Who positions their speakers straight ahead (zero tow in) and why.

Harbeth  40.2,  backs against the wall and pointed straight ahead.These are a deep cabinet speaker and I just don't have room to pull out. I've always liked the sound from these speakers and haven't tried different arrangements except a little toe in. I find with no toe in the imaging is really good.

If the soundstage is more enveloping only if you fire forward, there are some deficiencies in the speaker. You compromise optimal sound power and the perception of it when firing forward, for example. The only exception to firing directly at the listener is.. concentric drivers. for instance, (slightly off axis is the way to go)...or some niche design like the Polk L800 SDA array, which malfunctions if you point it directly at ya.

Spendors, straight ahead. Better soundstaging. Nothing to do with hot tweeter.

 

Room, speaker and somewhat system dependent. Focal Aria’s with narrow baffles and clear, clean (not bright, but extended) tweeters set up with very little toe-in. Klipsch Forte’s in same system toe-in almost 45 degrees. I fiddled with placement A LOT!

Both have wide holographic sound stage that extends beyond the cabinets and can disappear with a good recording. The Klipsch soundstage is wider, taller and deeper. I’d say the Focal soundstage is more warm and intimate. I love them both, just depends on music playing, time of day and mood I’m in which set prevails.

Speaker toe-in is room and speaker dependent.  Vivid recommends toe in with beams crossed just in front of your head in your seated listening position.  I gradually toed out until I achieved the best balance between frequency response and staging/imaging.  The beam crosses behind my head.  If I approximate angle, towed in is 15-20 degrees.  My listening room is my living room in my small house, so I am limited and from a room perspective. I rate the room poor; but it’s the best I can do.  No toe-in reduces image density and affects frequency response in my room with my speakers.  

Kind of related to this is that we sometimes focus too much on getting rid of all reflections around the speaker when in fact there is an ideal balance between a given speaker's output pattern and how good the side and rear reflections sound. 

Small space + wide speaker may force you to toe in more than in another location.