Vandersteen 3a vs Magnepan 3.7i

While a bigger room is better, 12' X 15' is sufficient for Maggies. Put them 5' in front of the 12' wall, and your listening chair 3' from the wall behind it. Because the speakers are to the left and right of the center line, that will put the chair 8'-9' (depending on degree of toe-in) from the speakers, plenty. Being a dipole, the speakers can be placed right up against the side walls, which will provide low frequency reinforcement, a fortuitous compensation for the inherent planar dipole front-to-back cancellation in the bottom octave or two..

Unfortunately the way my room is set up 40" is about the max I can get in front of the 12' wall.

(((Thanks tomic601 have changed to 38" for tweeter outside and 32" on inside keeping the 13" from side wall seems to be a much better focus.))

Try a small string or thread wrapping around fronts corners both speakers outsides.
 pull string snug forming a straight line.
Next measure the string line at the same speaker's inner front side.
then confirm same on other speaker.
 Allows exact toe in matching with easily repeatable measurements.
 Best JohnnyR

Thanks Johnny R

adding some high visibility fly line backing ( free ) to my speaker setup bag !!!

But in general most detail freak audiophile setups I see suffer from excessive toe in.....