Please, please, please move your speakers away from the wall  

And see what happens... I know what happens. You wife enters the room and asks you to put them back.

Hey guys, I never suggested leaving the speakers out from the wall, it's just an experiment. Just try it! Pretty please.

This is why i wished i owned a house so i could dedicate a room to this sort of stuff.

“Pull it out from the wall and see what happens” he says. What could possibly go wrong he says... Distance from the wall is exponentially related to the direct sound we hear...from the wife.

I have 80's Klipsch kg 4 which has 12" rear passive woofer. Have always had them in a corner. Moved them out 14" from flat wall instead and put them straight instead of toed in. All I can say is WOW!!! Bass boominess is gone and they are more alive with of course better mids and highs. Biggest difference is the sound stage is much wider. Sounds like my old speakers can BREATHE!. Thank you!!! 😀

I moved my speakers from 2 to 3 feet away and all the sudden there was a three dimensional soundstage behind the speakers. Theyre in my tiny bedroom and it made all the difference

I had the blessing of moving to a 3600 sf house last year and finally had space! I moved my Martin Logan esl speakers 5 feet into the room. The transformation was dramatic. I finally got to hear a wide and deep soundstage. My wife hates the speaker cables and equipment rack but we agreed that I have one room just for my "audio stuff". I hope to compare a klipsch and a Focal later this year to see if I want to experiment with a different sound. I enjoy your daily videos very much.

It works! Thank you for the advice. Now VdGG sounds even better!!

Strange that we call them Bookshelf Speakers and yet most just do not work well on a bookshelf lol

I wholeheartedly agree, especially for panel speakers like magneplanars, moving them out into the room improves things greatly!.

Well then you have to deal with SBIR, low frequencies cancelling themselves out because of the speaker distance to the wall

Ladies and Gentlemen, what you've just watched is consolidated wisdom. Succinct. Valuable. No fluff. No 30-second intro. Just meat and potatoes. Yum.

I always pull my speakers out when I’m having a listen session, I’ve marked the best position on the floor with tape so when there not in use I move them back against the wall.

Thank you Steve. Something so simple, something I've known I should try but haven't really experimented with before; it works!! Absolutely awesome!

Funny I was trying that last night with my Harbeths, I found the sound stage became more apparent. Love Audio!

Rule of 1/3's for speakers and listening position to produce the fewest standing waves and lowest distortion. Try it. Place speakers 1/3 the room length from the wall and each speaker should be placed at 1/3 the room width on the sides. The listening position should 1/3 the room length in.

great advice. i own totem forest speaker. There are 3 claws under the speaker's and inside resides some decoupling bearings that helps moving the speakers around. It's like playing with an equalizer...closer to the wall give more bass, less definition and shrinks the soundstage by removing depth and instrument placement and separation. Moving them a couple of inches make difference....It' s a never ending dance...moving them further from the back wall improves soundstage, tightens the dynamics, but in my loft, reduces bass...making me wish for a subwoofer. near field listening eliminates these issues, and gives me the best listening setup...All good.

The vocals sounds clearer as if the speaker became invisible… oh btw, that vocal were my wife’s yelling at me

Hello Steve, I love your RU-vid videos. Very info and entertaining. I had my speakers tucked into a corner. It was a weird listening experience. It was good, but far from “ideal.” I belong to several Facebook groups and a member pointed out that my speaker placement would result in “bad imagining.” I decided instead of having my system and speakers going the width of the room (which is about 12 feet wide), to instead go the length of the room. I’m still experimenting (speaker placement isn’t the easiest thing). My speakers are now halfway down the length of the room as far away from walls as I can get them. The soundstage is bigger and wider! The music has room to do it’s thing. The room may look a little funny, but from now on, I’m designing my living room around my gear and not my gear around the room. Speaker placement is crucial, and so is the gear since I’m trying to place my gear and turntable as far away from my speakers as possible, but so far, digging the sound.

