Placement is very important. As Dean mentioned, it is important for newbies to experiment, experiment, experiment. To often people think they need to upgrade after a few days or weeks because they are not hearing what they expected.
Randy makes an excellent point especially for someone switching over from other brands of speakers. If you get use to a brands characteristic “sound” the new brand may not sound right even if they are more accurate at reproducing the material. Similarly many of us, me included, like to run our surrounds and/or subs a little “hot,” louder than our other speakers. However, IMO it’s best not to do this right away no matter how tempting it is to want to hear more from the sub and surrounds. Getting a good accurate baseline is important. Then if you just must play some speakers louder than the others you’ll have a better understanding of how you are changing things from the intended presentation.
