It depends on the size of the room too. In my small room the listening position from the rear wall is about 2 feet(Tiofelon -I think we need to get the front/rear wall description right in the first place).
Personally I guess folks can either choose to place the listening chair at # feet from the rear wall or against it to achieve the best results that suit his room/ears/listening preference. Nevertheless, I believe it is still prudent to have some space from the rear wall to the listening chair for optimum results IMO. Shadorne's 4 feet - 8 feet can be useful in large spaces but not feasible for smaller rooms. It is more important to treat the wall behind the listener with absorption or diffusion(personally I prefer diffusion).
To summarize, try different configurations and adopt the one that sounds the best to your ears. Speaker placement and listening distance relative to wall boundaries are all correlated.
Personally I guess folks can either choose to place the listening chair at # feet from the rear wall or against it to achieve the best results that suit his room/ears/listening preference. Nevertheless, I believe it is still prudent to have some space from the rear wall to the listening chair for optimum results IMO. Shadorne's 4 feet - 8 feet can be useful in large spaces but not feasible for smaller rooms. It is more important to treat the wall behind the listener with absorption or diffusion(personally I prefer diffusion).
To summarize, try different configurations and adopt the one that sounds the best to your ears. Speaker placement and listening distance relative to wall boundaries are all correlated.