For Magnepans try the "Rooze" comfiguration

Bose 901 revisited. I'm not sure what turning them around does since they radiate both ways.

You can get some funny effects from Maggies. Try setting them up in normal manner, but then sitting directly in between the speakers. If you get your head in exactly the right spot it sounds like headphones.

Rooze...The link works.

Here is an idea...Angle the speakers a bit more and/or move your chair up so that the Maggies are Edge-on to the listener. Edge-on would be a null (invisible) orientation for a dipole speaker, and would explain what you hear.

Please report back.

Rooze...Maggies emit sound equally in both directions, with opposite phase. Turning them around doesn't change much...just a little because the magnets are in the way on one side. Bose 901s had eight little FR drivers aimed at the wall, and one at the listener.

As I noted in an AA posting, I think that the main thing you have done is pull the darned things out nine feet. IMHO, best results are achieved with the Maggies at 40 percent of the room length, and a 40 foot room length is nice. Your 9 feet would satisfy my rule in a 23 foot room.

Rooze...As I understand your setup, your chair is about 15 feet from the reflecting wall, and the speakers are about 9 feet from the wall. So the speakers are between you and the wall. In this situation you will hear more than 50 percent of the sound directly from the backsides of the Maggies.

Rooze...I saw several diagrams on AA, and they just confused me.

I think I know now what you are saying. You are most certainly hearing sound directly from the speakers, but somehow that sound is being combined with the reflected sound in such a way that its origin is obscured, and the total sound seems to come from elsewhere as you report. I wish I had a room unencumbered with furniture to try your setup.

Of course good stereo speakers will also disappear when you play a monaural signal, and the sound will seem to come from empty space between the speakers.