Speaker distance


In a rectangular room is it better to sit further from the speakers or position the speakers further apart and sit closer to them?  Is it a preference or one better than the other?  I’m looking to build a secondary system and haven’t decided which would be better?  Does anyone have experience with either scenario? 

polkalover

For caster fans,

consider only 3, it’s more weight per wheel, thus moves but further resists moving, and no leveling required anywhere you move them

I also tilt mine back a bit, by putting a 2 x 4 flat above the front wheels, raising the front 1-1/2", which aims the tweeters up to seated ear level, and alters the angles of reflections off the floor and ceiling, as toe-in alters the reflections of side walls.

you can see the bottom here

 

my skirt acts as anti-tip protection. The old glides do not touch the floor, I just left them there.

These wheels are dual wheel furniture casters. I tried several ’better’ casters, I found dual wheel axels wobble far less than single wheel axels, I put these back on.

The wheels came from the bottom of my JSE Infinite Slope Model 2’s.

They had a flat bottom, no skirt. I changed them to 3, moved the rear wheel to the middle, and then added anti-tip blocks in the rear corners, just above the floor, they hit the floor if it tips while moving.

btw, I tried spikes with the JSEs, I heard no advantage, they are quite limiting.

ps, they are often shown backwards, the tweeters should be on the inside edge due to their narrower dispersion. I loved them, a friend has them now, I missed my horns and wanted to get back to tubes.

Per my experience all speakers lock in (image) properly at about 8 ft apart.

Doesn’t matter where one sits. 
 

a desktop setup and near field listening is different. 

I have a similar room to the OP, with my hearing defect, I am not playing with the balance, I am moving the right speakers one meter to the right. It's not Euclidian geometry. I let you know how I get on.

I have a listening room in which I have tried speaker placement on both the long wall and the short wall. I was happy with the long wall placement for years. But when I switched the speakers to the short wall, I was really surprised how the sound changed and IMO, improved. The furniture was re-arranged to allow this.

YMMV.

Additionally, I custom fitted a thick oak board that was inset into the base of each speaker.  The oak boards (with threaded caster wheels inserted) allowed me to move the speakers around for positioning. Since the speakers weigh 180 lbs each, this was very helpful to try a variety of speaker positions, toe-in, aiming, etc. over time.