Okay Peter, I'll give it a shot. I suppose that I learned this stuff as much as 20 years ago, a lot of it from articles in the late and lamented Audio magazine, which combined technical and non-technical approaches quite well. Although I also have enough technical training to be able to understand some of the stuff in technical journals, I prefer it when the math doesn't get much beyond 2+2.
This area involves two separate acoustical phenomena:1.standing waves(modes, resonances)which affect speakers placed close to room surfaces at frequencies in relation to the dimensions of the room in wavelengths; 2.boundary reinforcement(and cancellation)which affects all frequencies(not just the standing wave frequencies)where the speaker is "very close"(hence the 1/10th rule-of-thumb)to the room boundaries. As far as I know, the Audio material isn't available online. One thing I did find was
this somewhat awkward translation from the Swedish of a discussion of the two phenomena as they relate to sub placement.
Some of the Audio articles, which my library has, and which I suppose your library has or can get photocopies, etc. of if you're interested are : Weinberg and Ferstler,"Bass Versus Space", Audio,July/August 1999;Allison,"The Best Place For Your Speakers? Your Computer Knows!", Audio, August 1994; Noussaine,"Birth Of The Boom" Audio, June 1998,and also "2 subs in a corner beats 5 in The Round", Audio,June 1996, and still further "The Lowdown On Getting The Most Out Of Your Bass Box", Stereo Review, January 1995.
Much of this is based on research done almost 50 years ago by Waterhouse("Output of a Sound Source in a Reverberation Chamber and other Reflecting Environments",Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol.30,No.1,January 1958). So this isn't just my theory, but it appears valid to me and the bass sounds good.
