Equipment Rack Between Speakers...Good or Bad

Btw, for your system pictures looks as your seat position been at near field but maybe it's not. I love to listen at near field position that I don'tdo it as often I like it in my system and only when I'm testing or fine tunning something critical.
At what distance from the inside towers are you seated?

Dear Raul, good to see you my friend.

my speaker towers are 84" tall and massive. and unless there is someone standing next to them in the picture to give them scale, they make my room look small and the distances shorter than they are. my room is 29' x 21' x 11'.

my tweeters are 115" apart.

my ears are 105" from each tweeter. so i sit in the nearfield. but as there is 9' 6" from my tweeters to the wall behind them, the way the room works it's not so near field in actual experience. that is lot's of space behind and around the speakers.

and i can tell you for years i could not sit that close. i did a huge amount of room tuning to bring it under control. and as i got closer and closer to getting it right i moved my seating position closer and closer. it is now super immersive and holographic. the bass is to die for. 

near field is the way to go if you can get a room to be optimal. otherwise the glare from distortion will drive you back. 

mikelavigne

I'm passing Cleveland, be there Friday 11AM!!!!!!

Oh my, I'm in NJ, but now have more reason to visit my nephew who lives near you. Perhaps some day, thanks for the welcoming invite.

Those tape machines are gorgeous. What do you do with them?

I have 2 of Teac's last Pro-sumer model x2000r, primarily to listen to factory pre-recorded tapes. Same as x1000r except Cobalt heads, and, the meters indicators pivot from the top rather than the bottom. Tape is my best/favorite sounding source material. The Mercuries, recorded 30 IPS, are amazing. I just bought new belts for my Viking 75 which has dedicated heads for either staggered or stacked 2 tracks. I may get it going for the few 2 tracks I am keeping, selling the rest on eBay.

I used to record R2R from live radio broadcasts, back when choices were far more limited than now, and live video is so easily obtained.

 

roxy54

So, back to you, have you decided to try anything different after various input?

The ideal system will have balanced input mono amps right behind the speakers keeping the speaker wires as short as possible. Balanced ins and outs let you use long low level signal cables without ill effect. Now you can put the rack anywhere in the room you want unless you have a turntable in which case you want to get it as far away from the speakers as possible in a place where the bass is not amplified.

^^ This.

My system is in my living room, which is connected to the dining room. My equipment rack is actually in the dining room, completely out of the direct radiation of the speakers; my amps reside right by my speakers with a balanced connection driving them. I did a frequency sweep of the room and found that it favored a certain bass frequency, then went around the living and dining room with my sound pressure meter and found the area where the bass was at its least. That space is occupied by my equipment stand. Fortunately readily accessible from the living room and out of the way of any activities in the dining room.

@atmasphere Would you care to mention the brand of XLR interconnects you are using into your amps? How long are they?

I have also been thinking of hiding my rack behind a wall. Some discussion posts on PRO balanced connections and long runs have made me seriously consider getting the rack out of the way. I likely need 20 - 25 feet of XLR to make that work.