Set-Up Advice for Vandersteen 1Cs

Finally the Vandersteen 1Cs have arrived... without the floor stands. I'm now attempting to get the seller to ship me the floor stands. It amazes me how incompetent this seller has been with this transaction overall. On the other hand, they sound great and are working well so far.

I have purchased a NAD 3140 as a temporary integrated amp and it is happily driving the speakers along at 40wpc without any issues at all.

Now I'm just working on figuring out placement.
I fear that I might have to get rid of my TV bench/stand in this process and mount the TV on the wall for me to be able to place them close enough together.

They are set on the long wall in a room that has dimensions of 173x141. One side is partially open into a kitchen and dining area.

The couch is faced opposite to them with my listening position about 14-20 inches off of the back wall depending on how I'm sitting.

The TV bench is 71 inches wide with a 50" TV set on it in the centre. The bench itself is 18.5 inches high.
If I place the speakers on either side of the bench with their faces poking out about 4 inches in front, toed in slightly, and about 2 inches off to the side of the bench that puts them about 73 inches apart (from edge to edge). They are currently 15 inches off of the wall behind them and 39.5 and 36 inches off of the side walls. My listening position is about 96 inches back from there.

I feel like I need to bring them closer together, probably around 55-60 inches apart because the soundstage sounds very thin in the middle and pulled out toward the edges.

Perhaps I should wait for the floor stands before I get too deep into this?

Find sweet spot without stands. It's much easier to move them around and you don't have to poke holes on your floor with those stands.
Although they can be driven with low-powered amp, They'd benefit much larger from 100wpc or larger. If you plan to add 2wq sub or pair later you'll get sound superior to 3a performance.
So your future options are: more power and/or sub and/or 2xsub and you'll be in nirvana.

You need 2 things to set your speakers up properly. The stands and the owners manual. There's no way you are going to get it right otherwise. If the seller didn't include the manual, you can download it from Vandersteen's web site. Read through it and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Just follow the formula he gives you. From inside edge to inside edge 6 feet apart is a good starting point. You can go a little wider if you have to. As far as the amp goes, you're OK for power. If you had a pair of 2's, you could make a case for more power, but the 1's just don't need it.

"I feel like I need to bring them closer together, probably around 55-60 inches apart because the soundstage sounds very thin in the middle and pulled out toward the edges."

Once you get the speakers higher up on the stands and set the back tilt, that problem will go away. Also, if you bought a new amp, its probably not broken in yet. Make sure you get at least 100 hours on it before you do any serious listening.

55...60"'s too close. split them at least 6' apart.

You need 2 things to set your speakers up properly. The stands and the owners manual.

I should have the stands by Friday Night, so I'll be doing a lot of that stuff when I get home.

Once you get the speakers higher up on the stands and set the back tilt, that problem will go away. Also, if you bought a new amp, its probably not broken in yet. Make sure you get at least 100 hours on it before you do any serious listening.

Cool. I will look forward to that. Also the amp is like... 1-2 years younger than me. I think it's broken in ;)

55...60"'s too close. split them at least 6' apart.

Currently they are about 73" apart edge to edge from the toed in inside front edge.