Speakers need to be placed close to back wall. Help

@rustler, I think that's a WONDERFUL gift!!

Pardon me for muddying of the waters, you've probably already considered all of this, but just in case...

If either of them have any interest in our hobby, OR if either if them are good candidates for developing an interest in our hobby, you might want to involve them in the decision-making process, and you might all really enjoy it.  Sometimes The Quest is half the fun.

Now if neither of them are speaker hobbyists or are likely to become such, you might STILL want to involve them because how the speakers LOOK in their room may be their top priority.

Regardless of the details of how you proceed, I think such a gift is incredibly thoughtful and generous of you.  And personally I like the suggestion of the Larsens.

Duke

Regarding the Jern cast-iron loudspeakers:

The castings are what’s known as "grey iron" which is incredibly inert, they are probably the most inert material that loudspeaker enclosures have ever been made from (and one of the heaviest, so we’re not going to see "normal sized" speakers with grey iron enclosures anytime soon). And THEN the enclosure has this rounded shape like two spheres of different sizes merging, which is GEOMETRICALLY incredibly rigid and ACOUSTICALLY very close to ideal (which just about nothing else approaches). None of this would matter if they didn’t sound excellent, and they DO. As a big speaker manufacturer and proponent I VERY SELDOM get excited about small speakers but I was extremely impressed by the Jerns which is why I stuck around to learn more about them when I first encountered them years ago.

No affiliation, just mad respect.  The Jern is a speaker which keeps me away from trying to build a competing small speaker because I don't think I could get as many things right as it does. 

Duke