HELP Speakers sound brighter and 3D stage is lost


Audiophile Gurus,

I just have moved from a bigger place to this place where my music room is 12x16 fts.

Since the room is small I have placed the speakers about 6 inches away from the walls and about 8+ft apart. Now they don’t sound nearly as good as they did in my old place where there were about 9+ft apart and 4ft away from either of the walls, I use to get a 3D stage and the overall effect was incredible. Since they are new they sounded a bit harsh in my old place as well.

My setup:
Speakers: B&W 802N (only about 30Hrs on them)
Amp: McIntosh 352Mc
CD player: Levinson 39 (I am not using a separate Pre Amp)
Cables: MIT 750 Shotgun speaker cables.
Medium impedance MIT shotgun interconnects.

Is there any thing I can do:

1. to reduce the brightness besides waiting for them to break-in.
2. What can I do to get the 3D image back?
3. Is preamp a must for this configuration?
4. Will a subwoofer like REL help by pressurizing the room?
5. Any other pointers :)

Thanks
Sukhi
sahotas
Thank you all for the great response.

The speakers are on the short wall. I tried placing them along the long wall and they sounded brighter.

The distances were approximate; the 8 ft is from the inside of the speakers.

I will move the speakers as you folks have mentioned and will post the results.

Thanks
Sukhi
Move them out from the walls and dont toe them in also let the thing break in for a couple of hundred hours.
Natalie is right about toe-in. That would put Sukhi directly on axis with the tweeters, making them appear to be even brighter than what he is dealing with now. This would also reduce soundstage width and tend to focus imaging to a smaller, but possibly more pin-point, area.

Like i said, Sukhi has a LOT of experimenting to do with speaker placement and learning about room acoustics. Sean
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