or behind, for the sources:
and with the amplification up front, near the loudspeakers:
... I wish...
or behind, for the sources:
and with the amplification up front, near the loudspeakers:
There are at least three factors which should come into play in deciding where to put your electronics in relation to your speakers, assuming that such a choice has audible consequences at all. Do you believe that vibration from the sound from the speakers affects the sound quality of what you hear from the speakers? Do you believe that the length of cables has an impact on sound quality? Do you believe that sound reflections from equipment faceplates affect the quality of the sound you hear?
Even if you answer "yes" to all three questions, the importance of each factor may figure into where the best spots for things are. By far the most sonically important factor in room set up is to place the speakers and listener in the best spots. The placement of the electronics should be worked around that choice. Basic room acoustics trumps all these other secondary or terciary sonic effects.
And even the most gorgeous room (as in Northstar's pictures) can have badly chosen listener and speaker locations or badly chosen basic dimensional ratios. The pictures of that room show at least two immediate problems. First, the subtended angle between the two speakers from the chosen listening seat is quite obviously less than 60 degrees. Sixty degrees is the standard minimum for intended left-right stereo separation. The best microphone arrays, those involving quasi-coincident main microphones (e.g., Blumlein, M-S, ORTF, X-Y) demand playback with about 90 degrees of left-right separation. Only the stereo recordings made with two or three widely spaced omnidirectional mikes (e.g., Telarc, Chandos, Everest, Mercury, etc.) sound decent with less than 60 degrees separation. Some 'philes choose narrow separation as a way to help tame the overly bright high end of their chosen speakers; narrow separation can help since sources heard from closer to straight ahead sound less trebly than sources heard from significant angles to in front of the head. They sacrifice stereo for tonal balance. Choose better speakers or use equalization, I say.
Another problem evident in the Northstar pictures is that the listening position is both too close to the back wall for smoothest bass response and too far from the speakers. The listener will be hearing too much second venue effect from the listening room at that distance. Again, 'philes sometimes choose such an arrangement since their chosen speakers sound incoherent from closer distances--undoubtedly a problem with huge tower speakers with drivers covering various ranges strung out for three or more feet along a vertical baffle. Such an arrangement probably will sound incoherent from closer in. Again, choose a different speaker, I say.
But I digress. Once you arrange the listening seat and chosen speakers optimal separation, less second venue effect, and good interaction with the room's bass modes (try one of the arrangements on this page; I'm fond of the Rule of Thirds 29% Version), where should the electronics be?
Placing your electronics (other than perhaps the amps) in an adjacent room or soundproofed closet may well be ideal if it is practical for your situation. One element of practicality is whether remote control to that second room is available from the listening seat. With a system using only digital sources controlled through a smartphone or tablet connected to your home's wi-fi network, it may well be practical. A radio frequency (as opposed to infrared) analog remote control might also be practical for such an arrangement. For analog LP playback, it's probably not practical, or at least not very convenient. Do you want to go that far to start or change a record and then miss the beginning before you get back to your listening chair? Such a solution does offer the lowest vibration-induced interference as well as essentially zero reflection of sound from the audio electronics faceplates. It may, however, lengthen the audio cables, at least the link from preamp to amps, or from amps to speakers. Most listeners who hear the sound of cables would agree that longer cables of any particular type, regardless of quality, generally do not sound as good as shorter cables of the same type. Longer cables are also more expensive than shorter ones.
Putting the electronics behind the listener also creates as situation where at least the preamp-to-amp cables or the speakers cables are quite long in order to reach the speaker area. This placement also puts the electronics in an area which, if near the wall behind the listener, is also an area of maximum bass vibration. The Northstar pictures shows what could be an old Cello Palette Preamp or Audio Palette on the angled Cello Audio Cart. While this is very convenient, it also necessitates multiple long runs of cabling from the equipment rack to the control center which is at the listener's fingertips. Maximally convenient for adjusting volume and EQ, but expensive and potentially sonically detrimental from a cabling standpoint.
In my experience, electronics should definitely not be placed in a spot where specular reflections of sound from the speakers can reach the listener's ears. Use a small flat mirror to determine whether you can see the reflection of any part of either speaker reflected in a mirror placed flush with the equipment faceplate. If so, that faceplate will reflect sound to the listening seat. Such reflections certainly are audible and in my experience are sonically detrimental. Thus, there will be certain spots along the side walls of the room where equipment should not be placed from a reflection standpoint. Of course, such spots may be located in spots where bass vibration is less, a plus.
Usually, if your speakers are separated by the recommended 60 degrees or more as viewed from the listening seat, there will be an area midway between the speakers where you can place a vertical rack without the rack being in the specular reflection zone. Placing equipment on such a rack can keep all your cables as short as possible. And if you keep the rack fairly low, lower than tweeter height, my experience has been that imaging and staging will not be adversely affected. Alternatively, you can mount equipment on a few "amp stand" type racks, directly on carpet, or supported from hardwood by footers of your choice. Keeping all the equipment that low minimizes reflections from their faceplates, and you can still usually arrange things so as to keep all the cables fairly short. If the equipment is remote controllable, such can even be eminently practical; it remote control is not practical, it could provide some exercise until your knees get tired of the routine. However, if the equipment is near the wall behind the speakers, it typically will be located in an area of higher bass vibrations, a negative.
Generalizing from my experience, I'd say that for analog turntable front ends, minimizing vibration is the most important consideration. Acoustic feedback, especially at subsonic frequencies and DC (from footfalls) can cause even the highest-end turntable set up to actually skip out of the groove, much less produce a bit of extra distortion. Thus, placement of such equipment somewhere along the side wall out of a specular reflection area is best. If the side wall is a bearing wall, such placement is even better. Placement of the turntable near a bearing wall is especially important in a room with wooden floors to minimize floor bounce. Just keep the distance between turntable and phono preamp to an absolute minimum. Such cabling should never exceed four feet in length.
Again generalizing from my experience, for systems with just digital sources, vibration really doesn't seem to be such a crucial consideration, especially if you are using digital files through a network or streaming files from the internet as your primary sources, rather than spinning CDs or SACDs. Good equipment racks and footers can handle vibrational problems well enough for such systems, I've found. For such systems, I think putting the electronics between the speakers on a short rack or very near the floor is the best way to both keep cabling short and keep reflections from the electronics away from the listening area. For me it also creates a visual symmetry which is pleasing and works in harmony with left/right stereo spread and center fill/focus.
My system set-up is dictated by the dimensions of my lounge (18'3" W x 22' L x 8' H) as I do not have the luxury of a dedicated listening room!
I am fortunate in having a moderately large lounge (by UK standards) which allows me to have the speaker drive unit centres 5' from each side wall and placed well into the room.
I agree with those who advocate nothing between the speakers but amps (and room tuning - in my case DAAD 4/3/2's) and equipment racks are placed along a side wall, albeit closer to the left speaker than I would have preferred! However, my hi fi system does reside in a space which is used as a lounge/sitting room, so domestic harmony prevails and I have to make the best of what is available.
On the plus side, I enjoy listening to my music without worrying about the equipment and stage width, depth and dynamics are represented very well!
fullsizeoutput_8c5 by Steve Coward, on Flickr
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