Help with imaging

PS: My center image was off even when I listened in the near field, so it was not a room problem.

If you have not already try switching(left/right) a pair of interconnect, and maybe speaker cable (with interconnect switched back to normal) in order to eliminate the question of an electronic phenomenon. If the sound is still leaning to the right and it is not too much trouble, try to make your room as symetrical as possible. I have also had this problem, and when I moved my computer monitor from one side of the desk to the other, the vocals settled in the middle. In any case, don't compare your 5.3's soundstaging with other speakers. Different speakers load rooms differently, and the other pair somehow may be more immune to your right side leaning. I have noticed this with my bookshelfs. They never had a problem with soundstaging, it was the floorstanders that required a little work. Good luck, I know that problem can get a little annoying.

Wywhcan has the easiest solution. If your speaker set up is symetrical but your room isn't then don't expect balanced sound in the listening spot. I've been toeing in and out for months and discovered if I toed the left channel speaker more, which has a sofa beside it and about ten feet of room to the side wall, then it sounds balanced with the right channel, which doesn't have as much room. I'd read somewhere that you should just experiment until it sounds right and don't worry about the aesthetics.
Regards,

I've got one other possible cause- it could be that your left ear needs to be cleaned. Jay

I think it's most likely a room thing, even though you say it doesn't happen with other speakers and happens in other rooms. Perhaps the Soliliquy's have a radiation pattern that is susceptible to whatever the room problem is, and perhaps the other room you tried happens to have similar characteristics.

The most likely culprit is a reflection or diffraction to the side of the right speaker. Imagine you put a mirror up against the wall to the right of the speaker, located so that as you look at the mirror you see the tweeter. The mirror is at the first sidewall reflection point. Pay particular attention to absorbing or diffusing the sound at that point.

Another possibility is a diffracting surface between the speakers, like a widescreen TV or something.

Are there any diffracting discontinuities to the right of the right speaker? Like the edge of a bookshelf, or a table, or a door frame? If so, try covering the feature up with a towel and see if that helps. Also, is there a doorway or other "hole" behind the right speaker? That would also tend to pull the image in that direction. In that case, the fix requires a bit more experimentation.

You might make sure that there are no screw heads sticking up around the tweeters, just to eliminate that possibility. A screw head is small, but close to the tweeter it actually interacts with a sizeable portion of the tweeter's output.

One final question - do the sibilants - the "sssss" sounds - seem to come from the same point in space as the rest of the vocalist's voice? If the sibilants are off to one side, that will pull the image over. Possible causes are a high frequency imbalance, which you seem to have eliminated, and/or reflection or diffraction of the highs. If the two speakers sound the same (placed side-by-side with a mono source, switching back and forth) then it's most likely a room thing.

Good luck!