room setup

Two feet behind the front may be OK -- let your ears be the judge of whether another foot or two would improve things. For when you do some serious listening, you could try throwing an acoustic blanket over the TV -- it's a lot easier than moving it and may give you OK results.

OK. Let's see. A 32" TV you say? (diagonal?) And let's say the front face is represented by a 32" dia. disk. 32" is 2.6 feet. If you let that dimension be the length of the half wave it will reflect, then the full wave dimension is 5.2 feet. If you divide the speed of sound (approx. 1100 ft./sec.) by 5.2, that would be a frequency of 211 Hz.

The TV will be essentially invisible to any sound below that frequency, since it won't reflect them, and as for sounds above 211 Hz, unless you're using a dipole/planar type speaker, there probably will be minimum reflection, since most frequencies above 211 Hz (and certainly above 500 Hz) will be projected forward.

Switching to front projection was the second best thing I've done for my two channel sound.

A blanket on top of the TV would kill high-frequency reflections, which aren't a real problem because the speaker is more directional at those frequencies. It won't do anything for lower frequencies which are hitting it.

Hey all, good input. I never thought of using the blanket. I do most of my "critical" listening at night with the light off so cosmetics not an issue. Try it you will like it.

A projection TV with a drop down screen is definitely on the wish list for the future.

I like the idea of the blanket as well. My wife makes designer quilts and I have one the size of my 60" RPTV, which is recessed into the wall leaving 16" projecting out into the room. My speakers are about 18" in front of the plane of the TV and 22" to the sides. Your distance will be different depending on your speakers' radiation pattern, height, timbre, etc. It is a reflective surface and scattered high frequencies. The sound is alot truer and natural with the blanket in place. Good luck