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Listening position is critical


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It's hard comparing two speaker systems or two sound systems in two different rooms, even in the same house when you can run back and forth between them in a few seconds. So I suppose it was foolish of me to compare the sound system in my music room which is about 14 x 30 x 9 1/2 with a flat ceiling with the sound system in my sun room which is 14 x 14 with a peaked ceiling which extends from 9 feet at the perimeter to about 11 or 12 feet in the center. Both rooms are on the live side with painted sheetrock and lots of exposed glass from windows and French doors. The music room has a very low pile burbur carpet, the sun room linoleum. In the sun room I am forced to sit about 8 to 10 feet from the speakers in the center of the opposite wall. In the music room I sit usually on a sofa along one long side wall about 12 feet directly in front of the right speaker or in the center on a chair about 20 feet from the speakers. I tried sitting in a chair about 8 to 10 feet on the apex of a triangle in front of the speakers after reading a lot of talk about "the sweet spot" and I must say it makes a difference insofar as instrument localizaton and the stereophonic effect is concerned. I have lamented in the past that the one shortcoming my enhanced AR9s had over my enhanced Bose 901s was the effect of the Bose's mostly indrect radiating pattern of midrange energy. I'd now say that what many people call imaging coming from the AR9s is every bit the equal of the 901s when sitting in a comparable relative spot. I am therefore forced to concede that I could not build a better speaker than my enhanced AR9s. I no longer see how it is possible. In a direct comparison between the sound of my 1927 Steinway M at one end of the room and the recording of Frankie Carle made of Irving Berlin's music on what has to be a very similar piano played by AR9s at the other end, I'd say the sound from the AR9s is a dead ringer to my ears. A lot of other insturments are very convincing too. Well I guess the only way to buy speakers now is to hunt down more AR9s or to take up PeteB's idea of trying to replicate them as closely as possible with currently available parts.

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