Do you believe in Magic?

Geoffkait:
For what it's worth, I am in the early throes of thinking about my next room, though I don't have a new house/building locked down yet. Apart from acoustic help, and sorting basic things like power and quiet AC, I'm looking for a large, uncluttered environment. I don't know where I'd even find a phone book these days, but the idea that things in the room can resonate and detract from the sound does not seem far-fetched. On the other hand, I'm not going to be monastic in eliminating everything but me and the system- I will have some comfortable (and comforting) things in the room as well. I probably have on the order of 10,000 records (probably getting closer to 11,000 now) and I would like to see them in my room as well. I will try to take account of this in the design process when i get to that stage.
Taking your views to an extreme ( and I don't mean to single you out), I suppose that once a room is 'spot on,' even having another person in the room in addition to the primary listener/system owner would affect the sound. I'm just not that extreme.
BTW, my moniker is Whart, which is simply a contraction of my name.
Best,
bill hart

Bryon asked,

"Question, Geoff, and I'm asking it sincerely... Are you a Dualist?"

No, Bryon, but I am a Machina Dynamicist, a Sheldrakian and a Beltist, and I mean that sincerely.

Geoff at Machina Dynamica

Whart wrote,

"I probably have on the order of 10,000 records (probably getting closer to 11,000 now) and I would like to see them in my room as well."

Bill, thanks for reminding me of No. 8 in the list of preposterous things that improve the sound.

8. Always store all LPs and CDs vertically.

My problem with storing records vertically has nothing to do with sonics; unlike a book, which is usually wide enough for the printing on the spine to be legible to me, trying to read the printing on the edge of a record jacket when stored in linear feet of vertical rows is mind-numbing. Of course, I don't have them well-organized and it's hard to find what i'm looking for. But, if I'm in the spirit of this thing, Geoff, maybe that's a good thing?
(PS. I am not mocking you. I live in an area outside of NYC that is filled with folks claiming to have all kinds of spiritual connections to the past, present and future. I'm just too dumb to connect on that level- I have a difficult enough time figuring out what's right in front of me sometimes. But, in keeping with my 'almost anything is possible credo,' I won't dismiss stuff out of hand based on its apparent implausibility.).

What wrote,

"(PS. I am not mocking you. I live in an area outside of NYC that is filled with folks claiming to have all kinds of spiritual connections to the past, present and future. I'm just too dumb to connect on that level- I have a difficult enough time figuring out what's right in front of me sometimes. But, in keeping with my 'almost anything is possible credo,' I won't dismiss stuff out of hand based on its apparent implausibility.)."

Uh, nobody is saying it's at a spiritual level or any such thing. It's not black magic, white magic, ritualism, spiritualism, new ageism, psychological, subliminal, Zen Buddhism, group hypnosis, mind control, alien technology or dualism. I will grant you it's apparent implausibility, however.

What I have in mind for your 10,000 LP collection is a huge vertical Rolodex. :-)