Speaker placement at dealers

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!

One of my local stereo shops made it real easy for me...I was asking questions about a pair of Monitor Audio speakers while the dealer was trying to figure out how to get the gear wired so it would play (this was the third time I have been in that store, and every time I ask to hear whatever they have in their listening room, it's never wired) I questioned what these particualar pair of speakers compared to in Paradigm's line. He laughed at me and said Paradigm was sh*t. Yes, I own the Studio 100s. Funny thing was, he couldn't tell me what model Paradigm he heard to say that the entire line was sh*t. I told him he was certainly entitled to his opinion, thanked him for his time and said I would return when they got organized...I thought third time would be a charm. Guess not. So now, I only have 1 shop in town I visit.

This is exactly why you have to take what people say with a BIG grain of salt when they place a review or give a report on hearing a given speaker or whatever based on hearing it at a dealer. I have always said you are wasting your time with high dollar speakers if you can't set them up correctly. Being one who loves Vandersteen's (one of the hardest speakers to get set up correctly), I see post after post of people who say they're laid back, dull, lifeless, rolled off and etc. I just have to laugh about it.
Dealers want to sell. Yes, they're a few dedicated dealers but a lot of dealers use sales staff that don't have a clue. Also, they might have a certain product they want to push so they set other stuff up wrong to grab an advantage. A louder speaker ALWAYS sounds better than one compared at a lower volume. How many dealers match levels for you? Just because you have the lingo doesn't mean you know squat. It takes a LONG time to learn stereo just like any other trade or job.
Then they're some who just don't get it. Like the ones who think you have to spend mega bucks to get good sound. A dealers BEST friend!
It is hard enough when we do not have an absolute standard for accurate sound. It's even worse when dealers sell you "Perfect sound" on an absolute basis!

I find it amazing that even owners with very good equipment have speakers buried in a corner with "lamp cord" wire as an interconnect...I am by no means an expert...but if you went into 9 out of 10 homes...90% of the households would have speakers set up incorrectly...I applaud Symphony for SOund for having the integrity and insight to do it "right"...most owners emulate how their speakers were positioned in a shop...assuming the shop knows best...this is a disservice to the buying public...i should know...I had my first sytem set up incorrectly...unitl an audio buddy showed me "what was up"...that alone improved sonics by 50%...before you upgrade...try experimenting with placement...

I think this hits a nerve with a lot of folks. Along with the other comments, I have also found that stores will also showcase their best speakers far into the room, well beyond the aesthetic limits that most people can live with. An example of this was with some Proac Speakers that sounded exellent away from the walls, but sounded perfectly awful at distances comfortable in our home. Dunlavys on the other hand was much less affected by the same distance reductions.