Steve, if can spare the time please come over and help me move my speakers. I am too damn old to lift them by myself anymore.

Ok Steve, so I own Klipsch RF7's which are my favorite sprakers. They always sounded pretty good to me. I had them about 2ft away from the wall. However, I decided to take your suggestion and pull them further away until they were 3ft. Ialso angled them more toward my usual listening position. WOW!!!!!! The difference is immediately noticeable! Even my sons, 19 & 25 respectively..noticed the difference such a small tweek made in the sound. Thanks for the suggestion, keep on keeping on!

Thanks for this advice Steve! I moved my towers roughly 3ft from the wall and it has made a big improvement!

Hi Steve - The Harbeth room at the New York Audio show was setup with the 40.2s in the near field. Maybe it was the arrangement of the chairs, but I didn’t care for that setup. They had the volume so loud the few times I dropped into that room, I really didn’t get a chance to appreciate those speakers. Anyway, I have been experimenting with speaker placement away from the walls and I generally find the sound to be more balanced and smooth. Thanks for this challenge and for all you do for this great pursuit of sound.

I'm so lucky that my wife totally gets me. When we went house shopping she said it had to have a nice kitchen for her, and a nice big room for me. My stuff is setup how I want it. WAF sucks.

Solid garage sale stools are great budget speaker stands.

I did it, and it made a huge difference! Thanks

Yes, you may be getting reflections from the back wall but, that happens anyway. If they are far enough away then the timing lag becomes so great that the brain may interpret it as reverb, a positive. Also, you increase direct SPL over reflected SPL simply because of the distance difference between them. as the speakers are moved toward the wall, the phase timing lag becomes less and can be interpreted as, well a bit mushy. If the speakers are very close to the wall, then the angles work to disperse the reflected sound more, so the mush begins to get attenuated. If the speakers are inserted into the wall so the face is flush with the wall. Guess what, the sound waves travel along the wall and create no reflections off it. True in this situation, the wall moderates dispersion loss at the boundary which is a phenomenon exploited by boundary mics, but that's another story. Also, you may get some nasty corner effects but you can attenuate that acoustically. The thing is, there are always adverse situation in rooms and different positions can attenuate some problems at the expense of reinforcing others. It just depends on balancing pros and cons for the particular room and your lifestyle. Try to attenuate the biggest issues though. So, how far from the wall do you need then to be? Well, in my PA research I came across an article that stated timing greater than 50 miliseconds was reverb. Sounds travels at 344 m/s so, 1 millisecond in, 0.3 m and 50 milliseconds over 15 m. On that basis, you have to have a the speakers at least 7.5 m from any surfaces. Hmm, that would be a large room indeed. I suspect that the 50 miliseconds may well be incorrect, that's my memory of the article though. Back when I was doing PA I had a very difficult room, practically impossible to get clarity. In the end I setup the 2 mains stacked vertically in the centre and right up against a brick wall. This gave by far the best clarity I of any other position and also noticeable minimized SPL loss over distance, due to the the stack being inverted (tweeter together, bass drivers far apart). Well, it worked very well for the audience, no great for the performers though. Sorry performers, the audience is the customer, both yours and mine. People said things like the best PA sound we have heard anywhere, or WOW someone doing true sound reinforcement. Well I really did try my best to get as close as possible to the stated aims anyway. You also have to listen for off axis effects. Generally, a speaker driver disperses low frequencies over a wider arc than high frequencies. This is partially a reason for multiply way speakers. as they tend to reset this off axis frequency dispersion for their frequency range. However, in the case of horns, the off axis sound drops off very quickly indeed. This means that moving a speaker close to a surface tends to reinforce bass and if horn tweeters are paired with bass rivers, this can be much more severe. This is why bookshelf and stand speakers can sound boomy on the floor. Stage foldbacks with horns are a disaster because the performers have the tweeter horn aimed at their faces but the bass bounce off the floor just reflects out of the stage area and destroys the audience tone and clarity, depending upon acoustic treatment of course. Guess how I know this... bane of my PA life.

