Which loudspeakers work best close to back wall?

As a general statement, speakers with that have downward or front ports tend to do better close to walls than those that are rear-firing.

You can download the Vandersteen in room compensation CD
off their website and see how far off you are
Take a SPL meter and measure Average 70 db rt ch track 1- 11 and left ch 15 - 26 and see what you
have now with your existing speaker.
The Vandersteen treo will work close and Quatro has the room compensation feature built in.
JohnnyR Vandersteen dealer

There have been a number of threads on this. You might do a search on "near wall," "Guru," and "Northcreek." Guru and North both make "near wall specific" designs; a pair of Northcreek Eskas resided happily in my system for five years.

Some of the Montana line are D'Appolito arrays that like to play pretty close to , their imposing side. Audio Notes are corner loaded, and work lose to boundaries.

John

Whoops, some missing words: meant to say Montanas can play pretty close to boundaries, despite their imposing size.

John

If a rear-ported speaker is tuned specifically for placement close to the walls(s), it works just fine in such a location. That's one of AudioNote's secret weapons - a low-tuned rear-ported box whose basss response relies on generous boundary reinforcement. In other words, the "native" response of the bass system (before room gain) is roughly the inverse of what room gain adds, so that ( when positioned as recommended) the net result is remarkably smooth and extented bass for such a small, high-efficiency box.

While not rear-ported, the little Guru on-wall speaker is likewise tuned so that its native response is the approximate inverse of room gain.

Stereophile published quasi-anechoic measurements of the Audio Note AN-E, and I think SoundStage published similar measurements of the little Guru, if anybody wants to look them up and see examples of room-gain-complementary bass tuning.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer