Have you gotten great sound in a small er room?

Sure, but my room (19.5 x 13.5 x 9) has two large openings one on the long wall and one on the short wall. The speakers are on the short wall 10' apart and 5.5' off the wall behind them. The my ears are about 4.5' off the back wall. The system is triangulated and the center is a few inches off center to change radiation patterns. The speaker's, on-axis, are toed in well in front of the listening chair to reduce sidewall reflections and change the ceiling radiation patterns. Room treatments are limited to strategically placed domestic furnishings including an 8xll ft rug. Sounds pretty good to my ear. :-) BTW, it took me a long time to get this system set up and it included finding speakers that worked best in it as well as electronics.

I tried setting them on the long wall but I was unable to get the same 'spaciousness' and bass response. I did however get an excellent near field response, sans bass, due to the elimination of much of the reflections.

Easier than in a big room, unless its REALLY small.

My room is 13.5 x 22 x 8, and is wood-panelled. I have the speakers placed along the short wall, firing along the long dimension of the room. See the pix and the last paragraph of the first post in my system description for further particulars.

Obviously there are many variables and dependencies that relate to your question, including the radiation patterns of the particular speakers. But FWIW, in my particular setup I've been very pleased with tonality and imaging, and the one significant room-related anomaly I've perceived is a deep bass suckout centered at around 45 Hz.

I've determined via measurements with test tones and an SPL meter that the cause of that is a rear wall reflection, the distance between my listening position and the rear wall being about 6 feet. Which surprised me somewhat, because the central part of the rear wall is an opening to another room.

Rear wall reflections will cause a deep bass suckout, to some degree, centered at a frequency in Hz of about 281.5 divided by the distance in feet from the listener's ears to that wall (281.5 is the speed of sound in dry air at 68 degrees F (1126 feet per second) divided by 4).

So while placement along the long wall would have the advantage of reducing the magnitude of side-wall reflections, a potential disadvantage is that the reduced distance between the listener and the rear wall will raise the frequency of that deep bass suckout. The last paragraph of Newbee's post, describing his experience, seems consistent with that. And of course additional issues may come into play with long wall placement if the speakers cannot be positioned far enough from the front wall to be optimal for their particular radiation patterns.

As is usually the case in audio, tradeoffs and compromises are inevitably involved, which are generally system and room dependent.

Regards,
-- Al

I have something that you may want to try. Given all the variables it doesn't always work, but its a worthwhile experiment. Put each speaker in front of a different wall.

To visualize, you start off by facing your listening chair directly at one of the corners of the room. Use the corner as the center point of where your speakers are placed. You'll still have to try different placement options.