Please do not forget the placement of the equipment as key to success in getting the best out of it.
I sold some expensive systems and then used to offer to fit them for free to help make the most out of them. If they just took them home and plonked them on the sideboard you were at risk of disappointment which is not the goal.. I went to their houses to fit the equipment and guide on any extra stands or mounts as the small extra for a pair of good speaker stands made a lot of difference on wooden floors. I usually loaded some shelves and stands in the car just in case and the difference sold them in ten minutes. If you had suggested the £250 speaker stands in the shop you would always get that odd "how much?" look but on audition at home instantly. With really loose floorboards it was a pair of spiked stands and some sandbags on top if they could get away with the aesthetics. Then a big slab of bluetac from the stand to the speaker!
One chap came in at least once a month for about a year. In the end he bought a BIG system for the time. It included some monster Kef reference 105.2 speakers. I went to fit them at his house and his wife had a turn when she saw them. The end result was that he had to have cabinets made to hide them. When he wanted to listen to them he could open the front doors on the cabinets.Tj effect this had on the sound was beyond horrible and I felt so sad for him. I think one of the best things I ever did was to get him to try some Stax headspeakers which were electrostatic headphones. He ended up using them most of the time and preferred them to speakers. I have to say that I thought they were better than most speaker systems.
