Speakers good for close to wall placement

Plus 1 or 2 for Audio Note. I have the E’s in the corner with low watt tubes and sound amazing IMO. Depending on your budget Audio Note Amps  are wonderful as well or for less expensive, Quicksilver are fantastic.

Depending on your space, an Ohm Walsh prefers to be at least a few feet away from a wall/walls...  Some have a small 'footprint', so that may not be an issue.
They can be a bit fussy, being at heart an omni.
If you absolutely have to be on the wall, walk on by.... ;)

Happy hunting, J

The Scansonic MB1 B, MB2.5 B and MB3.5 Bs are all designed for near wall placement.  
When Michael Borrensen left Scansonic/Raidho the Scansonic line was completely redesigned so that the break-in time was radically reduced and the three models were explicitly designed to work within 1’ of a wall.

Not theory.  In practice, this happens.  I have a customer who put MB3.5 Bs in his living room.  Has them like 9” from the back wall and they are wonderful.  I helped him set them up.  

He uses a PrimaLuna integrated in triode to drive them which is like 35w.  
These check all your boxes and deliver a huge, immersive soundstage.  

+1 on the Vandersteen Quatro Woods. Mine are 8" (back) and 10" (side) and sound great

It sounds from your requirements that Vandersteen or especially Cube Audio would fit very well.  We have both speakers for demo.

https://eastendhifi.com/cube-audio-nenuphar-speakers-a-desert-island-speaker/

Chris

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649682044-larsen-4-mahogany-speakers-most-recent-revision-like-n...

saw this just now

as mentioned previously

Since all rooms are different makes them a moving target, with peaks that vary from plus 12 DB on one channel and normal or minus 4 DB on the other if your serious about performance then DSP wont do. For many years we have been successfully installing dozens of Vandersteen phase and time correct speakers tune able in your home with superb results.Yes even 3 inches from wall and in corners!!Their adjustments are easily done in the analog domain taking music, performance and confidence in your system to another level.   Best, JohnnyR

I made a post on this thread about using Digital Room Correction (DRC) and putting the speakers close to the wall. The @millercarbon was sighing and in tears when I posted that saying that is a bad idea.

Well this past Friday, I finally got to hear my room optimized by DRC. I got my DRC done by AcousticSound.ca. That is for my digital only playback via ROON. My analog sources are not part of my DRC solution since I am doing this via the way more powerful computer software and not weak hardware like many here have done. Doing this via software (Audiolense or Accurate) is complicated and that is why I outsourced this work. My analog sources are used mainly with my headphone so no DRC needed.

So far, I have received 1 of 6 Convolution filters (I paid for) to plug into ROON (can also use JRiver). Well, my mind is blown with the first attempt. Incredible improvement over the sound without DRC. My room is acoustically treated and sounds great with a KEF LS50, which is an appropriate speaker from my crappy office. Without the treatments even my LS50’s sounded awful.

Well I wanted floor stander in the office because I like them so much better. This is where the DRC had to come into the picture to make the speaker work (Thiel CS3.7). The way my solution works is that ROON functions as a software audio equalizer on my digital file or stream BEFORE the bits are sent to my DAC. It alters the frequency curve that will be reproduced by my speakers to be optimized for my room.

This post I link below is where I gush over how a "big speaker fits into a small room". I have photos of my room and links to technical references which include another persons play-by-play example of exactly what I did using Tekton speakers.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/room-correction-roon-rew-room-eq-wizard/post?postid=2064340#2...

BTW - the guy doing my system is a bit of a rock star in this DSP field. At least that is my perspective after reading his book and reading his incredible articles and posts on computeraudiophile.com

A teaser quote from the author of the article.

Yes, we can using specialized loudspeaker and room correction DSP software designed to solve these problems. I have written numerous articles about it, including a book, but in this article, we are only interested in “what” it can do and not “how” it does it. The latter is for another article as this type of highly specialized DSP is mostly misunderstood. Further, very few DSP products provide the needed time domain correction capability. Finally, the “effectiveness” of so-called Digital Room Correction (DRC) products vary wildly. The top two or three DSP software products in this category far outpace other products by a wide margin based on my experience evaluating just about all of them over a ten year period.

 

So let’s jump right to the results of applying SOTA DSP loudspeaker and room correction to John’s already excellent loudspeakers. Remember what the DSP is accomplishing is restoring the ideal loudspeaker response arriving at our ears with no frequency or timing distortion.

KEF R series.  Use the port plugs for positioning close to the wall.  

For the sake of information, here's another near-wall speaker design by Troels Gravesen: 8008-CORNER

System sensitivity: 92 dB/2.8V, 1 meter

Troels used an 8 watt Joplin 2A3 amp with these speakers which he preferred over a First Watt J2 amp.  

Second to say Wilson Audio Duette 2's work great against a wall and that is what they were designed for.  I drove them with Raven Audio Reflection MK2 tube amp in a very large room and the sound was incredible.  

If you are looking at Klipsch, then you should also consider Viking Acoustic.  They have speakers for any budget.   I have on order the Grande Voix.  

If you want more information on Raven let me know.  Super amps, phenomenal customer service and an endless supply of vintage tubes.  

Willgolf3030. I have looked at Raven and their equipment looks really good. Another toy catching my eye is a pair of monoblocks from Amps and Sound - haven’t heard them, but they are beautiful. For speakers, I am currently interested in some from Volti Audio. Super efficient. I still have time, so I’ll probably change my mind ten times by August. 

Another huge thanks to everyone and their suggestions. You all have really opened up my mind to new possibilities. I must have been living under a rock the last few years. 

Audio Note

Just to revisit a little:
I’ve used Naim NBLs for several years now. Their sound optimised in my last room with the backs of the speakers 5.5cm from the (solid) wall behind them, not counting the external crossover. I could hear the difference in the level of emotion conveyed in the recording I was playing as I moved them 5mm either way of that. I this position they out imaged the pair of Thiel CS1.6s that preceded them and took up less of the room despite their considerably larger size. You won’t find a pair at all easily (230 odd were made) and they’re all getting a bit old on any case. I’ve recently moved and lost a tweeter in the process so haven’t set them up in their new room yet (I kept the Theils just in case) and am in the process of obtaining replacement tweeters. I haven’t dared look at the state of the internal foam but the driver surrounds don’t seem to perish. 

Of the other boundary speakers I’ve heard the Audionote Es have impressed with their scale and general all round musicality but I’ve only heard them with Audionote UK amps except for once with a Tom Evans Linear A with the recent adjustable feedback upgrade, the combination was rather good.

Naim DBLs do scale and emotion but the pair I heard had slightly weird imaging, despite this they were very engaging. The bass driver surrounds will be breaking up by now but ACT will repair them. The internal foam is also getting brittle but is replaceable.

One that hasn’t been mentioned yet and I’ve not heard is the xulyde md1 (there’s a larger md3 as well) these appear to be made on the French/German border and look like they’re inspired by the Naim allaes, 

I’d love to hear a pair of Larsen 9s some time.