800 square feet, L-shaped, one position

Around 800 square feet sounds generous until you learn the shape. Mine was an L. One leg for the entrance and common area, and the small leg cramped with the entire audio system.

Count what that gave me. One electrical circuit shared by everything, and one possible speaker position, dictated by the layout. My seat sat 3.5 m from the speakers with zero gap to the back wall, the left speaker exposed to a massive open area and the right one pushed against a full glass wall to the balcony.

I tried to correct it with the McIntosh MEN220, which measured a 37% correction, the highest ratio we have ever recorded in any room. Panels, diffusion and absorption brought it down to the mid-teens, but the problems stayed. In a pure analogue chain the correction also cost me the airiness of the tubes, the long tails and the shimmer on metal: better balanced, perhaps more correct, but less alive.

I tried everything to compensate, and none of it touched the one variable that mattered. Every tool I owned was negotiating with the shape. The shape never negotiated back.

Beautiful views, beautiful size, a nightmare by every audiophile standard. I paid for the views and listened to the nightmare.