The long / Narrow room - system configuration

My room is slightly shorter than yours, 20' but the exact same width. I have a flat 8.5ft ceiling. My equipment is set-up in the manner you're considering. I keep my equipment on two low racks between the speakers. But for the distance from the side walls and rear walls mentioned by Nsgarch, I agree with everything else he said about speaker placement, seating position and long narrow rooms. On the distance from the side and rear walls I think you need to experiment. It depends on your room and speakers. I have my speakers about two feet from the side walls (measured to the center of the drivers) and 39" off the back wall (measured to the front of the drivers) with very little toe-in. My seating position is 9' from the front of the speakers. All very close to what Nsgarch suggests. I have found this room set up gives the best soundstage and frequency response. I also agree with Nsgarch that the way you have your room set up now is probably the best. If you were running balanced IC's for that length into balanced equipment, I'm not sure you would lose more than you would gain from the change you are considering. Depending on how much noise if any your 25' RCA IC is picking up or if your preamp is having trouble driving that length of cable, it might be worth at least trying it. As I said, that is where my equipment is and I have very good results. But if my room would permit it, I would be inclined to set it up like yours is now, but my system is fully balanced so the long cable run is not a problem.

I have a very similar room size to you and I've been back and forth on long wall/short wall placement for years. After all the experimentation I've determined short wall placement is best. There are two problems I have with long wall placement, the first is that I'm too close to speakers for the drivers to properly integrate. Second, there is way too much energy going into the long wall opposite the speakers, these reflections destroy the sound. Treating this wall with absorption drains the life out of the music. On the other hand, long wall placement gives a wonderfully wide soundstage.
I, like Cuwill keep my equipment low to the ground on two equipment racks in order to not negatively affect soundstage, this also enables keeping cables short.
I also manage to keep the widest possible soundstage by placing my speakers even closer to side walls (about 18" to center of drivers) and pointed straight ahead. This is closer than most suggest, but in my case dipole speakers (very little sound energy to sides) and mucho room treatments make this work very nicely.
I will never mess with long wall placement again, nothing beats firing those speakers down that long open space, natural diffusion is key!

I would just add to what Sns said. Theoretically, long wall placement is desireable for soundsatge creation because with the speakers still reasonably close together (not over 8 ft c to c) you eliminate those nasty image-killing second arrival reflections off the side walls.

However there is a minimum room size for this to be practical, when you take into account the fact that you need some space behind the speakers (the most for dipoles) and you don't generally want your chair or couch hard up against the wall behind. After a lot of analysis and experiment, I think this minumum size is 16 x 24 (or larger.)

The world seems to be full of 12x 14, 18, and 24 foot rooms, and it's that limiting shorter dimension that ultimately forces a lengthwise arrangement with a nearfield listening position.

Gentleman,

Thanks for all of your inputs. I have the Vandersteen 5a exactly 1/3 out from the back wall (93") and that is measured to the center of the speaker cabinet. I have them 31" (center driver) out from the side wall, and the back of the speaker sits one 1" closer to side wall which is the amount of my toe in. I have an 8 foot flat ceiling. I then sit 9 feet away from the Vandys with my rix rax on my right and an 8 foot opening to my non- dedicated dining room on my left. In back of my relax the back listening chair(just buy one) is an Ikea record cubby hole rack not quite full enough with vinyl. I just moved my AA capitole mk.2 in between my amps and used my 1 meter Kubala emotion IC run direct to my amps . My early impression is positive, next step is to run that same AA Capt. direct going through my long emotion cable and listen for any degradation... I unanimously have preferred using my linestage over my cd player direct, so it would be better to seek out another KS emotion or comparable quality IC so I may move the linestage down between my amps as well. If I did not also have a phono setup , I would consider the 2 small rack option, but I am spoiled by the Turntable 40" high and so close to my listening position.

Fjn04, it sounds like you're getting there pretty fast! One thing I would recommend after reading your room description is:

To symmetricalize (is that a word?) the acoustics of your room by creating an absorbtive area on the right wall pretty much equal in size and exactly opposite the opening to your dining room on the left. There are so many ways to do it, I'll leave that up to you.