I feel like an idiot; lessons learned

My last few years have not been kind to music listening. First, horrible work schedules (bad!), second, birth of first child (great!). Music has been played, but not really listened too. Recently, I have been able to spend more time listening to my system again. It is a VPI turntable, to a Manley Stingray integrated amp, to Thiel CS 2.4's. I am planning to replace the amp, as my little one is getting too close to the tubes for comfort, and it never really was the right one for the speakers. So, I start listening carefully again, and the system sounds awful. Really, really bad. Nothing coheres, the right channel seems just wrong. I poked and prodded to try to figure out what was going on, speakers seem ok, amp too, turntable...I got to the point that I was trying to figure out if I had some sort of hearing loss in my right ear, or if I needed some sort of electronic room geometry fix, or if I had to replace the speakers. Buying a new amp seemed crazy when the whole thing sounded so bad. Just weird.

So the night before last I am playing with my child who is crawling near the speakers. They are on outriggers, with adjustable feet, adjustable to deal with not-perfectly level floors. I notice that one of the feet is not stable, and needs to be extended a bit. It turns out I am to the limits of the possible extension, and I have to remove the washer to get the foot lower. I do so, and continue playing with kid. After crawling on the floor for a bit longer, I realize that both front feet are extended almost to the limit, on both speakers. I realize that I had been extending one to firmly set it out the ground, which makes the other front foot less firmly planted, so I extend that...and two years later both my speakers are tilted about an inch up (the front higher than the rear). After child goes to bed, I lower the front of both speakers, put on a record...and wow. It sounds lovely. Hearing fine, no electrical room conditioning needed, I don't need to lose the speakers I always wanted. And I feel a bit stupid, of course.

So, lessons learned: First off, trust your ears. If something sounds wrong, something probably is wrong. Second, speaker placement is really, really important (and cheap to experiment with). More: Thiels are famous for being picky, with proper placement particularly important. I am somewhat stunned as to what lowering the front an inch did to the sound. And, I suppose, try the little things, all of them, before you do anything significant. If you remember your system sounding good, and it doesn't now, it has that good sound stuck in it somewhere. Find it!

I am very glad I didn't sell my Thiels!