It really depends on the speakers. Some are designed with that in mind and therefore sound better when nearer the wall.

What's good Steve, I totally agree with you. I have my Martin Logan's Motion 15i bookshelf speakers pulled out 4 feet from the front wall and my Phantom Image is way Spooky, almost as if you can touch it, no kidding. By the way I permanently leave my setups in place out into the room cause I'm the type to get up at 2/3am just to listen to 8 bars of vocals for my system's transparency to put me back to sleep. A benefit of Audiophil-ing is when one experiences a emotional connection with the music at low volumes.

You are a smart cookie! I learn so much for your videos man. Peace to you. 🎼🎵 Rod

Thanks. I reposition my speakers at least twice a day,every day searching for that ultimate sweet spot. Trying to squeeze every last drop of sonic bliss out of my cheap speakers.

I recently purchased a pair of Dynaudio Special 40s---awesome speakers btw! At first, I thought I would need a sub since they are small 'bookshelf' speakers. I placed them about 20" from the wall on the Dynaudio stands and the bass is incredible!! Saved myself about $1500---no sub needed!

Preach it Steve. Preach it!

Every married man needs a dedicated listening room that doubles as his office, man cave, whatever. Its the only way he can pull speakers away from the wall. Give her the rest of the house. Who needs it? You only leave your listening room to eat a meal, use the bathroom and so forth.

Great advice, but it also depends on room shape. In the living room the difference is not so much, but in a proper dedicated audio room the difference is significant.

I designed my homemade speakers to sound best all the way in the corner of the room, similar in size and concept to the old Tannoy York but with a 60x90 degree HF constant directivity horn to reduce room reflections. It involves the whole room in the sound but not in a delayed, reflective, or node canceling way, more like a live point source.

Strangely I dont have a huge room in my studio flat here in London -UK but it's a decent size and I did just that with my Missions SX2 that I purchased last year and literary moved them around 6inch or 7inch away from the wall and wow did it make a difference. The Missions SX2 are a large standmount and need room to realy work at their best and just by moving them 6-7 inches away from the room realy opened up the image. I have them facing straight farawrd with a very slight towing to get that perfect or near perfect centre image. I can't move them any more farward as it would be to close to me and in my room they sound better being more or less straight facing rather than completely towed in. Unfortunately my left speaker the Wall is a right angle and not great for bass notes at louder levels not alot I can do about that unless I move the wall... Lol. Left speaker is fine. These SX2 are Missions flagship range and are very easily driven and definitely don't need them on top of the wall the cabinet quality is made from a high quality of wood so they naturally produce loads of bass it's self does not need hardly any help from the walls.

5:25 *_*plays music from bookshelf speakers*_* *Woooooooo . . . Bam Bam Bam!* _"Open up! It's the Audiophile Police! You're under arrest, mister!"_ _"Wow, that siren sounded so great! How did you manage to get so much resolution and fidelity without losing personality?"_ _"Well, I'm glad you noticed, the first thing you need to observe . . . "_ *_*escapes through the backdoor during three-hour lecture*_*

In my 28m^2 (300ft^2) normal damped living room, my listening posistion is approximately 3.5 meters. The speakers (Dynaudio Contour S3.4) are placed with a distance of 76cm (2.5ft) measured from the diaphragms to the rear wall. To my taste I have blocked the rear port with the supplied foam plugs to transform the speakers from bass reflex to closed box. The bass respose is quite uniform with a good transient performance. Listening to the speakers "unplugged", the bass is boomy and nuances are somewhat drowned. Moving the speakers further away from the back wall is absolutely needed if I should listen in bass reflex mode. But then I will have to move my listening posistion further back and have to deal with a much more pronounced standing wave - sigh. That only goes to tell that every room and speakers must be setup individually to suit your taste. Happy listening. Peter

I had a Marantz System with Infinity speakers. Was disappointed with the sound. Moved speakers off shelves and on to floor. WOW. Big difference. Thanks Steve!

