Room Acoustics Problem????

I have experienced the exact same problem as you in pretty much the same size room! A number of fixes for me. First, I discovered that one speaker was about 2db louder (near cone measurement), I replaced some tubes to equalize output. Second, speaker placement, front to back, side to side, and amount of toe in all effect this to some extent. Third, room treatments can make a large difference as well, something like an echobuster at your first reflection point on your wall should help (curtains may help some as well).
Goinbroke makes an interesting observation in that it as much the lack of reinforcement on the speaker in the open area that is part of the problem. Some sort of free standing combination absorber/reflector at first reflection point might help. I plan on experimenting with this as well. In the meantime there are times when I still have to use the balance control.

how far are the speakers from the side and back wall? In that room they should be about 5" apart and 3-4" away from the back wall you should be sitting about 4' off the back wall.

Thanks for your responses. Currently, I have my speakers toed in slightly. According to an article I read from a link posted on this site, I toed the speakers inward, pointing towards an imaginary spot 5' behind the listening position (ie...assuming the two speakers and the "listening position" form an equilateral triangle, the speakers are toed in to a point 5' behind the listening postion). As one of you suggested, I tried toeing in the left speaker more than the other, but this only resulted in a rather confusing soundstage. I'll try moving the right speaker forward a couple inches to see if that makes a difference.

You are correct in assuming that the lack of reflections from the right speaker are contributing as well to the decreased volume from that particular speaker. Unfortunately, it's impossible for me to close off that space or to add a hard wall divider (I technically could do it..but it would really look stupid!). I suppose I'll try hanging up some temporary curtains to see if that helps the problem; real curtains can easily cost more than a new audio component though!

I've never heard of "echobusters" before. I'll try doing some research to see if that might help me.

As a very last resort, I'll use that nasty balance control to try to solve the problem, although I really don't like the idea of doing so!

By the way, my speakers are set up approximately 16" from the back wall...and my left speaker is about 2' from the side wall. My speakers are rear ported so placing them any closer to the back wall creates a boomy/muddy bass response. The speaker placement is based on the location of my wall mounted television. The right speaker, as I mentioned earlier, is not located next to a side wall (just an open space/hallway leading to my dining room).

Tony

Use the balance control, you might be surprised! Any added distortion, if you can hear it, surely is less than the "distortion" that you are experiencing now.
With your unbalanced room/speaker placement, there will always be some unsatisfactory element to the sound.
In fact, another solution, would be to equalize the sound from the speaker with the two boundaries, but gosh that might introduce some other "detectable" distortion, which, again, might be worse than what you have.
Another more acceptable way (at least to the cable crowd)to equalize for one channel, is to get a different speaker wire for that channel.
Salut, Bob P.

If you live in a big city you might be able to find a place that sells second hand hotel curtains, the better ones are what they call blackout curtians they absorb light + sound. but it is not a wall,you can make an absorbing panell on a stand and move it in place for critical listening, if you want to go cheap even a used office divider will help.