Equipment Rack Placement

sam: actually, it's fairly easy to find 6,7&8 meter pairs of ic's on audiogon. just post a "wanted" ad, specifying the wire you desire and, i can almost guarantee you, you'll get at least one response very quickly. BTW, the 2 best audio shop soundrooms i've visited in the past 30 days have setups much like mine (audio unlimited, in denver; goodwin's highend, in waltham, ma), as do a number of my friends. it is no more expesive to go in this direction than using multiple sets of 1 1/2 or 2 meter pairs of ic's, as many do. and it truly does render a HUGE improvement in soundstage/imaging.

As long as the rack isn't more than 2/3 as high as your soundstage, or speaker height, is what I've also heard. I can't say from experience since my rack is off to the left of the soundstage and the other times where I had the rack in between the speakers, it was a shorter rack (20"). However, I haven't experienced any audible of effects of rack placement period.

I just moved my audio rack from just behind the speakers to the left of my listening sofa. The sound definitely improved. I suspect it has to do with a reduction in vibration. My speakers have side firing woofers. Also, I have noticed that placing anything in between the speakers, even a foot or two behind the tweeters (a tv) degraded the imaging quite a bit. I have noticed this phenomena with three different speakers. I have read / heard two different and opposing viewpoints on wether speaker wire length or interconnect length should be longer. The manufacturer of my speaker cables, Nordost, recommended ideal ic length of 1 meter, and speaker cable of 12 meters. Their technician said I should not go over 2 meters for an ic, but going 5-6 meters on the speaker cables wouldn't make a difference. This makes sense given the much higher signal levels going over speaker cables. I have heard this same advice from my local dealer. Also, I notice that interconnect quality seems to affect the sound more than speaker cable quality.

I used to use 20 ft. interconnects and 8 ft. speaker cables, but found that a lot of vibration got into the source components. When I put the equipment between and behind the speakers, using 1.5 metre ICs, although it was much closer to them, the CD player, for example, picked up much less vibration. I suppose it's the difference between directly in the "line of fire", although 15 feet away, and off to the side, though only a few feet away. I can't say I've noticed any difference in soundstage, but I'm much less sensitive to that than to dynamics and resolution. In both positions, I had the components mounted on 1.5 in. MDF shelves mounted directly onto a brick wall. For what it's worth the manufacturer of my amplifiers (Museatex/Meitner) recommends long interconnects and short speaker cables, so it's clear that not even audio engineers are unanimous on this topic.

I'm with cornfedboy on this one. Unfortunately few have the space required for this optimum set-up. ANYTHING between the speakers degrades the sound. Ideally there should be treatment between the speakers on the back wall as well as directly behind. Having said that I live with the compromises that space plays in my room. I am currently working on a sales plan to appease my wife's asthetic concerns that would permit me to do a set-up similar to cornfed's recommendations. It's going to be a tough sell but I think I have it worked out.