Quad 988 how big of room do you need?

You might do a bit of research in the archives on AA. These issues have been discussed often and thoroughly.

The short answer is properly setting up Quads is difficult. One of the major requirements, because of the back wave of the speaker, is that it needs to be about 5' from the wall behind it and the wall should have some diffusive materiels to break up the backwave. In my own room I compromised at 4.5 ft but really broke up the back wave/wall interface. The distance of 5 ft is due to the need to seperate the initial signal from the signal bouncing off the back wall. You do get a break in that the speakers can be situated close to the side walls. You should also plan on having tou listening chair triangulated with the speakers equaldistance from them as they are from each other, perhaps a tad more.

If all you can do is 2ft from the back wall I'd stay away from bipolar or omni speaker. Hell, I have a hard time recommending that for simple front firing speakers but at least you can get something decent using them in a less than optimum set up.

Hello Tdanalog- Whatever you may end up using: Type, "acoustic foam" into the searchbar on eBay. There are a number of products in there designed to tune your room against unwanted reflections and control resonances. Auralex panels and LENRD bass traps are great(the Maggies I'm using for mains are closer to their back wall than I'd like them), and will absorb loads of unwanted energy. You needn't cover the entire wall, but rather experiment with breaking up the area directly behind the speakers(as Newbee suggested: whether dipolar, bipolar, omni or front-firing). Also, being a narrow room, it would be best to control the reflections behind your listening position as reverberation effects will play havoc with freq. response and imaging. One nice thing about panel speakers(like the Quads) is they are pretty beamy and you don't need to worry as much about side wall/ceiling reflections with them. I had some Acoustat Model III's back in the day(early 80's), in a less than perfect listening room. Still got them to image/sound great using carpeting samples on the walls for treatment. Oh- on eBay there are a bunch of Auralex knock-offs that would be just as effective and won't break the bank. Those 2" X 24" X 24" pieces look like they'd be perfect for what you need, and the "bass traps" If you're close to the corners of the room. The stuff is easily hung(and moved around if necessary) with latex caulk. That way there's no permanent damage to your walls. Happy listening!

I have the newer 2805 not the 988...but they should be pretty similiar, I'm in San Diego, if that's not too far, you're welcome to stop by and take a listen (email me direct).

When I first set up the 2805's I put them where all my other speakers have ended up (+/- a few inches). The Quads did not work well there, which was on the short wall of a 14x26 room and I sit ~12 feet from the front of the speakers.
Just recently I rearranged them on the long wall...but I now sit closer ~9 feet,but there is only ~3 feet behind them now and bass is great (I just sold my ML Descent sub)
to me, this is much better.
So you have to experiment for the best sound, you can't take it for granted they will sound good where other speakers did...and I've had Duetta Signatures, Maggie 3.6R and some nice dynamic speakers...none liked the long wall except the newer 2805's!