Loudspeakers should be pointed directly at you. Also, the main problem I see with your seating position is you're only two feet in front of the wall behind you. The inevitable peaks and nulls are always worst right in front of a wall. So you should consider absorption on that wall, especially the area directly behind your head.My seating position is 12 feet from the screen. Should I be concerned about sound quality issues with this sort of setup? Should I have the speakers facing a bit away from me for better quality?
Depends entirely on the speakers and distances involved. If the speaker has an off axis response at the reflection point that is very similar to the on axis response, and if the speaker system is of low resonance, and if the delay between on axis and arrival and reflection arrival at the listener is at least about 4msec, then the reflection is highly desirable. Such a reflection under these rare set of circumstances would be distinctly beneficial, increasing timbre resolution in the signal and increasing perceived sound quality and in better giving an impression of the recorded spatial information(if present), according to the credible perceptual [1][2] texts on this subject.I disagree with the lattermost point, because one other benefit of toeing in speakers is that one minimizes interaction with the near side walls. If anything, at longer distances maximizing the direct sound compared to reflections becomes more important.
Well, the ideal delay is roughly in the 4-10 msec range. Which is dictated by spacing of the speaker from wall and the vector path to the listener. A 2-4' space/distance from the side wall would be sufficient in most cases. However, it is unfortunate that not many speakers will have an off axis response sufficient to make this reflection a real benefit. This side reflection would roughly correspond to about 55-60 degrees off axis response of the speaker, on average, considering typical set ups and slight toe-in. I don't know of many speakers(at any price range) that have a very similar response of the on axis response at such an angle. Typically, at 60 degrees, the off axis is a radically different curve; not ideal.... and in most cases, reflections are longer than that and the off-axis response is VERY different from the on-axis so the reflection should be absorbed.
All of this assumes we're speaking of mid and high frequencies. Low frequency reflections off of very near surfaces can cause severe response abberations and need to be absorbed.
Bryan
