TV and/ or system rack between speakers...

Unless you can try it with & w/o the TV in the middle, it`s an impossible question to answer as no one will have the exact gear in the exact position in the exact room. Since the TV must live there, why agonize over it? Since we don`t live in a perfect world (a revelation to many audiophiles), kick back, & enjoy your system.

Perhaps yours is a combo 2-channel/HT system and you don't want the screen to affect the image when you're listening to stereo. In that case see if you can place the speakers a bit ahead of the screen. Then put a padded room divider, or a Japanese paper screen, or an acoustic absorber or diffuser, or, hey, a bushy plant why not, in front of the TV screen when you're listening to music. (Or do what I do, place a padded quilt over the TV.)

I have had to share the listening room with the TV since last year. The TV is small enough to be placed on a movable stand. I slide it well back and cover it with a quilt when I'm listening to music. If I don't, the image is flattened like a pressed flower.

Thanks guys, I should have my speakers in about 3 wks. If a quilt over the tv still screws up the soundstage depth, I`ll concider a corner placement.

As Tobias suggests, mine is a combo 2-Channel/HT system. My current configuration is a Sony 36 XBR flanked by a pair of KEF 104/2s at 92" oc in a 14' wide room. Horizontal and vertical imaging seem excellent, but I sense a lack of depth. The face of the monitor is 3" behind the plane of the speakers, but there is room to move the monitor back a foot, for a total of 15". Would doing that and covering the TV help stereo depth? Of course that exacerbates an already small video image; the TV is heavy to move back and forth on carpet even with casters.

A related issue is that I've been trying to decide between the more practical -- room darkening and bulb life -- 60" Sony SXRD rear projector or a 100" Stewart FireHawk screen with either a Sony HS-51a or 100 (so called Ruby) front projector. FP eliminates the mass between the speakers; RP is less deep than my 36 XBR but wider. Is it the width or depth of the interposed TV that reduces perceived depth of soundsatge? That is, would a 60" plasma screen when they become available be just as harmful to depth imaging?

Any advice would be appreciated.

db

Donbellphd, moving the TV back 15 inches and covering it with something thick or padded will probably help you get some depth back. You'd have to try it to see how much--and also to see how much of the screen you could still see !

Your second question is an interesting one. For me the critical point is the position of my (quite deep but not too wide) 16:9 CRT TV with respect to the front plane of the speakers. I have not tried substituting a shallower TV unit to see if it makes any difference, though.

In its forward position my TV is about 4 inches back from the speakers' front baffles. Backed off, this distance is about thirty inches.