Yeah that's a very interesting STUDY at the very least! I've worked in 4(count 'em, 4!) high end audio shopes, plus one chain AV store in my time. And even in the ONE store where there was actually any sort of real CARE AND EFFORT in trying to get speakers set up well for soundquality, there still was less than great overall speaker placement, even there! The norm was by far LESS THAN IDEAL SPEAKER PLACMENT in those shops!
Now, here's my main focus..."If so called,industry professionals(or you'd think they should be selling this stuff for a living anyway) can't get speakers(even a pair)set up right, with all the time and experience they SHOULD HAVE, how well do you think the MAJORITY of audio enthusiest are going to get their speakers set up in their homes..WITH LITTLE OR NO EXPERIENCE OR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HOW TO PROPERLY SET UP SPEAKERS ON THEIR OWN!?!
My experience from going around to LOTS of hi-end stores, EVEN AROUND THE WORLD, is that most set-up's are mainly focused on merchandising, RATHER THAN PROPER SPEAKER PLACMENT FOR SONIC VIRTUE!
I would say the single most missunderstood and grossly under-knowledged aspect of audio is HOW TO PROPERLY SPEAKER SET UP SPEAKERS!...EVEN ONE SPEAKER! The OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of people, even those here on Audiogon, don't know how to set up a speaker properly. And that goes for industry "so-called" professionals by enlarge!!
From a foundational standpoint, most people don't even have flat frequency response, or close, from ANY of their speakers usually!...so they never have a chance to hear accurate properly balanced sound from the get go! That, and with major sonic defficiencies due to all the varriables that are never adressed in the set up/placment process when doing it on their own, ensure hopes of good, great, even world class sonic performance remains illusive at best!
When you consider that GOOD higher end speakers are supposed to be desinged to ACCURATELY measure some semblance of FLAT FREQUENCY RESPONSE(usually with in +/-5db), then they end up with NOWHERE NEAR THAT in most inztallation applications, the result is a NON-ACCURATE sound that will NEVER produce fi-fidelity at the very least!
You can play with all the gear you want, but without a balance frequency response, you'll never here accurate, natural, undistorted sound!
Of course, there's lots of other varriables to getting a speaker to sound right. But without being able to do it right in YOUR ROOM, it really doesn't matter in the end.
Audio enthusiest, I believe, WOULD BE INFINITELY WAY AHEAD OF THE GAME if they focused their efforts on learning how to properly set up speakers and seats in a room!
Learn "flat/balanced frequency response"(corellation of speakers,seats,room mode,boundary interaction), proper width of soundstage, "toe-in" for the proper tonal balance throughout, distance from speakers, "aim/tilt", proper sounstage height(depending on application),crossover integration(depending on system application), suwoofer integration, sub/speaker phase conherence(FOR ALL SPEAKERS), reflection points, room reverb/"Q", etc!
There's more to it to be certain, and lots to learn indeed.
The reality here is that unless you're willing to learn how to adress all these pertinent factors on your own, you're better off paying someone who's skilled and experienced in doing set-up's instead!
Set-up,room acoustics,speaker/seating placment, and tweeking and calibration easily make up 50+%, or more of the sound!..the gear is the other half.
If you can't adress even most of the above issues, or don't care either way, you'll only go so far with this stuff.
Yes sadely, you'll never get the whole story by reading about gear or auditioning it in shops!