Thank you for your common sense tip about moving the speakers three feet from the wall...and then moving them back again if for whatever reason, you simply couldn’t leave them there. I did my level best to place the speakers so that I had the best sound stage possible at 18” from the wall because of existing furniture, room size etc. I must have been thinking that the speakers were like the pyramids of giza; once they’re positioned you don’t move them.....ever. It made a big difference in the imaging and overall sound stage. My mental block is gone. :)

Against a wall is called 1/2 space loading. It reinforces the low portion of the frequency spectrum as if it was in a room 1/2 size. If it is in a corner, it is 1/4 space loading., same effect. It's physics really. Next, that sidewall reflection is most dominant where the sound reflecting from a sidewall will reach you first. Imagine looking in a mirror on the sidewall, and if you can see the speaker in it, dampen that part of the wall to kill that reflection. Curtains, sound absorbent panels, whatever. You want to eliminate bass reinforcement, and first wave reflection. You'll be amazed... ...

'Direct sound better than reflected sound'? The Bose 901's are rolling in their graves.

100% agree with your comments Steve... It's all good !!! ... In one listening room the Paradigm Studio 20's have mounting holes in the bottom so they directly mount/bolt to the Paradigm stands. (Awesome thinking to allow for easy moving). Changing the location of the the speakers and towing them in is simply magical. Close your eyes and the speakers simply disappear and sound stunning.

Steve, I keep my FORTE ONES on a couple $6 HARBOR FREIGHT 4 wheeled furniture movers. A. Pull them out, move them around to the SWEET SPOT where the soundstage, stereo separation and instrument placement is GREAT! B. When the wife gets home, roll them back into "POSITION", turn stereo off. C. Immediately warm up tube amp, plug in STRATOCASTER & DO YOUR BEST TO SOUND LIKE SRV, 60 watts is ideal! D. Wife enters your MAN CAVE and BEGS you to put in a SRV DVD, LIVE AT THE EL MOCAMBO is your obvious first choice. Ask can the KLIPSCH FORTES be moved slightly? E. YES! WHATEVER IT TAKES!!! F. PROBLEM SOLVED. PERMANENTLY. ;)

You couldn't look more like a music/audio technical expert guy if you tried. It's perfect.

Speakers against a wall will have up to a 6 dB low end boost. Speakers away from the wall will lose low end at the frequency which is 1/4 of its wavelength. It’s all about finding the best comprise, try it and do what sounds best!

Depends on what speakers you use. Rear port, front port, sealed, infinamate baff, etc

What I am interested in knowing is when they are sound treatment applied in the the front wall, how much the treatment will help and how much the wall treatment can shorten the front wall distance. I know that 5 ms thing but in all practicality if there are relatively reasonable sound treatment there, how much will those treatment be good for reclaiming the space?

It seems that walls in general are the worst audiophile enemies.

Yes sir...!!! Im gonna add wheels to my large cabinets which is holding philips 1255/M7's. You're absolutely right it makes a massive difference.

Speakers nearly always sound better away from the wall, with very few exceptions. 3' from center of the cabinet to the wall is usually the minimum for the best imaging and avoiding midbass nulls. If you can't move them away from the wall, put up absorption panels - many of them!

So I moved my modest audio system from my living room a 600sq ft into my band room a 1500 sq ft rectangular room with a sloped ceiling. I have set up my audio system facing the longer length of the room 49 ft. The speakers are placed at about 15ft from the front wall and 15 ft apart and 8ft away from the side walls. My listening position is at a 1/3 distance from rear wall, making about an equilateral triangle from listening position to speakers. WOW! I have never heard my Klipsch RF3 in this environment. I found the original floor spikes and the speaker post jumpers. I eliminated the bi-wiring and I am listening to some beautiful mids and lows like never before. I have had these speakers for about 16 years. Total cost a few sweat drops and elbow grease. Thanks.

