Before $5,000 on a component, stop

If you are about to spend $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 on a new component and your room has obvious problems, stop. Fix the room first. The return on investment is not even comparable.

How do you know the problems are obvious? Clap your hands and listen for an echo. Notice whether it is hard to follow your friends when you sit and talk. If a conversation struggles in that room, your speakers are struggling too.

Don't misunderstand me, I did not write this rule for other people. The old room was an L, and its layout allowed exactly one speaker position, with a glass balcony wall beside one of the pair. My McIntosh MEN220 measured a 37% correction there, the highest ratio we have ever recorded in any room, and even with panels it only came down to the mid-teens. The problems stayed.

So I put my own upgrades on hold, the DAC and the bigger Wilsons both, and changed the room instead. The result came without a single new component, and it did more for my system than either of those purchases could have.

The component will still be in the shop after the room is fixed. Then it will finally have a room worth playing in.