Speaker placement


Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone has heard of Bob Robbins speaker placement system and tried it or actually hired Bob himself. I have a difficult room and instead of fumbling around trying different speaker positions with inexperienced listening skills would I be better off hiring Bob? I would also be open to suggestions on speaker placement from everyone here as well. Thanks! 
ronboco
In an Audiogon discussion I came across the  “Allison Rule” of speaker placement.  The poster described it as follows:
The Allison rule basically states that the distances from the woofer to the floor, woofer to the side wall, and woofer to the back wall should be as different as possible. To accomplish this, one would apply the following equation:
Middle distance squared = shortest distance multiplied by longest distance.

Example:
22" (floor to midpoint between woofers, a fixed distance)
57" to side walls (about as far as I could get without bumping furniture)
36" to front walls (the "middle distance")

Compared to Cardas and a couple other formulas, this one seemed to offer a better compromise with practical furniture placement needs (in a space that is not a dedicated listening room). 
Over the years, I've tried numerous speaker placement methods and the Odd Dimensions Placement, advocated by Richard Vandersteen, has always worked best for me. 
Another good trick I learned was go to Axpona in person if you can or use web site to look at how the rooms are set up. You will see more of them using what I call the corner unequal triangle set up. There is an article out there on this but I can recall where it is. This is used to increase sound stage a depth when you have a difficult room configuration or listening position. In general the system is in the corner apex and one speaker is placed in a forward position and the other is further back. Sorry I don’t have more detail as I read in a very passive way knowing I did not have to do it in my room.
I do plan on going to RMAF here in Denver and am going to try to hit Axpona in Chicago. I hope to see some agon members there! 
+1 on MillerCarbons advice. The only way I would differ is that I was able to accomplish quite a lot with treatments after experimenting with placement and doing some measurements with REW software (free). At this point, expensive podiums might help but not nearly as much (in my room) as treatments. Some of the treatments were easy to make myself.