Over the years I've heard lots of discussion about how close is too close to a wall behind front speakers. However, I've never really heard much about having a speaker too far away.

I've got M22s up front and they have a rear port. The obvious test would be to move the speakers nearer and farther from the wall and see how it affects the sound. Unfortunately, I have a stairwell between my speakers and the wall behind them, which means that I can't get them any closer to the wall than the width of the stairwell. That's pretty far from the wall.

So, what's your sense of the impact? Am I losing a lot of the information that's coming out of the ports? Or is it a non-issue?

Whip, nothing is totally "lost", but the bass reinforcement from being close to a wall occurs to a lesser extent.

Another point that can be mentioned is that the bass driver cones should be at unequal distances from the three nearest room surfaces(floor and two walls)to prevent reflections from piling up at the same frequencies and increasing unevenness of response.

start reading at the bottom of page 15. This resource should sufficiently answer your question.


http://www.wilsonaudio.com/pdf/manual_soph3.pdf

+1 for you.

Thanks, Dakkon! That is an approach I've never read about before. Kind of an analog of the "subwoofer crawl" for standard speakers.