Location of compoments.

@mulveling , do you go with long speaker wires or long interconnects?

I've done both ways - most of the time I've used 5m XLR (preamp to amp) with normal ~ 6ft SC's, but recently reconfigured it to shorter XLR's with 16ft long SC's. And that works great too! Ideally I like to have silver in my SC's, and that becomes cost prohibitive at longer runs, so overall I'd pick longer XLR's. 

I have followed Jim's advice in all areas. Jim has devoted his life to improving system's performance and given that he has only one goal in mind, personally think I'd be foolish not to. One set of balanced interconnects for the long run. Works for me!

"Normally I can close my eyes and hear the shape of the rack in between"…

Well, okay then (sounds like good clean fun-;).

DeKay

I have a weird shaped room and between that and space considerations, having the rack between the speakers is my best option, but it's a compromise. I have a nice solid center image, good imaging, and a big soundstage, but it's easy to tell it could be better.  I set up a pair of speakers to demo for a sale recently out in front of the speakers I'm keeping and the imaging was more precise and the soundstage had more depth. 

@whart: We’re suppose to listen to your opinion on hi-fi sound when you have a Marshall amp rather than a Fender? Just kidding, unless you have a Charvel guitar plugged into your amp. A Les Paul is marginal, but since I love AC/DC I guess I have to accept a Gibson SG. One combination I've never seen or heard is a Telecaster (my favorite electric guitar) paired with a Marshall. But I can imagine Brad Paisley playing that combo.

As for racks, I prefer a 34C, pear shaped please. And capped with puffies.