For philes who have spendor or know spendor

I've heard numerous Spendor speakers placed fairly close to the back wall. Their newer, floorstanding speakers, like the S5e and the S8e sound pretty good, if you are not a bass freak or play speakers at very high volume.

Personally, I like their older, "classic" models, which are warmer sounding and seem a bit more musical, although they don't conform to current favor (punchier upper midrange/treble).

The larger Spendor speakers, like the S-100, are often not good near a wall because the bass becomes too prominent.

I would also look into the Audionote line of speakers. They are specifically designed for near wall placement. All of their speakers are extremely musical, natural and relaxed sounding (but NOT dull sounding). They too don't curry to common audiophile taste for apparent detail, transparency, etc. They just sound great.

I own a pair of S3/5 SE's. To date they're my favorite 2 way monitors (& I've owned Merlins, a couple of different B&W's, etc.). I have mine placed 1 ft. from a wall in a 10x11 ft room--they are awesome, with amazing bass, resolution, etc........

Steve, I have a 12x24 room open at one end. Do you, or others, think that the s3/5se's will fill this space?

Thanks to Larry and Steve. Anyone else out there have experience with the Spendors...especially the S5e.

Most any speaker with a rear firing port is going to cause some problems with placement.The new Spendor line have a narrow shute type of port and they say it helps with the chuffing and bloating .
However the 'Elegance'Spendor series line ended in about 2002, all had a front firing round port.
I have the FL-6 model of that series.
Anyways it has about the same stats give or take compared with the newest S5e.
I have no problem with the back wave as in rear ported designs.And as far as sound I think the FL-6 outperforms the newer 5e by a wide margin, and placement is far easier.
Your other questions about size , I would not go for the 3/5's as they will not at all fit the room.They'll run out of gas before they'll get loud enough and although they image amazingly well they tend to restrict the size of the sound stage and sizing of performers.
In your room I would try to get the FL-8 model.It is a nice size, 36" high x 9 1/2" wide x 15 1/2" deep and freq.resp. 43hz - 20khz .or the FL-9 which is larger still.
I use a Von Schweikert vs-1 8" sub with mine in winter and Maggie 1.6 in summer and blends perfectly with two entirely different speaker designs.Thats a little off the topic.
Good luck,
Peter D