Speakers "To close to the side walls

To expand on Seantaylor99's comments, toe your speakers in so that they cross in front of you, several feet if necessary and you won't get as hot a high frequency response as you would if you were on axis. It might also help to enhance your center image and widen the sweet spot some. To answer your other question, electrostats and panel speakers can sound better closer to the side walls than cone speakers as they radiate much less off axis energy, but to have them as close to the walls as you want you would have to seriously treat the side walls in front of and behind the speakers. Probably not worth it - with cone speakers you only have to deaden the 1st reflection point.

Assuming you are still talking about your Paradigm's, and assuming that you have them toed only slightly in, and assuming that you have not treated the 1st reflection points, yes it could make a substantial difference. HOWEVER, if you had your speakers set up properly before (but for the side wall closeness) your speakers will now be too close together and your stereo image will narrow substantially and the sound could become congested. If you've set them up correctly the first time then you will have to move your listening position much closer to the speakers (about 20 inches).

One of the nice things about setting up your room - its all free except for the labor. Personally, I would start with a set up with your speakers close to the side walls and toed in extremely so they cross in front of you, well in front of you. I would have the listening position about 9.5 feet back from the plane of the speakers (by the way, I assume you have the speakers out several feet from the back wall?). The axis of the speakers would point about 27 degrees past the listening position. Yeh, I know, the speakers look cross eyed that way, but trust me - it can work! I would also get a test disc with tones (see the Rives site) and a Radio Shack sould level meter which will help you select the best location for bass reproduction for both your speakers and listening position. In fact on the Rives site he has a program and you can just plug in your speakers and the room's dimensions and it will give you a suggested starting location. Have fun, this is IMHOP the most fun and frustrating part of audio. And inches (!!!) make a difference.