Speaker placement Quandary

@fthompson251 

Actually, it is not best to have your speakers well out into the room as long as the first reflection points on the front wall are damped. The position of the listening chair is way more important. What happens is bass being omnidirectional changes it's nodal pattern as you change the distance to the front wall. Usually you will notice a change in the quality of the midbass. Paul Klipsch always recommended that you put his speakers right up against the wall or in a corner, Cornwall. I think most of the tower speakers I have heard do well 2 to 3 feet away from the front wall again as long as the wall is treated correctly. My own speakers are planar dipoles. Since they are towed in the distance to the front wall is from 2 to 3 feet. The wall behind the speakers is covered with acoustic tile. I also have total EQ control over the systems frequency response and I measure the system's performance. 

Vision and hearing have a very complex relationship. What you see will affect what you hear. Close your eyes when you listen and imaging will become for distinct. 

The soundstage should always be as wide as the speakers unless some slick phasing is done as in Roger Water's Amused to Death album. If it is wider you are listening to reflections off the side wall which is bad because it ruins image specificity, distinctness. What most people interpret as depth is really echo added to the recording or venue the recording was recorded in. Echo makes you think you are in a larger room. Most systems do 2 dimensions fairly well. The third dimension is not the echo. It is the sense that the individual or instrument is a three dimensional object standing in space very much like a visual hologram. This is an effect that very few systems can manage. It also requires a good live recording. Studio recordings are usually all over the place.

There is lots of good advice here.  Corners can make the low end bloom.  Go to the corner when you are playing something that has some bass to it.  You'll hear it if it's there.  Also, try moving your happy seat forward and back a little at a time to optimize imaging and soundstaging.

The way I position my speakers is I put on one the left side and the other on the right side. Works every time.

There is no single right answer when it comes to best speaker placement. Each case is unique. It usually requires some experimentation to get best results.

It is always the case typically that distance from walls and corners determines bass levels. Soundstage and imaging is typically related to speaker sound radiation pattern. Good speaker reviews will measure that and it is useful to help identify what placement in a particular room might work best. The SPL levels in the direction of walls are important but have to be managed carefully for good soundstage and imaging. Omnidirectional, bipolar and rear ported designs will tend to require more distance to walls for best results compared to others.

Nice system! My dedicated listening room is similar in size to yours, and I have my speakers placed almost exactly as you have yours. I have smaller 2-way towers that would benefit from some bass reinforcement if I moved them back a bit, but it comes at the price of a less deep 3D soundstage and not quite as good at pulling off a complete disappearing act, and that’s not a worthwhile trade off at least for my tastes. The only thing I’d consider if I’m you — and I’ve gotta try this too in my system and as the very wise @ghdprentice mentioned above — is to reduce the height of the equipment stack to about half what it is now. My stack is directly between my speakers and a bit over 3’ tall, and visually it’s just in the way and I’m sure doing me no favors sonically. Like you, and for similar reasons, I’m not willing to relocate my equipment to the side as much as I’d like to, but hopefully some day as I’d really love to eventually make that happen. That’s all I got FWIW.