Thiel speaker placement - am I crazy?

I am reporting you to the placement police, they will be there any moment. Seriously, put them where you like them. Some like to sit at the back of the concert hall, some up front, the music sounds quite different by moving just a few seats; a recent Stereophile drew attention to this. As they use to say back in my younger days" If it feels good, do it".

No one can argue with Stan's advice, but there are some general principles(?) things(?) I've noticed over the years with all kinds of speakers in all kinds/sizes of rooms (BTW, you should provide your room dimensions to make the discussion more productive ;--)

What I found most important, over and over again (the tail that MUST wag the dog) is the WIDTH of the room.

WITH THIS ONE EXCEPTION: If the smallest dimension of the room is LARGER than 15~16 feet, then you will be able to place the speakers on the longer wall, with 2 or 3 feet behind them, and still be able to sit back far enough from them to enjoy the superior soundstage that 'long wall' placement provides.

But if you have a room that's only 15 feet wide or less, than you have to place your speaker in front of the short wall in order to sit back far enough to enjoy them, and that is when the distance of each speaker from its respective sidewall becomes critical. You must keep the (outer) edge of almost any speaker at least 20 to 24 inches from the sidewalls, or they will not provide an optimal image -- sometimes NO image.

In this situation, I therefore always start with my 2 X 2 rule: 2 feet from the back wall and the sidewalls; then if there is a poor (or no) soundstage or no tangible image of a (preferably mono) solo vocalist, then I start pulling the speakers together a couple inches at a time until a strong image appears (remembering to keep my listening distance approximately as far away as the speakers are apart (center to center).

When a strong(est) image appears, then you can play with all the other lower priority variables:
Toe-in
Listening distance.
Distance from rear wall.
Vertical tilt.
Etc.

I guess what I'm saying is that the only "rule" if you can call it that, is to be careful (in short wall placement) to give the speakers a minimum clearance of 2 feet to the sidewalls.

I am glad your system is sounding better, one must adjust it to their ears and space.

But, back to your original question.

Yes, you are crazy. Enjoy the insanity.

And the individual speakers differ greatly as to toe in etc. My Spendors sound best [to me] with the axis of the tweeters crossed in front of the listener. In fact that is what Spendor recommends. My friends Wilson's have much less toe in; of course they are in a much wider and taller room then my 13x35x7 one. The short wall placement is the only one practical in my room; I tried several different locations but settled on the one from the Cardas web site, close to 6' out from the back wall and over 3' out from side walls. Looks wrong but sounds good. I am not sure that it is the ultimate placement but I haven't found a better one and dead lifting my 80lb speakers gets tiring after a while.

Stan, I have resigned myself to the fact that no room narrower than 15 - 16 feet will allow "proper" speaker placement; and at best will require shortwall speaker placement and 'near-field' listening.

Unfortunately, the majority of residential rooms, including living rooms, in this country fall into that category. Some people find that situation unacceptable for one reason or another (like they prefer big speakers and big bass). I advise those people to consider headphones ;--)