Speaker placement for Joseph Audio rm25si

This has to be a joke question. All right, I'll bite. ARE YOU NUTS??? Will placing your $3500/pr. speakers in a big, glorified shoebox greatly affect the sound quality??? Oh, wait a minute. The box is made of solid cherry and it's only 5" off the floor -- gee that makes all the difference. ARE YOU NUTS??? The RM25 is capable of throwing of an impressively wide and deep 3D soundstage and disappearing in the process, and by sticking them in a cabinet and putting them flush with the fireplace it will all but completely squash some of the major strenghts of this speaker.

Quite frankly I'm shocked/disappointed that anyone who bought these speakers would even ask this question in the first place. Here's my recommendation -- sell the RM25s and buy some nice little unobtrusive Bose speakers since you seem to care much more about room aesthetics than sound anyway. With the remaining money you can buy all sorts of nice little expensive knick knacks to put on the mantlepiece, and the whole thing look just marvelous.

Sorry, but this post really offends the audiophile in me, especially since a pet peeve of mine is when people shove good audio equipment into their beloved wall units and other pretty, nice, and neat types of cabinetry so all their Martha Stewart wannabe friends will all be impressed. If this was a joke then I guess it's on me. I'm gonna go barf now.

Sorry Bnrlaw -- I didn't think you were being serious with your question, but obviously I was wrong and I did come off like and "audiophile elitist." My bad. I'll try to attone.

I agree with Tim that speaker placement is of utmost importance in the sound you will get out of your system. Many people blow big bucks on new equipment for better sound when they would have gotten much better results optimizing speaker placement in their room -- and it's free.

Also, as Tim said, I'd highly recommend playing around with a wide variety of placements and you'll start to get a feel feel for what the trade-offs are. My experience with Joseph Audio speakers is that they do like room to breathe and sound considerably better away from room boundaries(i.e. wider/deeper soundstage, better balanced, more realistic imaging, etc.). Also, since the RM25s do go fairly low you may find that the bass gets a little boomy if put too close to walls or other objects. Because of this I would think leaving the space behind the speakers open will yield better results with a more "open" sound, so you might want to try it both ways to see what works for you. I'd also highly encourage you to try pulling the speakers out a good 4 to 5 feet from the cabinets just to see how the soundstage and transparency changes when the RM25s are more far removed from any boundaries. You may not want to leave them there and it may look ridiculous(except to another audiophile), but it should prove very instructive in gauging the trade-offs in speaker placement with your speakers in your room.

Sorry again for the sarcasm, and best of luck.