Need help with my office system

Nice office system. Listening chair is much too close to the desk, though... :o)

You would hear more detail in the music if the drivers were on a level with
your ears, of course. About the only way to do that with your Arros would be
to take out a shelf or two each side and mount them on the wall--either right
side up... or upside down. (What a cool setup--a pair of floorstanders
mounted upside down on the wall!)

Come to think of it, Arros do sound good with their backs to the wall.
However your chair is much too close to get the best of them that way, and
you can't really sit much further back. A less unreasonable alternative might
be to swap the Arros for smaller monitors. Again I would rather mount these
on the wall, instead of sitting them on a shelf.

Trouble is there are not a whole lot of monitors specifically designed for
positioning real close to the wall. (North Acoustics are one exception,
http://www.northacoustics.com/, check out the Spirit and Kitty Kat
monitors.) This includes front-ported and sealed-box designs, although
these are on the whole less likely to be boomy than rear-ported ones.

I wonder why you would want to give up your tube amp for solid-state
powered monitors, even good ones.

I've had reasonable success wall-mounting monitor speakers with the Smarter
Speaker Support, available on eBay and from UHF Magazine, just google
them. They keep the speaker backs (and the rear port if one is present) at
least 3 inches from the wall.

Now--do you really want to hear more of the music, or do you want to get
some work done? ;o)

I tried putting them on blocks which raise the speakers up about 1ft and I moved them closer to the wall and pointed them directly at my head.

(sort of like studio monitors, but they are further apart)

I get better detail but a shallow soundstage of course and some wierd bass (from bening up on a square wood block)

Maybe I should look at booshelves and just mount them on the wall at the correct level.

How about getting longer speaker cables and putting the speakers on the wall behind your chair? While it might take some getting used to, you're probably not getting much depth of soundstage now anyway, so it might be an improvement. It would certainly give you enough distance for the drivers to integrate.

Another option for this kind of severe nearfield listening would be single drivers. Those here who have used them (not I, yet) could give you some great recommendations, I'm sure.

David

Thats an interesting idea, only problem is that on the opposite wall I have a couch I want to be able to sit back on and listen to the speakers as well at times when I am not working.

Perhaps I should just add a pair of bookshelve speakers up on the bookshelves as "nead-fields" and keep the arro's for relaxed listening.

Either that or suck it up and live with a squashed soundstage while I work and enjoy it when I sit back.