitter. They came back at something like 11 PM and dropped this large brown cube at my feet in bed. Dad asked me to guess what it was. I do not remember coming up with an answer other than it is a box. I could not think that it would be something so precious as a record player. It was a Zenith portable with the same Cobra tonearm my dad's big system had except it was black. His was a tan color. At first my father would not let me touch it! I had to get them to put on a record, but now I could easily watch how to do it. So during the daytime, with my dad at work, I grabbed my mother and requested that she watch. I did everything perfectly. It took her another week to talk my dad into letting me use it by myself and away we go. Walk On By was one of my favorites.
Listen to a lot of systems, listen to live acoustic music. You would be very surprised at what you can do at a relatively low price. Don't guess and lose all your assumptions. Measure. Get a good mike, Earthworks makes the best, and a measurement program. See what your room is doing, where the problems are. This will guide your acoustic management. You have to use your ears to authenticate results and compare with what you've heard on the best systems. How equal are the two channels. Any differences greater than 3 dB are certainly an issue. How committed are you to your speakers? Do you plan on upgrading? If so, don't waste a lot of money on this system. Read the Benchmark Post in Misc Audio. I think this is great advice. Good for them!! You are building a system around speakers dealing with their specific issues over time. This is an evolutionary process. If your speakers are shy in the bass you add subwoofers and a two way crossover. If you are clipping on loud passages you need a bigger amp, and so forth. It has always been a game for me to build a state of the art system without spending stupid money by researching and choosing components carefully.