Perfect Speaker Placement - Put next to the back wall as much as possible.

@audio2design  I recommend you go the whole hog and just build your speakers into your front wall.  I'm sure that way you'll gain inestimable enjoyment from your system.

I wish I could push my speakers against the wall and get good sound but that hasn't been possible with the loudspeakers I owned in the last 45 years. YMMV.

May I suggest reading the articles the op has posted then. That will tell you how to do it .


The long wall is rarely the best place because room modes are much closer together which makes placement difficult to impossible. Of course, if you are never treating the reflections off the side walls, then the long wall may be better to keep the speakers farther away from those walls.

The best nearfield system I put together had the loudspeakers 5 feet out into the room and the seat 6 feet from that in a tiny room.

Okay, we are already 11 feet to the seating position from the front wall. We are no longer talking about a tiny room as I certainly hope that seating position was not close to the back wall. If it was close to the back wall, then it was no where near ideal unless there was serious acoustic treatment on the back wall which can be quite difficult to do well.

"...May I suggest reading the articles the op has posted then. That will tell you how to do it..."

I did read it, sorry but my Triangles, Martin-Logans, and Maggies don’t work if they are against the front wall.


"...Okay, we are already 11 feet to the seating position from the front wall. We are no longer talking about a tiny room as I certainly hope that seating position was not close to the back wall..."

I had to open the closet door for best sound. Yes it was a very small room. It could saturate if you played too loud, I had some treatments but minimal.


"... If it was close to the back wall, then it was no where near ideal unless there was serious acoustic treatment on the back wall which can be quite difficult to do well..."

Well my audio friends, some audio pros, raved about that system...but what do I know? Ever get an audiophile to rave about anything?

That placement works great and is absolutely the very best speaker placement.... 

Not. 

The 38% rule from the front wall, I would never even attempt it in my 23ft long rectangular room. It somehow would make me miss enjoying two thirds of my beautiful room. However I find that the 38% rule from the back wall is the ultimate position for me. I kept moving my seat between 33% and 43% and somehow I always end up at 38%. No joke. It is the truth. That's where my sound comes out with the widest soundstage where the music comes from the entire front wall, left to right, top to bottom, and yet keeping the clear location and clarity of every instrument. I move back a few inches and I lose some that instrument location and clarity. I move forward a few inches and I lose some of the wide spread soundstage all over the front wall. It is that precise. Of course the room acoustic treatments are totally up to snuff as my house of stereo system shows. All this to say the OP's posted articles are far from being garbage. It is literally not very smart to disregard such information.