Distance from rear wall for KEF LS50 W2

All speakers should be less than 39” from the front wall or more than 7’ off the front wall based on the speed of sound. Panels and speakers with cardioid bass are the exception. This has always worked for me with every speaker. I have a big room where anything’s goes. 7.5’ is always best but makes my video setup hard. 39” sounds fine too so I use that. 8’ ceilings are the real problem anyway….
 

where it gets complicated is side walls and ceilings matter too. 

The low freq of the LS50 Meta radiate in a circle around the speaker. If you put it against the wall, then that radiating pattern is disturbed. My LS50 Meta goes down to 80 Hhz and that is still some low end that should not be near a wall.

If the LS50 wireless is the active speaker, then I think that version has built-in DSP for close wall placement. My passive speaker does not have that built in.

I am doing something today considered a no-no. I have put my LS50 Meta and the Magnepan LRS+ side-by-side. It should be a bad idea but so far, the LRS+ sounds good. I will test the LS50 Meta later, but I have the advantage of moving the 5 lb LRS+ a few feet away when playing the LS50 Meta.

I try to keep everything away from the LS50 Meta. The LRS+ seems to have a more direct radiating pattern since it does not seem to be affect too much by things to the side of it.

If at all possible 3 to 4 ft should be the bare minimum. My friend has line arrays  which were a couple of feet from the walls but one day we tried them 6 ft from the rear wall and the difference was incredible the speakers totally disappeared and instruments seemed to hang in mid air. I never thought that would have affected speakers that were used for mid and treble reproduction only.