Well, there ARE speakers designed to be close to the back wall, and don't work well out in the room.

One more thing, Steve we miss the old entry phrase... "Hello friends my name is Steve..." :)

I liked your comment in that you can move the speakers for listening sessions... what that Staples button "THAT WAS EASY!"

Hi Steve, this is from another video you did. Just want to let you know that I'm really really happy with my purchase of the klipsch rp-160m speaker, thanks to your review of the klipsch. Everything that you said about it is spot on (I wouldn't say the bass is ballsy), especially about the fact that it brings music to live, and it is very easy to work with, I'm powering it with the Vista Spark and my secret sauce iFitube2. It is my best system and it is below US$1K. I have 5 systems at home in 3 different size rooms. And the Klipsch now ranks on top of much more expensive gears like Dynaudio, Buchardt, SVS, Elac uf5. Thank you Steve for your dedication to this field! And your description of the NAD C316BEE is also spot on.

Mine are in the middle of my living room!

I have found they do sound best aprox 3' to 4' from the wall and also 3' in from the corners. Speakers are spaced 7 to 8' and depth of room is about 17' in length. With this setup I eliminate most of the dead spots in the room witch is ideal but of course it's not without the inconvenience of constantly having to move them back in their original up against the wall location. Benefits out weigh the hassle of moving my 86lbs towers but once you are seated it all makes it worth while.

AudiophilePolice hahah good one

I tried it out with both my technics sb-m300m2 and Mission MX2 speakers. The technics has an internal driver/woofer pointed to the back. I placed the speakers about a meter from the wall, two meters apart, and over a meter high on two small closets which I had shifted forward. I normally had the speakers placed against the wall on two large closets, very close to the ceiling. To my surprise the sound is not that much different. The stereo image or soundstage is a little better though. I can hear sounds in the middle as if they come from in between the speakers. I also could recreate that effect with the speakers on the high closets, but then the sound in the middle comes from up high, as if Carlos is standing on a pedestal. Extra information, my room dimension are approximately 3.20m width 4.30m length 2.45m high

Yup, when listening, I pull my Delcoid satellites about 4 ft from the wall. It makes a huge difference in sound stage and imaging.

Pulling the speakers out actually didnt change the reflections at all. Im using the presonus eris e66 (front left & front right), presonus r65 pair (rear left & rear right), svs prime center speakers (center), and the krk s10 subwoofer for drivers, mackie big knob studio 4x3 for controller, and the focusrite scarlett 18i20 audio interface. The room size is 7x12' with a slanted ceiling. No audio change even with no audio dampening equiptment. However this technique did make a difference in my very large living room where all you could hear is reflections. Thanks! -Jake

Steve thank you!!!!!! I installed car and home theater equipment for almost 12 years and left the industry about 6 years ago. Since then I have forgotten or should I say lost my way with my own setup. ( we had a child, a beautiful 3 year old who loves music as much as I do. But also loved touching my speakers) I was inspired to make this simple change based on your video and found a massive improvement. I put furniture sliders under them to move easily in and out. So again I want to thank you and I’m sure my Monitor Audio RS8’s do too.

I have a pair of Klipsch Heresy speakers. I tried this idea of pulling out the speakers. I usually have my speakers about 5" away from the wall. I pulled them out into the room. And they were now a foot away from the wall. Having them further away from the wall, has a change in the sound. One thing I like about this way to change the sound, is that it is free.

Due to my living room layout, my wife would kill me if I moved my speakers away from the wall

It is day and night. So much clarity. And it is tight bass. This is also why my subs are elevated to reduce floor reverb which results in boomy sloppy bass.

I eliminated the room altogether and set my loudspeakers up in the garden. They are suspended by monofilament cables from a pair of geosynchronous satellites in low Earth orbit. They are sometimes dampened by the rains but, overall, the sound is pure and natural.

