I placed my speakers with my own voice

In the new room I did not place my speakers by eye, by habit or by tape measure. I placed them with my own voice. After years with exactly one possible position, that alone felt like a luxury.

First the power. Dual 40-amp circuits, one for each monoblock, all on new wiring, and I gave them 10 to 20 hours before I trusted a single impression. I wanted those capacitors charged and heated properly before any judgement.

Here's what came next. I followed the Wilson Audio setup procedure, the WASP method, where you use your own voice to identify what Wilson calls the zone of neutrality: the area where the speakers interact least with the room boundaries. My voice, my ears, and a room that finally let me listen to both.

In my old room the same method gave me almost no room to move. An L-shaped layout and a glass wall had already decided where the speakers would stand, and no procedure in the world could argue with that. Here I had real choices, and it did not take long to find the spot where the speaker position and the room aesthetics reach their concessions.

The best setup procedure in the world is useless in a room that has already decided for you. Mine finally stopped deciding.