The $10,000 you find by moving a speaker

The cheapest upgrade I know is worth about $10,000 and costs one afternoon. You move the speakers. Not by a metre, by a few centimetres at a time.

When I finally started on my room, positioning came first, and with my Bowers & Wilkins it was quite simple. Toe them in, toe them out, change the distance from the back wall, then from the side walls. One small move at a time, and you hear the result pretty much immediately.

Here's what the numbers say to a finance man. In my experience, careful positioning can make a $5,000 pair of speakers play like a $15,000 pair. That gap is $10,000 of performance, and the only price you pay is your time. I have never found another line in this hobby with that kind of return.

Most of us listen in a living room, so there are limits, and I know them well. My own seat was very close to the back wall, and the room decided more than I liked. Still, the first step I recommend to anyone is free, and it comes before panels, before cables and long before a new amplifier.

Before you send the dealer $10,000, give your speakers an afternoon. They may already be the pair you were about to buy.