I'd say this is not a free, but one of the most expensive "upgrades" one might do to their sound system. For most of us, it means setting up a dedicated listening room. I am just lucky to have one and think it was very worth the effort.

👍.. I'm a constant mover of my speakers.. I will play with them for different genres of music..

Hi Steve. In my case my tower speakers are not placed near a wall, but at both sides of TV that is located in a kind of wood table over a small brick wall that splits the room into the living room and the dining room. I use to ear music seated on the couch, and I do not usually move the speakers in order of not changing the room decoration and harmony. Anyway I decided to do a serious listening moving the speakers towards the sweet spot in the couch. The results was very good in terms of stereo image, music dynamics and overall experience. Very enjoyable!! Thanks for your advices!

Yes your absolutely right you can actually here each channel clearly especially when the music switches from channel to channel if you know what I mean

Have finished my dedicated listening room - no it did not cost me more than US $6K. The room is 11 x 17 x 7 . Walls, ceiling and floor are all decoupled from each other and the rest of the house. Designed and incorporated 4 Helmholz resonators - one in each corner, tuned to the dimensions of the room. 4 x 6 diffusion panels in locations on the side walls to deal with the first reflections from both left and right speakers. The speakers are Dunlavy Athenas - meant to be listened to at least 10 feet away. After some experimenting with placement the speakers are approx. 3 feet out and 2 feet from the side walls. The soundstage and depth depends on the recording. Visually the speakers seem too big for the room -until I'm listening to them, when, with a good recording they just disappear. Not everyone is lucky to have a room like mine(and it still needs just a little more work). As DSP gets better and cheaper the ability to place speakers within a real world setting will become so much easier. The Kii speakers and their like are the future.

Hi Steve... I agree, get theme out from the Wall. I’ve never thought about it but mine speakers was placed 2 feed from the Wall and always be’en told i’ve got “my sound”. Cause all my stuff is placed off the Wall i’ve just never see why my stereo always sounded Best...but that’s why!

If you know a good woodworker, or happen to be one yourself. Build a platform that allows you to slide the speakers away from the wall when you're using them.

I have a separate room for my system, not a large room but just for my system my wife does not factor into it! Hooray!

I did a test to see if I could get better sound out of my system. I moved my PSB Imagine 2T towers way out into the room....like 6ft out from the wall. Spread them wide apart and aimed them straight in at my seat. I sat against the back wall pretty much. Oh my God. I never heard such imaging and 3D sound. Big, full sound! The speakers disappeared and things just floated there in space. The party ended when I moved them back to their original placing....about 2.5 ft from the wall and 8ft apart. Try it. It's fun.

I wonder why there is never any talk about "real-life" stereo setups--not as in "life-like" but the reality of small listening rooms in houses where a woman's approval is essential. There are "in-wall" speakers (perhaps none very good), there are "on-wall" speakers (some are very expensive panels). Why is 95% of the discussion about speakers that need to be 2 feet out from the wall. I can't do that, and neither can many others. But we still want stellar sound.

My speakers are in a smallish bedroom so there’s literally no room to move them away from the wall. I have them up close to the front wall but im cutting 4 or 5db of bass (shelf eq) at the amplifier to compensate and it sounds pretty balanced and good to my ears. So yeah if you just can’t move the speakers out I would recommend trying a bass cut on your amp if you have those controls available.

Excellent advice. Though some speaker systems are designed to be placed against a wall such as the Allison systems from the 1970's/80's. Can't argue with good results so put speakers where they sound best, if you're able.

...also off the floor or shelf, i.e. on spikes. I unsuccessfully tried to get 2 pairs of bookshelf speaker to work in a small bedroom. They were about 8 inches from the back wall on a shelf. Both sounded muddy and smeared. Then I put spikes under them and voila! the speakers opened up completely and revealed their true character.

