Do you really use the formula for speaker placement?


There are lots of good discussions on here about improving the room your speakers are in to get the best listening experience. This includes speaker placement. I've moved my speakers all over creation and found where they sound good to me. But then I saw several "speaker placement calculators" and I thought, great, something else for me to tinker with.  :-)    Besides enforcing the standard guidelines of using an equilateral triangle between the 2 speakers and the sweet spot, and the speakers being equally distant from side walls, the formula specifies the optimum distance from the front and side walls. My room is 15.5 ft x 23 ft. The algorithm says the front of my speakers should be a little over 7 feet from the wall and a little over 4 feet from the side walls. The distance between the speakers then is about 80 inches, which is the measure for the sides of the equilateral triangle. Basically, I was about the same distance from the speakers as they were from the wall. I felt like I might as well be sitting between the speakers. For me, this algorithm did not result in a great listening experience. There are about 5 different algorithms, each arriving at slightly different results. Has anyone found success using one of these algorithms, for example, the Cardas algorithm? Or any other algorithm? Obviously, I'll let my ears be my guide. But I'm always open to the proposition that there's something I don't know that I could benefit from.
pennpencil
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thanks for all of your suggestions. As I imagined, I learned some new tricks, regardless of how many articles I've read and YouTubes I watched. I saw the Youtube mentioned above, rearranged my speakers, and definitely got some better results out of my speakers/room. I read about the Sumiko Speaker Set and will give that method a try tonight. Thank you so much for your contributions.
Thanks for all of your input. I first watched and went by the advice provided in the Youtube video. It was a different approach in that it asked you to start with the speakers literally next to you and move them to the wall. The wisdom is that there would be a point where the speakers disappear. They did. Then the instruction was to move them left/right by about 8 inches. This provided a good result. Then, I tried the Sumiko Speaker Set method. Interesting. It starts with finding the place in your room where the bass comes through the best. So, it starts with one speaker only, and the setup is predicated on excellent bass. You'd think the placement would be right next to the front wall. I am much more interested in imaging and the soundstage than a loud thump. So, the place for the left speaker turned out to be close to the placement for the youtube video method. The Sumiko Speaker Set method then went into seeing if the sound stage was "slanted." if one speaker is too loud, move it back, etc. Then, it went into toeing the speakers. I know we've all done this but I thought I was  no-toe guy until I finally understood that no-toeing can produce a thinner sound. I like a wide sound stage but I understood that I was trading off a richer sound. Then the methodology went into slanting the speaker a little up, which I'm not able to do. Takeaway: I knew speaker placement was important but I was surprised how big a difference very small distance changes make. Obviously, sound is made of waves, so distance makes a difference. I was just surprised by how much. I liked the concept of "slant," which I'd not heard before. In the end, the Sumiko method created a much more 3 dimensional sound stage. both methodologies arrived at the same distance from the front wall. With sumiko, the speakers were about 10 inches further apart and toed in. Sumiko seems to account for the room's acoustics more than the other method. Anyway, the differences were noticeable, the improvement was free, and it was a fun exercise. Thanks for the input.
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