You poor bugger! That is a pretty restrictive picture you are painting in-so-far as getting decent performance out of some speakers goes. It strikes me that a wide dispersion speaker design like the aforementioned ProAcs and Avalons would be a very bad idea. All speakers of that nature project full-range sound almost omni-directionally and need lots of unrestricted breathing space around them to work well.
What you should be looking at are speakers that have a limited dispersion characteristic and an over-damped bass that won't get boomy with near wall placement. Of conventional speakers, the only ones that come to mind are Dunlavys and Duntechs. The original designer of both and current designer/principle of Dunlavy insets his tweeter and mids into the cabinet with a surround of dense foam to both time-align and control the directivity of these drivers. He also favors the overdamped bass you will need, designing sealed cabinet woofer alignments in big boxes. I would look at the Dunlavy 3 and 4. My experience with the 4s in a near-rear wall set-up was very positive. However, it would be good if the sidewalls were at least 3-4 feet away.
A more radical approach to controled dispersion would be to consider horn speakers. The throat of the horn serves to focus the speakers output over a very defined area and thus avoid reflections off of nearby objects that would otherwise color the sound. Good Luck!
What you should be looking at are speakers that have a limited dispersion characteristic and an over-damped bass that won't get boomy with near wall placement. Of conventional speakers, the only ones that come to mind are Dunlavys and Duntechs. The original designer of both and current designer/principle of Dunlavy insets his tweeter and mids into the cabinet with a surround of dense foam to both time-align and control the directivity of these drivers. He also favors the overdamped bass you will need, designing sealed cabinet woofer alignments in big boxes. I would look at the Dunlavy 3 and 4. My experience with the 4s in a near-rear wall set-up was very positive. However, it would be good if the sidewalls were at least 3-4 feet away.
A more radical approach to controled dispersion would be to consider horn speakers. The throat of the horn serves to focus the speakers output over a very defined area and thus avoid reflections off of nearby objects that would otherwise color the sound. Good Luck!