Welcome to room treatments...
Yup, stuff between & in front of, etc. likely has some affect on the sound - the whole trick is what kind of affect & how much effect and do you care. Some things are just unavoidable - like, even your presence in the room has some minimal (but theoretically measurable) effect. Other things - like a glass-topped coffee table between you & a speaker - can have a noticeable and undesirable effect.
Your furniture will likely be acting as some sort of room treatments - potentially absorbing or diffusing some of the sound. The whole trick in all of this is how large is any effect and is it audible to you. That, and can you even do anything to change it (or afford the potential changes...).
There's no sense in worrying & wondering & wringing hands over this - it's basically a fact of life (unless you decide to build/buy your own huge anechoic & empty listening room ;~). There are some things you can do to put your mind more at ease or to find out if there are big measurable issues. For starters, you might want to do the routine w/ something like the Rives CD and the RS meter - that should help w/ identifying larger frequency response and L/R channel differences (and how much that sofa is really doing).
If you find out there are these real differences you might want to consider your options, and there are all sorts of Web sites you can peruse for hints and approaches. You really don't have to go crazy over this, though - if you like the way your stuff sounds then it's probably darned "close enough" and you're doin' just fine and anything much beyond that just borders on neurotic (or audiophile...;~).
Yup, stuff between & in front of, etc. likely has some affect on the sound - the whole trick is what kind of affect & how much effect and do you care. Some things are just unavoidable - like, even your presence in the room has some minimal (but theoretically measurable) effect. Other things - like a glass-topped coffee table between you & a speaker - can have a noticeable and undesirable effect.
Your furniture will likely be acting as some sort of room treatments - potentially absorbing or diffusing some of the sound. The whole trick in all of this is how large is any effect and is it audible to you. That, and can you even do anything to change it (or afford the potential changes...).
There's no sense in worrying & wondering & wringing hands over this - it's basically a fact of life (unless you decide to build/buy your own huge anechoic & empty listening room ;~). There are some things you can do to put your mind more at ease or to find out if there are big measurable issues. For starters, you might want to do the routine w/ something like the Rives CD and the RS meter - that should help w/ identifying larger frequency response and L/R channel differences (and how much that sofa is really doing).
If you find out there are these real differences you might want to consider your options, and there are all sorts of Web sites you can peruse for hints and approaches. You really don't have to go crazy over this, though - if you like the way your stuff sounds then it's probably darned "close enough" and you're doin' just fine and anything much beyond that just borders on neurotic (or audiophile...;~).