Hallelujah is an expression of rejoicing, which is what I’ve been doing after finally implementing Paul’s oft-stated recommendation to declutter the area between the speakers.
There was no space for gear in the side walls of my listening room. Even if there had been, I could not afford the length of high quality cables needed to declutter the middle. So, what to do? I kept looking for a way to make it happen because my gut told me that the resulting improvements in sound quality would be what Paul often states.
Fortunately, the guest bedroom is on the other side of the front wall. The room serves as my office and now hosts my audio gear. I still tap the same hospital-grade outlet for the P15 power plant, via a tunnel behind the subwoofer through which the rather thick Audioquest power cable to the P15 snakes its way. I also had to drill two smaller tunnels behind the Klipsch Forte IV speakers to bring the speaker cables from the other side of the wall.
But that’s it! The sub claims some front wall center field territory, but its a small price to pay for not having to look at cables and electronics, and the cost was a big $0. Best of all, the sound quality improvements exceed Paul’s promised results from making the change. The depth of the sound stage is particularly noticeable.
Oh, and the spouse-acceptance factor also went through the roof. A modest living room that is also a listening room but does not look like a recording studio. I’m someone who likes to show off the sound, not the gear. A tour of what’s behind the wall can always happen for anyone interested.
After this experience, I honestly don’t know how much to trust some of the judgements of reviewers, and you probably can guess who two of those are, whose listening rooms could easily be in an episode from “Hoarders.”
So, thank you Paul for your persistence to declutter the middle. I’m glad I found a way to do it.
Interesting. I have big dipoles and I just went thru an exercise to clutter up my wall with things to diffuse the rear wave. It has done some nice things. My guess is your speakers do not require that. I think having gear out of the middle is kinda psychoacoustic as well. I think our visual impacts our sense of space and depth from a listening perspective. Congrats on the improvement.
That is interesting indeed, timm. I don’t recall Paul making a different recommendation for dipoles, but maybe there should be one. My Klipsch Forte IVs have large passive radiators in the back to improve bass extension. I’ve noticed that bass is tighter and more plentiful since decluttering. Perhaps dipole owners can relate their experience and Paul can speak to it as well.
It’s Amazon Music HD. In another window is JRiver to play my music collection. It’s a seamless switch between the two. Wikipedia is also loaded to read about artists and tracks. It’s my own customized version of Roon functionality.
I send all audio to JRiver’s WDM driver, which is installed as the audio default. Through that driver, all audio goes to JRiver’s DSP where I use the Voxengo Gliss plugin to dynamically equalize when needed.
It’s not as seamless as Roon but far more powerful and customizable, and it saves a monthly Roon fee. I had been listening to an Amazon stream when I took the picture.
