Room Treatments added, with negative effects..

The first thing that came to my mind was to remove the foam from behind the listening position and move it behind the speakers in order to enhance the LEDE aspect. The suggestion of trying to reduce the sidewall reflections by placing them there is also quite valid. Trial and error is the order of the day. The room is the most important factor in proper sound reproduction. Quite ordinary equipment can produce quite extraordinary results in a good environment, the converse, unfortunately is also quite true and often found. A variety of surfaces

... and of density in the materials used is required. Trial and error is called for. Diffraction on the wall behind the listening position is way better than absorption. (seems this portion was missing from my initial post, not that it matters, but)

I beg to differ.

Are you saying I am a contrarian?

No, no, how could I be a contrarian? I never yes, I never say no, quite the contrary.

The near field thing will never make proper room acoustics redundant. Headphones will do that. So unless you are prepared to attach your speakers to your head, no amount of near field mumbo jumbo will negate the need to have the best acoustics possible for the room. Getting a good room to start with is probably just as important, but, like most everyone, we don't necessarily have a choice of rooms. To Sumitav: have you any idea how fast sound travels and the fact that it bounces all over the room, whether you are fifteen feet away from the speakers or six? How long do you think you get to hear the first arrival wave?

Summitav, I owe a debt of gratitude to you for allowing me to understand the precedence "affect". I went to the Audio Physic's site and boy is my German rusty! Thank God I found a link to the US distributor's site were I learned the following about this phenomena:

"This intelligent approach to acoustic perception is the reason why, in former times, we were able to run in the opposite direction from a sabretooth (sic) tiger, in the middle of a thick forest with many reflections rebounding from trees."

We wouldn't be around now to talk about this were it not for that "affect".

BTW I have been called worst things than an "aging attorney", which is quite factual I might add.

I hope you and the original poster enjoy your respective systems and AP speakers.

Maybe this issue of whether near field listening making room integration of speakers so much easier should be the object of its own thread. I leave that up to you since you seem to have a way with words and have given me reason to believe you are a member of MENSA and could present the question in a very credible way. With all due respect, I remain, an aging attorney.

Great to know that you have it all figured out Sumitav. Precedence effect notwithstanding, I maintain my position that anyone who does not believe that room acoustics is, to steal a line from our good friends at Ford, Job One, is sadly mistaken. Your initial short post seems to clearly indicate that some people listen to the room and some to the speakers. Hogwash! Any speaker designer who does not take into consideration that a speaker will be used in a room should go back to the drawing board. Insofar as the original post is concerned, clearly the room treatment used does not satisfy Outlier. Many posters have suggested what they consider will improve the situation. Your near field suggestion is valid to a certain extent. Your suggestion that it is a panacea and precludes taking care of room acoustics is another case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As far as your Bose comment, I will not dignify it with any of my own, except to say that it has to be cheapest way to get a pop on sites such as these. My last recommendation would be to go with the room placement suggested by the manufacturer. Thinking ahead, properly implemented mc systems should, hopefully, cure many of these collapsed sound staging situations.