Before writing about Proper audio Setup I should thanks Roman Bessnow (Romy the Cat) , Clark Johnsen, Jim Smith and David (
@ddk) for sharing their experience About Audio and proper audio setup.
I also will describe why most audio Reviews (from Robert Harley, John Atkinson, Michael Fremer , Johnathan Valin and ...) are Completely useless for audiophiles.
Proper audio System Setup :
you have 4 things is Audio:
1- Room Acoustics
2- Audio Components (Transport/DAC/Turntable/Pre/Power/Speaker...)
3- AC Power
4- Media (CD or LP or File/Stream or Radio or Tape ...)
You can not listen to music without these four things.
The Media is out of our discussion because we can not change It.
There are also some parameters like Magnetic wave and EMI/RFI in room + Air condition like air humidity ... these are not in our discussion.
All parameters (like dac, phono, turntable, cables, ac power, speaker, amplifier, room, speaker/room matching, amplifier/speaker matching,
Speaker place, air humidity and ...) affect on the sound in room.
In audio The Most Important question is "when you listen to music how each parameter (room, speaker position, audio hardware, ac quality ...) affects the sound?"
The right answer to this question is the prerequisite for having good sound analyze.
The most audio magazines, the most audio reviewers, the most audiophiles all are speaking just about changing audio hardwares.
Imagine you have the best high end system in the world and you place it in your room. What you will hear is not good, maybe it will be awful, why?
Because the "proper setup" will improve the sound from 20% to 100%.
In my experience the room acoustics Speaker intraction is the most important factor. The matching of speaker and Room and the speaker placement have the biggest effect on sound.
You can read about DPOLS :
I consider the reading of some essay Roman Bessnow wrote in his Romy the Cat/GoodSoundClub forum to be among the best speculations ever writ...
twogoodears.blogspot.com
If you listen to a speaker in DPOLS then you will shock.
I had this experience one time in my life and accidently the speakers were in good place. It was voice of god from a mid level system.
The next important factor is amplifier speaker matching.
If your amplifier is not perfect match for your speaker then you will not have good sound even if you pay $2.000.000.
The next important factor is AC quality.
If the AC quality does not change your sound then it means your system is not enough transpernt.
Let me describe why we should not judge any audio System or any audio component without fully understand effects of these three parameters on sound.
When you change one of your audio components then new component change the game, if your speaker position was perfect for pervious component then now your speaker position is not perfect for new component, for example after changing your DAC or your amplifier then you should change speaker position.
If you change your speaker you should change your amplifier and when you change your amplifier you may need to change your pre amplifier and finally you need to change your speaker position