And what do Maggies sound like near a wall......

Umn -

The first sidewall reflection will have to be treated (diffused or absorbed), but that six feet of open space avaiable behind the MG-12's makes me optimistic. I have used dipoles fairly close to side walls (6" or so) with good results. Sure you'd like a bit more space, but you would with a conventional speaker as well. On the other hand, with the Maggies you'd place the tweeter sections to the inside, so they'd be relatively far from the side walls (compared to a conventional speaker's tweeter).

Remember, a dipole's figure-8 radiation pattern is going to give it less sidewall interaction than a monopole speaker would have. In a less-than-ideal situation as long as you can get plenty of space behind a dipole, it will usually be less room-sensitive than a conventional speaker.

A tall fake plant along either side wall, a couple of feet in front of the speakers, would probably adequately diffuse that first sidewall reflection. You might have to shop a bit for a plant that fits the space well.

Duke

I'll second the mention of ProAc mini-monitors. I had a pair of ProAc Tablette 50's less than a foot from the back wall, and while they sounded better two feet away, they were pretty good set back near the wall. Tremendously better than planars do at such distance...

You might consider the Magnepan MGMC1s. While I haven't heard them, I understand they have been specifically designed for wall-mounted use, so you should be able to stick them on the side walls and angle them in to your listening position. Alternatively, consider the link and text at the bottom for a different setup.

Of course, bass will be limited, but perhaps you might purchase a used or cheap subwoofer for corner use. $725 for the MGMC1s, and if you stretch your budget a bit, I believe the Hsu VTF-2 or Adire Rava would be excellent choices for just a bit more than $400. If you can't, you might consider the Audiosource SW-15, instead, for $155 shipped and end up with a bit of money to spare: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00001OXQE/ref%3Dnosim/gotapex/002-0385838-5286432

I have owned both the SW-15 and Rava, and I can tell you that the SW-15 is certainly hard to fault for the price, but the Rava really does kick some butt, and it's musical, to boot.

Hope this helps,

Young-Ho

From http://www.soundstage.com/backstage/backstage.htm
Word has it that a resourceful San Francisco dealer has come up with a utilization of the Magneplanar MGMC1 that even Magnepan hadn’t contemplated. Eschewing the prescribed side-of-the-room, on-wall placement, the dealer mounted the speakers on a long front wall and began selling lots of them along with subwoofers. This caught the attention of SoundStage! senior contributor John Potis, who tried this speaker arrangement and had these observations.

"There are two ways to mount the speakers in this manner -- keep them perpendicular to the front wall to experience diffuse yet superb sound, or open them up by 20 degrees, in which case interesting things begin to happen. Imaging will then become stunning. As you move off-axis and into the near speaker’s null region, which reduces its contribution, you move into the far speaker’s axis of direct radiation, which increases its contribution. Imaging thus remains solidly between the two speakers from a wide range of seating positions."

Equally important is that the combination of direct and reflected sound had no discernible adverse effect on the frequency response through most of the audible frequency spectrum. With pink noise and a handheld real-time analyzer, John measured essentially flat frequency response between 80Hz and 8kHz in his room (down approximately 2.5dB at 63Hz and 16kHz). The speakers melded seamlessly with a subwoofer to make an extremely room-friendly system that sounded, in John's words, "spectacular."