@goldbehen - I’ll go so you don’t get left in the dust. It can pile up quickly here.
The 3.5s, like all Thiel speakers are designed to be wide-dispersion transducers. So their off-axis environment is more critical than many other designs. They should be well away from boundaries, particulars depending on your room size, proportions, materials, etc. If you don’t have the setup manual, it may be online, or specific questions can be addressed here. In general try for at least 2’, preferably 3-4’ from tweeter plate to wall behind and at least 3’, preferably more to side wall with those two dimensions being different from each other.
I am only guessing about your ’wall cavities’, but any hard edges near the speaker will add diffraction distortion. A niche behind the speaker may provide an opportunity for absorption or diffraction treatment to help reduce diffraction.
If you mate with a subwoofer, try using the 40Hz EQ setting as your crosspoint.
Good luck and keep up posted.
TT