Anyone who has ever played around with room treatments, you know, like Tube Trap, Echo Tunes, Skyline diffusers, Helmholtz resonators, tiny little bowl resonators, Mpingo discs, crystals, things of that nature knows that it takes a while to locate the ideal locations for any of those things. Compound that with the speaker location issue and you have an almost never ending search for the absolute best location for everything. As new acoustic thingies are added the while cycle of experimentation begins anew. That’s why, if you’re really serious about this, you should be using the XLO Test CD speaker placement track every time you change something in the room. You want the guy’s voice on the Test CD to "sound like it’s coming at you from all around the room." That’s when the system will be most diffuse, since the track is an out of phase track. Then, when the system is IN PHASE the stereo image and sound will be optimum. Make sense?
Of course, everything is relative. Initially you might not hear much with the out of phase track but as you get better at it and the system gets more accurate, the impression that the sound is completely non-directional, coming at you from no particular direction, will become more and more obvious. So, not only must speakers be set up to within a inch of the exact location where the sound is the best but all the various room acoustics devices must be precisely placed too. 😳
Of course, everything is relative. Initially you might not hear much with the out of phase track but as you get better at it and the system gets more accurate, the impression that the sound is completely non-directional, coming at you from no particular direction, will become more and more obvious. So, not only must speakers be set up to within a inch of the exact location where the sound is the best but all the various room acoustics devices must be precisely placed too. 😳