how far off the wall

Here is a link to Cardas' room setup, if you look down toward the bottom of the page, there is info on setup of a dipole speaker. There is also info on speaker placement on the Rives Audio website.

When I owned the ML SL3's they were out a good 5 feet or so from the wall to the front of the panel. However, I also had heavy drapes hung on the wall behind the speakers as well.

Cardas Speaker Placement Link

If possible, put your panels at least five feet out from the wall. The reason is, reflections delayed by more than 10 milliseconds are less detrimental to imaging than earlier-arriving ones. However, ten milliseconds (roughly corresponding to a ten foot round trip) isn't a hard threshold - rather, merely a point along a continuum.

Personally I much prefer diffusion of the backwave rather than absorption, though if the room is very bright absorption might make more sense. But the backwave is adding to the reverberant energy, making the presentation more rich and lush and lively all at the same time. Seems a shame to just absorb it. Diffusion of the first reflection zones (fake ficus trees for instance) preserve that reverberant energy but keep it from generating image-shifting strong, distinct early reflections.

If all you can get is two feet off the wall, then diffusing the backwave energy is even more important.

If you have free reign in your sound room, you might try a diagonal or semi-diagonal configuration. I've found this to work well in situations where dipoles have to be placed very close to the wall.

Best of luck to you!

Duke

Duke and Audiofankj thank you for the words of wisdom and the website I foud booth very helpfull.cj

Go to the Martin Logan Club for more info.

http://www.martinloganowners.com/~tdacquis/forum/index.php?

Besides saying 5' off a wall tehre is a formula out there to help avoid standing waves and all sort of issues that place your speakers based on room size. The speaker in general should be measured from the middle of the cone not the enclosure.

To tell you a story though I had a really good guy came in and tune my room. He started by the book placement, then tewwkwd to his sound meter and in the end did slight tweeks based on ear.