How do I "compromise" speaker placement

Rule of thumb - speakers placed well out into the room will excite less room modes. Keep away from side walls (at least three feet). Sit at around 40% or room length (do not sit with back against wall - very very bad) Subs are best well out into the room against the left or right wall about 3 feet in front of your mains. Try walking around the room while listening - the best positions or setup will have the broadest sweetspot and most even sound.

You will be surprised but rule of thumb works best - it won't give you that "jaw dropping" sound that you get when something is wrong and one note seems to rumble the whole room - so be careful - best setup is actually the most neutral and the least "sizzle" or "emphasis".

Finally use a PEQ or TACT or PARC to fix the worst of the room modes (notch down the "peaks" and leave the nulls alone and above all DO NOT aim for absolutely perfectly flat with thousands of filters - it often doesn't sound right at all - just "flatten" the bumps to with 3 to 6 db of the average and you may find it the most natural sounding - the lower you go in frequency towards 20 Hz the less relevant it becomes to get absolutely flat - flatish between 40 and 100 Hz is most important to achieve!!)

Very cool room BTW.

Thanks.

But from what I can tell from your picts.

Old pics. Sorry. The actual room is the same, but I did many tweaks over the years. A professional once cam and moved the speakers by ears. I also bought a BIG 2 seater HT seat. I put curtains to block off the bay window amongst many other tweaks. I also have an EQ.

I will have around 8 possible response graphs for every speaker based on different placements.

My current plan in order of priority:
1) The placement that has the least BIG peaks.
2) The placement that has the least BIG dips.
3) Flattest Bass Response

Actually your room is not quite that small. A bit narrow but otherwise I'd consider this a smaller mid-size room.

I only have 8' usable width. I have fire place on 1 side and bookshelves on the other. I also have cabinets in the fron and back of the room. So even though the room might no be so small, usable space is.

Finally use a PEQ or TACT or PARC to fix the worst of the room modes

I decided on the Audyssey EQ after auditioning for some time. I auditioned 2 other EQ's.

Rule of thumb - speakers placed well out into the room will excite less room modes. Keep away from side walls (at least three feet).

Not possible. 3 feet off the wall in a 11’2” width will have the mains less than 4 feet apart. The speakers are about a foot in width.

Most people think that you can measure your way to the best placement, but it doesn't work. See the following thread for something that actually works:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?rspkr&1197744079&openmine&zzDcstep&4&5#Dcstep