Room acoustics how ? My image is not centered

From experience, those wall reflections are most likely the cause of your 'hard' sound, not your gear or cables.

With your speakers being rather far from both sidewalls and roughly equidistant from them, I do not think the acoustic-reflection differences between the two types of walls are enough to explain why your image is pulling to the left.

You are instead hearing the reflection off the top of your large coffee table, which is located left of center.

Best of luck!

Roy Johnson
Designer
Green Mountain Audio

You have a wonderful system, but based upon the photos, your speakers are ill suited to your room. Specifically, the wide dispersion tweeter of the Merlin are a problem. As pointed out by others above, it's bouncing sound off of every hard surface in your room (the glass doors, concrete walls, tile floor and coffee table). Due to the different reflective qualities of each surface the combined direct and reflected sounds won't cohere. This will be especially problematic with a high resolution design like the Merlins.

You could try various acoustic room treatments to try to eliminate, or at least lessen, the reflected sound and that could work very well if you're willing to convert your living space into an audio room with audio room aesthetics. The other possibility is to get a speaker that works with the room as opposed to fighting the room. My recommendation is that you consider something in the Audio Note line. Because they require corner placement they will load the room differently and I believe in your case more evenly. You'll still require acoustic treatments, but they can be larger limited to the corners containing the speakers. I'd also recommend getting a rug. The Audio Note line will also work well with your existing electronics. Please note that by design they are not studio monitors like the Merlins. They are more relaxed sounding.

Many good responses here. The cause has very likely been touched on somewhere in the responses. But let me just add one other possibility. Have you had your hearing checked? This may sound like a joke, but it's very common for the sensitivity of one ear to vary from the other. One more reason the elimination of the balance control on audiophile equipment is just plain stupid.

-Bob

A picture is worth a thousand words. I would say your channel imbalance is due to your furniture. You have the large end of your sectional sofa directly in front of your left speaker and the other side of the room is wide open.

Man, where to start?

First of all, there are MANY hard, reflective surfaces in your room. That is the cause of the hard sound you are describing. And slap back echo from a lively room will contribute to confused imaging and soundstaging. Early sidewall reflections can also cause the image shift you hear. Don't spend another penny on electronics until you have invested some time and money on room treatments. Free standing room tune panels (or variants) at the first (and second possibly) sidewall reflection points, an area rug over the floor, corner tunes in the uppermost corners, and some traps or panels directly behind the speakers. That should get you started.

Shakey