Thiel speaker placement - am I crazy?

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 ;--)

All, thanks for the responses! It's fun to share the joy of discovery with like minded people (albeit most of you are far more experienced and knowledgeable than I).

Stan, I don't know about the placement police but the waf police nearly imprisoned me after the Owens corning fiber panels came in!

Davt - prolly a good life philosophy embedded in your last thought! Thanks.

Nsgarch - the room is my biggest adversary. I am in a finished basement that is of open design. The easiest way to describe it is that the room is 16x13 feet, however one of the 16 foot sides is open. There is however a structural column in the middle of where the invisible wall would stand. Ideally, I could place the speakers on the other 16 foot wall, but the placement of the column opposite the wall prevents placing any sort of listening chair... So, the speakers are on the shorter wall. The space opens another 26 feet or so past the invisible wall to a built in bar area... The challenges here are numerous, but the fact that one speaker has a corner behind it and the other does not seems the biggest obstacle. I have experimented heavily with diy bass traps including several days spent with a sound meter and test tone cd sampling response... I hope some of this makes sense. I am always grateful for thoughts and advise!

Miles, I can offer you two practical solutions. One will cost a bit and be a bit disruptive (but worth it IMO) the second is cheap, and easy a to try. It might even work -- especially with dipole speakers:
1.) Install two posts to replace the one in the middle and then you'll have a place for your listening chair, or
2.) Place you speakers, freestanding in the opening and in line with the post, and place your listening furniture against the long wall.
.

I have Thiel CS2.3 speakers that were positioned 2 feet from a back wall. Then I moved them 3 feet from the wall. The loss in bass response was less than I had expected but the speakers sounded better overall - there certainly sounded different. I don't strictly follow the Thiel guidelines either as my speakers are about 7.5 feet apart while I am about 10-12 feet from the speakers. I don't have a dedicated listening room; my system is set up in my living room.

Paperw8, there are tables and formulas that specify the relative proportion (not the actual dimensions) of space behind the speaker to space in front of them, and depending on the room's dimensions and volume, what frequency(ies) of standing waves will be generated from those different speaker position, where they will be the strongest, etc. You can't eliminate them, you can only move them around, and hopefully kill them if necessary ;--)

I wouldn't consider having your speakers in your living room a handicap. It's usually the biggest room in the house -- a definite benefit. And as an architect, I've never found a properly placed set of speakers that couldn't work well with a comfortable furniture layout.

By the way, when you describe speaker-to-speaker distance, you should be measuring their center-to-center distance.
When you describe speaker to rear wall distance, it should be from the front (baffle board) of the speaker to the rear wall.
And when you measure speaker to sidewall distance, it should be from the left or right edge (of the left or right speaker) to its adjoining sidewall.