Mike,
I think you bring up a good point and something that has been a theme of my three year tenure at TAS and Plus. Setup is a huge part of final results. Everything from a good panel forward makes a difference and grounding is essential.
agree.
Not everyone will go to the lengths you or I went to to get the best out of a system but the argument put forward on LDR is that all else being equal there are gains to be made with better speakers and they are not diminishing in performance.
which is what i wrote. the question remains just how much less room efforts are required to still allow the M9's to sound better? agree with equal efforts i would expect the M9's to be better. then there is always better presentation, greater separation and layering, verses higher resolution but less organization. so performance judging is not so simple. where is the higher musical connection?
Alon has gone all out on this listening room for sure. Probably for two good reasons: 1. A demo center for visiting journalists and customers, and 2. A room to test and voice his speakers and experiment with new drivers, cabinets, crossovers, etc.
has he? in his particular "all-in" room it looks to be less than 18 feet wide. it's wide enough, and no doubt maybe the wall build design makes it work wider, but for that speaker to really breathe i think wider would result in a higher sonic ceiling.....not questioning that it's already sounding fantastic....but objectively would wider be.....even better?
my guess is most M9 rooms are wider than 18 feet. wider rooms do require that much more effort to optimize. i can see Alon wanting to show these big speakers are happy in a real world room size. and he will use it for other speakers over time.
Could your room sound better given the lengths you went to?
not sure you mean 'better with M9's'? or 'could i take my current set-up even higher with more work?'
i probably agree M9's, given the proper time and energy optimizing, would have a higher ceiling than my MM7's. there is a chance they would not, if only very slight. we just don't know. objectively there are likely better speaker systems than my MM7's. but could i get them to sound better? do i still have it in me to try?
as far as my set-up, could i still make it better by more work? i would have to assume yes. i only know i have achieved the sound i wanted, but at some point my expectations could be moved forward. i could see that. i've dreamed of horns, and other alternatives, in my room.....would that be sideways or forward? we can't predict the future. but with retirement immanent; big moves are not real world.
Quite possibly, I still need to visit you.
hope it happens.