Speakers too wide apart?

While it may vary somewhat with speaker design (dispersion), I believe most speakers will benefit from placement at least 3' from the sidewalls, measured to the HF driver. From my reading, it is desirable to have direct sound arrive at least 10 ms ahead of reflected sound to reduce muddiness and smearing. Fortunately, sound travels at approximately one foot per ms so this makes for an easy calculation. Using a tape measure, the distance from the speaker baffle to the prime listening spot (PLS) should be at least 10' less than from the baffle to the first reflection point on the sidewall and then to the PLS. From this you will see that sidewall distances greater than 3' may be even better.

If you have not read Richard Hardesty's "The Audio Perfectionist" site, he believes most systems are set up with speakers too far apart and that some form of isosceles triangle set up is best, not an equilateral triangle as we once believed.

moving your speakers closer together just changes the first relection point it is still there

fihigh, thank you for the kind words. My speaker are about 5ft 9inches apart measured from the center line of each speaker.

tvad, I do know the mirror trick. My problem is that I cant do anything about the first reflection point anyway since my system resides in the living room. I am not allowed to put up room treatments. I hope to my system into a small den which may not be ideal for my large speakers but I figure I can throw a bunch of room treatments at it and have it sound better than my large living room with no treatments.

shadorne, what can I say, I am pretty dense. It takes a few hundred repititions but I eventually get it. :) I have been lazy in the past to move my speakers because they are so heavy.

After listening to my system all morning I thought I would share some of my thoughts on the differences I am hearing:

1. The bass seems to be deeper. I have always had tight, punchy bass, but now it is sounds like my speakers are going lower. It is as if I added a sub (almost).

2. I am hearing more low level detail, like the exhaling of the singer and the shimmer of cymbals. Notes are also lingering much longer. I have always been a bug believer that a system needs to retrieve all the available detail in order to accurately convey the ambiance of the music, thus making it sound as "live" as possible.

3. The music has more weight and solidity to it. There is a fleshiness and dimensionality that I never had before (dare I say warmth?). This creates a more intimate music setting. Since I listen to mostly small ensemble, acoustic vocalists the recreation of an intimate is exactly what I prefer.

All I can say is that I am very happy. I have been playing cds that I am familiar with all morning and enjoying how wonderful the music sounds. I did not realize how detrimental 1st reflection points are.

It's always nice to discover hidden performance in your gear so keep tweaking, next with toe in/out (as Tvad pointed out) which will help you maximize your soundstage width. This may already have improved when you moved the speakers closer together. Start by aiming the tweeters to intersect to a point on your listening chair right behind your head. You can use a level laser on the top of the speaker just over the tweeter and parallel to the speakers sides to help you aim it. This usually gives you a very tightly focused soundstage. Start towing them out equally little by little until you find the spot you like best. The sound stage will start to open up but will become more sensitive to small changes in speaker placement and the position of your head. If the center image falls to one side you'll need to adjust one of the speakers accordingly. Depending on room size, acoustics, etc. I like to start with equilateral distances between the tweeters and my listening position and be able to see just a little bit of the inner sides of each speaker cabinet - this depends on the width of the speaker cabinet - from the listening position. My speakers are actually just a bit closer to each other than to my listening position which is similar to Pryso's information. Different speakers have different dispersion patterns and room interactions so you need to experiment. You may then try moving the speakers incrementally in all directions again to try to squeeze a bit more out of them (like setting up a cartridge). It's a balancing act to find the best location. You've got a sweet system, it should sound great.