Best Hifi setup position... front, side or back?

[Jimbo]

Yes, I can see that now - propagation between ears from either speaker, as it were. I guess the purest form of this would be in an anechoic chamber, as you would truly hear the output and nothing else - so reflections and diffraction would be minimised or eliminated. I wonder though how much of our perception of depth in soundstage is due to these reflections?

I asked the original question because we recently re-arranged our room, and it's made the room a far nicer, more practical place to be - at the expense of the positioning of the speakers, which are either side of a large table now, and not symmetrical in the room. I thought it would destroy the imaging, but it's made far, far less of a difference than I expected - which surprised me.

You wouldn't want an anechoic chamber - it would just totally kill the sound. You definitely need reflected sound to give the music some life.

[Yomanze]

It seems silly to test a speaker in such an environment. Get a speaker that measures well in a chamber into a room and watch an Alpine landscape appear on the response curves.