Great to know that you have it all figured out Sumitav. Precedence effect notwithstanding, I maintain my position that anyone who does not believe that room acoustics is, to steal a line from our good friends at Ford, Job One, is sadly mistaken. Your initial short post seems to clearly indicate that some people listen to the room and some to the speakers. Hogwash! Any speaker designer who does not take into consideration that a speaker will be used in a room should go back to the drawing board. Insofar as the original post is concerned, clearly the room treatment used does not satisfy Outlier. Many posters have suggested what they consider will improve the situation. Your near field suggestion is valid to a certain extent. Your suggestion that it is a panacea and precludes taking care of room acoustics is another case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As far as your Bose comment, I will not dignify it with any of my own, except to say that it has to be cheapest way to get a pop on sites such as these. My last recommendation would be to go with the room placement suggested by the manufacturer. Thinking ahead, properly implemented mc systems should, hopefully, cure many of these collapsed sound staging situations.