Hate to ask......

Felthove: This has always been my pet peeve about auditioning speakers in shops (which are full of other speakers). Perhaps some sort of speaker covers for the center and surrounds, might help to clear up this problem.

Hey, Tim. The home theatre is where I get to go crazy, do the research, and buy the gear. The audio system is my husband's realm, though I do get a say in things.
We don't have the best room, but it works. Someday.... yeah, we all say that, eh?
anyway,I have been learning alot and meeting nice people and upgrading little by litte and having some fun and feeling some success. Right now, I am negotiating something with Roger at Innersound on a ribbon center channel that he is working on. We have the ISIS ESL's as the main speakers, so I am excited at the prospect of the ribbon panel. It is the journey that brings me such pleasure.
By the way, I found one of your movies on DVD the other day. The surround sound really added to overall experience.

I'm another one in the home theater/stereo camp. I also don't worry about switching my lights on and off for the ultimate sound. I'm not a tweaker, however I do listen to my speakers in the audiophile approved way with the grills off. However I also have my subwoofer between my front speakers because that is where it sounds best in my room. A compromise to be sure but isn't life full of them. I presently have my front speakers wired into my DD processor but with monster dual RCA plugs at my amp inputs. This way I can disconnect the plugs from the processor for stereo using my AI3 outputs and reconnect them for the Terminator I&II. The best of two worlds and pretty darn separate.

Alright Angela100, cough up the name of the DVD. Let us find out what Tim is made of.

Lots of great thoughts here...I read them all and enjoyed the dialogue. I used to have seperate systems, but a move to smaller digs in Europe forced me to combine them. Now I'm back in the good 'ol USA, but space will continue to constrain me to one system.

I agree heartily that trying to have your cake and eat it too isn't possible...but you can still make inteliigent tradeoffs and achieve both a satisfying HT experience (which I enjoy mostly with my wife and family) and a satisfying musical experience (which I often listen to alone).

I tried to get a thread started a few months back about acoustical treatments to achieve that goal. For example, I tried placing tube traps in front of my monitor during listening, to reduce acoustic reflections from the screen. It seemed to work...I recommend others with "traps" to try the same.

Any other ideas out there?

Rob