Is there any rule of thumb for speaker placement in regards to distance apart, and distance from side and rear walls? My current setup is in a corner with the listening area about 9 feet away, speaker are 6 1/2 feet apart, with the left front about 8 inches from the wall. Both speakers have about 12 inces room in the rear.
If I move the speakers to 5ft apart, it will give me more side as well as rear clearance. I guess my question boils down to is 5 feet seperation to close?

A great starting point with any speakers is to have the distance between each speaker and you equal, forming an equilateral traingle. So if you sit 10 feet away from each speaker, the speaker should be 10 feet apart.

Another rule to follow is to try to keep the distance between the front face of the speaker and the rear wall different from the distance to the side wall. This will help prevent any woofer in your speaker from being an equal distance from the three nearest surfaces (floor, side, rear) -- a state that can negatively impact your sound.

Check out the George Cardas website, www.cardas.com. He is a long time audiophile and sound engineer who manufactures some very fine but very, very expensive audio cables which are used by many recording studios and sound labs. I heard about George Cardas a long time ago from musician friends. Under the Insights section of his website, his theories of speaker placement is expounded. His ideas of speaker placement is similiar to what I learned in the early 70's for stereo placement. I have already worked with some friends using his placement theories and the results are very surprising and impressive. Rives Audio supplement these theories with very precise audio measurement CD's. All of this may seem like a lot of work, but just approach it as a fun and creative process. Try out the placement equations from George's website and Axiom's placement guides in their newsletters and you will discover some very interesting similarities. Good luck and definitely have fun.

Thanks for that Peter, I learn something everyday....now to run down and measure...

Thanks for the post some very interesting stuff. I think I'll play around abit

I tried as close as 6 and as far apart as 13. I finaly found the spots where listeners don't hear just one speaker and enough spread for a good soundstage.

I have mine about 9 feet apart. That's measuring from the center of the midrange drivers.

I should have said that mine are 7 feet apart, slightly toed in to my chair.

I would like to do as the Kohler faucet commercial on tv.

Take my Axiom system to an architect and say "Design me a home around these!".

Now that's an idea.

Thanks for the help guys, I've got them dialed in perfect now and they sound even better than my initial review. I just moved the whole system over and forward about a foot. That allowed the 80's some more side and rear clearence, and balance everything better in relation to my listening position. The 80's do seem to need a little more space (side and rear) than the 60's did for optimum sound.