Please read the comments from the people that have moved their speakers away from the walls. Most prefer it.

Keeping your speakers 3 ft away (measured from the tweeter) from reflecting walls will create the important 5 millisecond delay in the 1st reflected sound, that would otherwise muddy the sound. If you lose bass response by moving the speakers 3 ft away from the walls, get a subwoofer.

Easier said than done. Manufacturers need to come up with speaker that fit the hobbiest home and/or apartments, not the other way around.

Changing your body's listening position closer or nearer to the speakers/walls can have a dramatic effect also.

I would like casters that I can sit my Tannoys on. Remote control casters would be even better. House to myself: move those speakers into the room. Partner comes home: move them back. :)

Mine are 20 inches away from the wall. Not much space. To try this I will need a base with retractable wheels as each speaker weights over 150 pounds. And the base with wheels is a must since after a listening session I will have to move them back. In addition, if I move them I may end too close to the speakers.

Moving speakers close to boundary boosts 60-200Hz region by upto 6dB, which is significant. Most loudspeakers are not built for that. Speakers like Wilson Audio Duette are built for that and sounds fine. Spatial reflections are different. The main problem here is boundary reinforcement. There is a clear difference, don't be confused.

Perhaps Steve will discuss the pro's and con's of the next step in speaker placement, which is near-field listening to speakers placed 1/5 to 1/3 of the way out into the room.

Steve - If I may. Can I suggest possibly getting a white board or tablet to better illustrate your points. I think the community would enjoy it.

Physics disagrees . Few speakers have a dispersion angle greater than 60 degrees . Next to nothing from the speaker is being radiated towards the wall , next to nothing reflected . (sound does not bounce off air , slightly with variants in density which is not present in a home setting ) Side wall reflection , an issue .

My speakers weigh 175 pounds each on carpet. I would need some wheels on tracks to move them. I did try them further out and I lost some bass. Now I listen at 7.5 feet away and the tweeters are 80 inches apart toed in. I'm loving the way they sound now. And speaker placement has made an amazing difference. The distance from the back wall to the front of the tweeter is 32 inches. I do have pretty good dampening in the room it that makes much difference.

or just listen near-field instead, it just sounds better no matter where you place it.

I learned to love high end speakers where I first encountered them... in recording studio control rooms in the late 70s-early 80s so when I built my listening room in 1985 my speakers got mounted in an enclosed soffit under the ceiling 7 feet above the floor, toed in about 10 degrees and angled down about 20 degrees and I've been blissfully happy ever since. For some strange reason I NEED speakers mounted high above me with no consideration for any distance from the wall. I'm of the opinion that if this style of positioning is good enough for The Record Plant and Electric Lady Studios, it's good enough for me.

I had my floorstanders placed next to my walls for many years. One of them being semi-burried under a couch.. Last week I pulled them away from the walls and moved the couch.. Also moved my listening position away from the rear wall... Wauw !!

I have my vintage Sansui speakers 🔊🔊3 feet away from the back wall and they sound excellent!

Have my bookshelves on my desk and they're there because that's the only place i can fit them.

Three feet from all the walls clarifies the stereo effect in my listening spot, including the virtual position of bass images.

Sorry Steve, the Klipschorns (at least mine built in the 60ies) can't work as designed away from the corner wall... Paul did a whole paper on why speakers in general SHOULD be placed in a corner ! Their is history to be read at the Klipsch website.... (O; On the other hand, my Klipsch RP-280F's are AWAY from the wall and seem to make great low end with that horn port on the rear of the cabinet and image quite well... Just my usual rantation.... :O))))

He,he,he....... I always cracks me up a bit when someone asks me (for Room Decor aesthetics) if there's any reason why my Magneplannar 2.7QR loudspeakers aren't closer to the walls. Three feet from the (back) wall is only about half the distance these speakers "Want to see" before they start working their imaging magic . & then I like to place my listening chair in a "Nearfield" position between them.