What could be instead of side walls?


i've got a living room where the walls are not facing each other equally. there is no place where it's possible to find equally placed side walls. the system is standing right now in the middle and speakers only moved off the rear wall but placed in very large distance from the side walls.
should i use some immitation of side walls arround the system or it's even better not to have any side walls arround?
currently i experience that the stage is out of focus and floating chaotically during reproduction.
128x128marakanetz
Thanks everyone.
I believe that it's everything almost to the point.
My speakers havn't changed and my system is available to look up through the link.
The listening distance is very short which is 5' maximum.
The speakers are placed 9...10' apart from each other.
The side walls are 11' away from left speaker and 10' away from the right speaker. There is a computer work-station attached to the right side wall and made of wood-composit. The distance between the work-station table and the right speaker is approximately 4' The floor is hardwood and it's flexible like a mud.
All else equal, I'd move the speakers closer together so they are only about 5-6' apart if your listening position is only 5' from the speaker plane. It's good to start from an equalateral triangle and then tweak from there. Also start with the speakers tilted towards you. Again, experiment from that initial position.

As a next step, you may want to check the overall reverb characteristics. How far is the listening position from the rear wall? How far are the speakers from the front wall? Depending on that, you might be able to do some relatively inexpensive experimentation with side panels (reflecting vs. diffusing or absorbing) to see if that tightens things up a bit. A lumber yard (plywood sheets) and a couple of friends could do a lot here for purposes of seeing if that helps without spending much money. Lots of ways to go, but I'd move the speakers closer together first. Good luck. Let us know your progress.
Can't agree with Oz's suggestion about introducing side panels, but he's absolutely right about your speaker separation. A chaotic, out-of-focus stage as you described would definitely result from listening at only 5' away while having a separation of twice that much. Try to move your listening position at least a couple of feet farther away if you can without positioning your head closer than two feet from the rear wall, but in either case, do what Oz says and try moving the speakers so they form an approximate equalateral triangle with the listener, then tweak the separation from there. You also don't tell us about the speaker aiming, but straight-ahead firing will create a more diffuse soundstage, while toeing them in to point more at your ears will increase focus. In addition, in a floor covering of some kind is very desirable to use on top of your wooden floor to provide some acoustic absorption, and should be placed underneath the speakers as well to break up the energy transfer from the cabinets to the springy floor (do not use speaker spikes in this situation, but mass-loading the cabinet bottoms with sandbags, if applicable, could help). If you can't get a rug to go beneath the speakers as well as in front of them, then maybe try out Vibrapods underneath, but as it is now, your floor is probably storing and releasing delayed energy, both acoustically, and vibrationally back into the speaker cabinets. The heavier weight of rug you get, the more it will help this. Good luck, and let us know what you do and what happens.
thanks for a great conversation,
as you might know that totem forest speakers have ball bearings. despite that i still use the vibrapods under these ball bearings.
my speakers are directed towards the focus about 6 degrees from normal.
to place them closer to each other i face different problem where i have a 2ch home theater with modest 27" Sony Wega TV. manufacturers say that these speakers are shielded but moving them too close to the TV screen does create screen distortions.
Zaikesman, I was stretching a bit on that second point. Depending on the back wall and front wall distances, the side panels might make a positive difference (would have to work out all the ratios), but I'm with you and would do that as a last resort. Marakanetz, move the speakers as close together as you can w/o messing up your TV -- every little bit helps. By the way, I'm assuming you don't have the TV or anything else in between the speakers -- that would, as I'm sure you know, also mess up the soundstage. Good luck.