Nuts to the Decorating Poo-Bahs

I've generally tried to follow the dictats of the most influential decorating types, the grand panjandrums, the esteemed poo-bahs, in regards to furniture placement. Not that I really have all that much to worry about. My house is nice sized and all that, but in most situations there is really only one practical place to put a specific item. Headboards go against the wall, for example, and in all of my bedrooms there is only one or two walls that would work.

However, sofas can be a somewhat different matter. I moved the living-room sofa at one point so it wasn't against the edge of the staircase and instead is more in the middle of the room, forming a conversation area with two armchairs and a coffee table. While it saps some of the room's space, it makes for a more comfortable and useable room. Before I moved it, socializing in the living felt a bit like shouting through an empty space in the middle. That's because there was a big empty space in the middle of the room.

But that really wasn't the case with the upstairs media room, which has a flat-screen TV and speakers against one wall. Originally I bowed to the poo-bahs and also centered the sofa in the middle of the room, placing it fairly close to the TV and some distance from the back wall, which was lined with low bookcases, with small rear surround-sound speakers. It was OK, but the room did wind up feeling a bit claustrophobic.

When I decided to stop using an AV receiver in the room in favor of an unmistakable audiophile Luxman amplifier that I had recently retired from the downstairs stereo, my thinking changed considerably. I didn't want surround sound any more in the media room; I wanted really good sound.

So nuts to the decorating poo-bahs. I moved the bookcases elsewhere and shoved the couch up against the back wall. It's farther from the TV, which is no problem given it's a 65" flat screen in a relatively small room. But what it did for the sound in that room was a priceless improvement.

That's because the excellent Bowers & Wilkins 805s speakers are now in an equilateral triangle with the sweet spot on the couch, precisely the right orientation for maximum sound quality, whereas previously forward-placed couch mandated a 'near-field' listening environment with the sweet spot closer to the speakers than the ideal. I've found the B&W speakers prefer to be positioned straight-on, with no toe-in, and in this room that works like gangbusters. I use a test track that gives me the sound of a drum from center, left, right, extreme left, then extreme right. If the speakers are set up properly, the two 'extreme' positions should create ghost impressions of extra speakers over to the left and right sides respectively. It works spectacularly well in the newly configured room. I kept the subwoofer from the former AV setup, of course, and it adds a nice low impact that the 805s, two-way stand-mounted jobbers, can't quite match.

The end result is a lovely, comfortable space blessed with a nice roomy feel and utterly wonderful audio. It's probably the best-sounding system in the house, even if neither its electronics nor speakers are quite as elevated as their downstairs brethren. (They're still doggone good.) The B&W 805s have an uncanny synergy with the Luxman amplifier, and the Bryston BDA-3 digital-to-analog converter, which I wasn't all that crazy about when it was part of the downstairs stereo, now reveals itself as a rare performer with absolutely wonderful sound quality. So while I suppose I could do some switching about of components between systems, I really don't want to. That upstairs gear seems to be in a match made in heaven.

So it was all about component synergy and equipment placement, and more than anything else, about really using the shape and size of the front upstairs bedroom to its best effect where sound production is concerned. So the poo-bahs can cluck their snippy little tongues all they want about my sofa pressed up against the back wall like that—even though it's also a convertible and needs the extra room when unfolded out into a double bed. The fact is that I'm happier with that room than I've ever been, so much so that I just love it as a regular hangout place, not just for audio listening and TV watching, but just for everyday use.