Thiel Owners

there are some great tips on the Mapleshade web site.  Pierre thinks we sit too far away and too high and i have been using his suggestions for years with all my various Thiel speakers. 
I have the speakers  114"  apart (tweeter to tweeer),    90" from my  ear to the tweeter,  and i sit where my ears are  about 32"  off the floorhttp://www.mapleshadestore.com/freeupgrades.php

I sit even closer to mine (7 to 6 1/2 feet)!

Though I disagree a bit with some of the things stated on the mapleshade site.  For instance the idea that sitting closer gets you better bass impact and slam.  I've tended to find the opposite with almost every speaker - the closer I get the more linear and less bloated the bass, but also the less kick and impact (the more headphone-like it gets).  So I'm always trying to balance - close enough for smoothness, distant enough to keep impact.

hi Prof,   how far apart do you have the speakers?  also i really find that the distance from my ears to the floor,   though subtle,  affects the SQ

ronkent,

The speakers are so easy to move around on my rug (one thing nice about not using spikes) that I often fool around with different listening positions.  I may settle on one for a week, or a month, or many months, then move them around. 

Right now I have my 2.7s a bit further from my ears than I thought - 7.4' - probably because they are spread out a bit more - 8.4' from the inside of each speaker.  Due to the wider spread, I have them toed in a bit to maintain some sparkle and image focus.  When in a narrower setting, I tend to have little to no toe-in.

I also find listener height can alter the sound a bit, but much less so on the Thiel's concentric driver arrangement vs a lot of other speakers (sound gets a bit more "plummy" rounded and warm with a lower seating height.  I've slightly angled my 2.7s downward to account for a bit of this).

I'm really a nut about tone and timbre and it's easily diminished by room acoustics and speaker/listener positioning.  I want warmth, roundness of tone, but with a realistic inviting sparkle as well.  To that end I find imaging, soundstaging and tone are almost always best for me when there is nothing behind my head - e.g. my sofa cushion comes up to my shoulders but no further.   Leaning my head back in to the sofa pillows, more reclined, while comfy, also changes the sound due to the reflections - makes it a bit more whitened and lively and spread out.  Which actually can be fun sometimes.

I've looked for pillows to lean my head on that don't alter the sound in an unappealing way, but there are no "neutral" pillows because it's going to change the sound reflections around my head.  Physics is physics.

That said, I just discovered that one of the small, narrow arm-rest sized pillows on my sofa, which is only the width of my head, actually works quite well to lean on.  Doesn't destroy soundstaging and imaging - though alters things a little.  Tone gets a bit more zing and aliveness, lightens up a bit, and a bit more focus.  So for instance a cow-bell or wood block hit will actually sound more lively and immediate.  And the tone doesn't "whiten" so much as leaning against a big pillow, but goes a bit more into the "amber" territory (I tend to perceive sound in colors this way).  Which I quite like.

Further...while on the subject of acoustics, I keep meaning to make a little thread about diffusors.  A single small diffusor that I bought a while back has proven really fascinating to play with - the way it can alter and dial in the sound so minutely via any number of positions in the room.
Placed right beside the speaker, I get a more alive sound, but also a bit more blanched in tone.  Placed just beside and behind the speaker and I get sonic images snapping even more together, and sounding a bit more dense and lively, but without loosing much of the organic roundness of the presentation.  Really fun.

Sorry...way more than you asked for.