honashagen wrote: Tannoy XT8F placement from the user manual:

Begin by angling the speakers towards your chosen listening position, usually this is on the centre line of the room,
so that when seated you can just see the inner side panel of each speaker. The front of the loudspeaker should
not be obstructed in any way. The loudspeakers should be located between 1.5 to 4.5 metres (5 ft to 15 ft) apart -
with the listening position set slightly further away than the speakers are apart. Avoid positioning the loudspeakers
in corners of the room, as this will have a negative effect on performance. Ideally, maintain a distance of at least
0.5 metres (20”) from the rear wall, and 1 metre (39”) from the side.

EXACTLY! And that is what GET is also stating. This is an excerpt from Sandy's Setup Tips:

I like the Tritons (all of them) spaced quite far apart if possible, at least as far apart as you are from each (equilateral triangle) or even further. This is not absolutely necessary, but they will sound their best. I find that any good speaker, not just the Tritons, if they have good center fill (with great imaging due to excellent horizontal dispersion), sound best like this. I also like them toed in right at the listener.

In my experience, the further apart your speakers are relative to the distance to PLP the more they need toed in to maintain center fill. Note I'm not talking about the OBVIOUS fact that as you move the speakers farther apart you need to toe them in more to keep them aimed at the listener. E.g. if the speakers are 10 feet apart and 12 feet from the PLP, my experience has been that they sound better toed in so they intersect at an imaginary point behind the listener. If the speakers are 15 feet apart and only 12 feet from the PLP, I think you start to need them pointed more directly at the PLP to maintain center fill. I never toe my speakers in to the point where they are pointed directly at me. I always like to see a little bit of the inside panel of the speakers.

Two more cents worth from me:

Type of music most listened to may be significant as related to speaker placement. For example, I listen mostly to classical music. My ideal sound stage would replicate a concert hall stage if I close my eyes. However, recording techniques and musician placement during recording will impact what I hear. Example: If I am listening to and watching live a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the placement will typically be as follows:

1. Four soloists seated next to each other stage front
2. Orchestra spread out across the stage directly behind the soloists and conductor
3. Chorus seated behind the orchestra and standing during singing of the choral parts of the 4th movement.

However, a recording may mike the soloists individually and present them L/R depending upon who is singing at a specific moment. The chorus may also be multi-miked and their placement in the recorded sound stage will depend upon what the engineers did at the mixing stage.

So, a recording may or may not convey the same "closed-eye" sound as a live performance.

I would suspect a rock group recording would present different challenges for listening.

Art

I prefer classical music recorded with 2 or 3 mics. Reference recordings are a spectacular example.

honashagen wrote: And.....as good as everything sounds it looks like the murky sounding mids are not going away. Bummer.

I'm going to have to side with everyone else here too, the speakers are just not that sensitive to room placement or room acoustics to go from good to bad. And I also must disagree with the whole idea that this is just "opinion", the NRC's landmark study very clearly established that virtually every listener preferred very much the same thing from a loudspeaker. And, in my experience, once you get to the "good stuff", everything sounds remarkably similar.

I go back to my very first post, sounds like something is broken (or wrong).

Things didn't just go bad. It takes time to realize the Tritons may not be for me. I hate that! This was the most I ever spent on speakers. I was going by all the reviews not my ears. If you dig around you find other people that feel the mids are veiled or subdued. I'm not the only one. I started to notice I wasn't hearing inside the music. There was not enough "air" around things. The reverb whether natural or added was harder to hear. Pipes in a pipe organ didn't "speak" anymore. I know it's hard to consider that I may just be hearing what's missing. Everyone will probably move on to other speakers someday. We all do. Damn, I wish I could hear one of your systems. Wish you could hear mine.