Room Setup Question

All:

Getting ready to move next week and, after reading the relevant sections of Jim Smith's "Get Better Sound", I am considering the following approach for system setup in the new house. The good news is that I my wife is turning over the living room to my system. The bad news is that it is a little tricky trying to figure out how to set things up to get the best sound. Additionally, I'm moving from a very nice room which is larger than the new one so it will be a challenge to obtain the same sound quality in the new space--I could sure use some advice.

The new room is 13 X 17 X 8. There are two openings, one at either end of the room, on one of the long walls that allow access from the hallway. My preliminary plan is place my system on this long wall which, between the two openings at either end, measures just over 10 feet. Unfortunately, my rack will go between the speakers at the center of this wall (Jim would not be happy). Also, I will not be able to move the speakers out too far into the room--perhaps 18-20" from the rear of the speaker to the wall behind at the most. Certainly I can get them out far enough so that the baffles clear the component rack. But if I move them out too far I'll be sitting too close to them AND they will begin to block the pathways into the room. I'm also hoping (your comments here would be appreciated) that the openings on either end of this wall will create the sonic impression that the speakers are much further out into the room since the rear ports will not really "see" much of anything behind them. My listening position will be (only) about 8.5 feet away and the speakers will be about 7 feet apart (Jim would be happy with the 82.5% ratio). With this arrangement side wall reflections will be minimal or irrelevant as will bass loading in the corners behind the speakers (since there are none). I will be sitting about one foot from the wall behind me so I may need to treat this with some dampening or diffusers. Speakers are Daedalus DA-1.1's which are pretty full range (down to around 30hz) and can be placed pretty close to the rear wall due to the aperiodic vent which does not allow too much air to pass.

Thanks for reading. Thoughts or suggestions?