Quote Originally Posted by audio amateur
Thanks Topspeed. There's a model on ebay from '04 , it's a Sony 'QS' range, has SACD and multichannel (which I wouldn't use) playback. This is why I ask. I know it's a risk but it's at a good price, so i'm interested.
Not familiar with the QS range. Isn't ES their audiophile range still? Whatever, I still don't like the way they do rbcd, and since I have a LOT more rbcd's than sacd's, I place more importance on the latter. Yamaha and Denon make sacd/universal players that are extremely competitive with Sony on SACD yet, IMO, do a far better job at rbcd. Again, just my opinion, YMMV.

I don't get why you need absorption, wouldn't you want the rear wave to be 'in-phase' with the front one, a.k.a have the speaker as close as possible to the back wall in order for both waves to hit the listener at approx. the same time?
No. The challenge is that different walls will have different absorbtive properties. You don't know what is going to get absorbed vs. what is going to be reflected and whether or not it will be in phase. Therefore chances are some parts of the frequency spectrum will be amplified from waves compounding while others cancel each other out by being out of phase. You're left with a mishmash of sound that isn't nearly what it could be.
When you think about the speed of sound, 6 feet (if the Maggie is 3 feet from the wall) is not a huge distance to catch up with the front/direct wave.
Different frequencies have different wavelengths. That's the problem.