Nice system! My dedicated listening room is similar in size to yours, and I have my speakers placed almost exactly as you have yours. I have smaller 2-way towers that would benefit from some bass reinforcement if I moved them back a bit, but it comes at the price of a less deep 3D soundstage and not quite as good at pulling off a complete disappearing act, and that’s not a worthwhile trade off at least for my tastes. The only thing I’d consider if I’m you — and I’ve gotta try this too in my system and as the very wise @ghdprentice mentioned above — is to reduce the height of the equipment stack to about half what it is now. My stack is directly between my speakers and a bit over 3’ tall, and visually it’s just in the way and I’m sure doing me no favors sonically. Like you, and for similar reasons, I’m not willing to relocate my equipment to the side as much as I’d like to, but hopefully some day as I’d really love to eventually make that happen. That’s all I got FWIW.
Speaker placement Quandary
Where to begin here? My question is that in my experience with speaker placement I "think" that it is best to have your speakers well out into the room to achieve the best in soundstage width and especially depth? For example my Legacy Focus XD's are 6.5 feet into the room from front baffle to front wall. I messed with them quite a bit but never went closer to the front wall than that in fear of losing that well spaced out soundstage or emphasizing bass.. Imagery seems rather good as well. The "sound" comes from deep into the front wall not near the speaker plane. I see many listening rooms (in forum members setups, you tube, etc) that seem to follow this thinking and I also see some rather sophisticated expensive high end systems (in dedicated rooms so no WAF effect) that have their speakers just 1-2 feet off the front wall between the rear of the speaker. Is this an element of a different preference in listening? Wouldn't the soundstage become flatter? Is there some tonal advantages to this? I realize some speakers are designed to be closer such as some Wilsons and it seems many the the B&W's end up like this. I understand that locating speakers is room dependant and a huge variable too.
My speakers weigh 140 pounds each and I have them sitting on Via Blue decouplers so I cannot move them by myself and replace them on the footers, so I have not tried to move them closer to the front wall. Additionally they are rear ported and as I understand it's best to keep them away from the wall.
As many of you have probably experimented with speaker placements, what have you found that gives you that nice expansive soundstage and imagery in your rooms?
Also is it more an issue with room modes too?
My room is 14w X 18L x 7H My speakers are 6.5" out, 39" off side walls and 8 feet apart measured from center of front baffle.. My listening position is 9.5 feet (Of the side triangle measurements) from the front baffles and I sit about 4 feet off the rear wall. I have side wall treatments, rear wall diffusion, front wall diffusion and bass absorption.
I am not really looking for placement suggestions unless you see a real flaw here. I just wonder how so many different configurations work so well regarding less distance between speakers and the front wall? Thoughts?