I wish you all out there could hear my M5/pioneer system in my living room. No matter what I play, no matter how poorly recorded or the genre or decade of the recording, the M5s are completely invisible. Almost everything I play sounds like it's coming from beyond the front wall and the sound extends to the sides almost without bound. The holography is simply outstanding proving you don't need to spend a fortune to get great sound.

What you have to give up though is WAF. I've only been able to achieve this because I've used the 29% rule: the distance from the mid-point of the driver to the side walls is 29% of the room length and the distance from the driver plane to the front wall is 29% of the room width. My M5s are set up along the room length - not width.

My living room is 22' long by 10' wide. My M5s are 6.4' from each side wall and 2.9' from the front wall. This puts the M5s 9' apart.

I then positioned my MLP so that it forms an equilateral triangle with the M5s. That puts me 9' away from each M5 and a little more than a foot away from the back wall.

I then toed in the M5s, by pivoting them while keeping the front fixed, so the tweeters are pointed a foot behind my head. I've used one of Serenity's panels for rear wall absorption.

My living room has been arranged around my speakers and that's just the way I like it. The effect is simply uncanny and that's all that counts.

You might want to try the 29% rule when she's out for "book club". smile