Rack between speakers or off to side?

[W9TR]

If you are wondering if gear between your speakers is having a deleterious effect on the sound quality, just put a heavy blanket over your gear, making sure those amps can breathe, and see if you notice a difference.

Usually it is large flat reflective surfaces that cause trouble. Especially large flatscreen TV's.

[PHC1]

I found the answer to a similar question back in the day. My speakers used to be on both sides of a very large bookshelf unit which had a 40" TV in the middle of it. I asked my wife and also my friends to cover the TV with a blanket while I focused on the sound to track any changes. Nothing... Eyes opened or closed. Blind as well as visual testing. In that moment, nothing at all.


The visual effects however do tend to distract from the listening experience. So having something the eye grabs on to will always make a change in the perceived sound. It is just how our senses are tied together.

Close your eyes and you will be able to focus much deeper into the music.

Having gear/objects between the speakers, as long as they are not right next to the speakers and are behind the plane of the speakers, does not make as much difference as one thinks it may.

Later I had the dedicated theater room with nothing but acoustic panels between the speakers to look at. The room itself sounded much better of course but dimming the lights, still made the sound even better.... Nothing to focus on.

The ear will tend to pick out the different elements of the music/instruments/sounds depending on the wondering eye...

That's how CABLES make a difference as well. Precisely why the "blind testing" fails miserably with all tweaks and cables.

It is all very visual...

I strongly prefer listening in the evenings/night with the lights dimmed if I am to completely enjoy a new or favorite album I may be in the mood for.

[PHC1]

Try reading something while with the headphones on. Nothing to distract from the sound with the headphones but the wondering eye and the brain focused on the read will completely miss the whole music/song... The wondering eye, busy brain will ignore the music. Make yourself focus on the music, the reading stops making sense...

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by cleeds

It's odd that you acknowledge our senses are linked, yet then advocate for your brand of rather random "blind testing" to the point of claiming that what we hear when sighted is "worse than worthless."

If our senses are linked, how can you propose eliminating one to assess the other?

Try listening with the lights on and then dim or better yet, listen in the dark.... That's how.

The blind have a much keener sense of hearing when it comes to pinpointing the source... FACT.

"In blind people, the visual cortex gets a bit “bored” without visual input and starts to “rewire” itself, becoming more responsive to information from the other remaining senses. So blind people may have lost their vision, but this leaves a larger brain capacity for processing the information from other senses."