Removing components from between the speakers

It does depend on the specifics. A system with just a CD player driving powered loudspeakers presents a vastly smaller reflective surface area than say this. Placing equipment between the loudspeakers just isn't a problem in some situation, in others it is.

If we are going to talk about the ideal, then ideally your source components and electronics (power amps excepted) shouldn't be in the listening room, but in an adjacent dedicated, custom designed equipment room.

Zd and Onhwy61 my conclusions are similar to yours and that's why I wrote "it just depends". Depending on the size of the rack used, number/placement of components and proximity to the speakers. These variables can range from noticeable to minimal(or no audible effect) actual effect. Try both component placement arrangements and just listen.
Charles,

Everything 'JUST DEPENDS" when you break it all down. I have been to MANY a showroom over the last 46 years. Many if not most have had mono blocks in between the speakers (when listening to their higher end speakers and gear). I've heard systems both with the amps in between and without. I have a decent ear and can't tell the difference between the two sets ups in nearly all cases. I've been close with many dealers as well as designers etc... yes, in a perfect world you have your gear outside of the listening room (there was a dealer just north of LA in a warehouse years ago who set up their rooms like this) and just have the speaker cables hooked up through the wall. They built the room to have no parallel surfaces and everything else you can do to make it better sounding. I really was one of the best sounding rooms I've listened in. I was amazing how great a 2500 system sounded (back in the mid 90's).

The irony about boards is that folks ask questions that can't really be answered properly since everything is dependent on each other. Take any of our systems into someone else's space or even a new space in your own home and the sound changes, so how can folks honestly tell someone what something will sound like to them etc.... We all answer because it's fun.

I still say it's dependent...

I tend to agree with Mikelavigne.

I believe we all chase the ‘ideal’ even when constrained by budget, room bounds, other room uses. I also believe the room to be the most important component of a system and tuning of that room to be the greatest factor in getting at ones sonic ‘ideal’. Equipment placement is part of the room tuning process.

I am fortunate to having a dedicated room for audio and have tuned it to my liking, though this is an ongoing project. Equipment placement was part of that process.

My source equipment and preamp are positioned on a rack placed at my right side about 18” from the wall and forward of, and not in the path of, the 1st reflection point off that wall. My amp is placed on a stand close to and left of the rack. I am using 1M ICs and 5M speaker cables to facilitate this arrangement. I believe this gives me the best acoustic advantage and allows me to select music without leaving my chair. There is nothing within, nor between me and, the soundstage. The presentation is quite holographic. This is important to my sonic ‘ideal’.

I believe the benefits of freeing the space between speakers and that between speakers and the listening position outweigh any costs of longer IC/SC lengths involved, regardless of the IC vs. SC length controversy. This controversy is most likely an equipment, and equipment placement issue.

Most people are stuck with something between their speakers.

Period.

The thing to discuss is not how the ideal room would or should be unless the point is to the futility of the idea. I'd love to have the wherewithal to have a dedicated listening room but I'm with the majority on this: I can't.

So, getting back to the OPs question, if you can isolate, as best you can, the equipment off to one side and not in the soundstage you listen to, then by all means, do it.

As for the rest of us, throw a big, wool, army blanket over your widescreen and rack and make sure your speakers are forward of the stuff between and see if it makes a difference. That's the advice I was given on another thread here and it worked. It was a very minor improvement, but it worked.

I no longer do it because of the hassle.

All the best,
Nonoise