SoMM, the key word here is "treated" - without it, there is NO good place to be in a square room IMO - with it, I agree that a corner setup can work as good as anything in a small room. My original study showed that front wall early reflections were easier to take care of in the corner, directly behind the mix desk was actually better that way (4" 703/705 across the corner, directly behind the desk, for bass trapping and smoothing out SBIR on the front walls (stood off 4" extending the corner treatment, out another 4' or so) - then, the rest of the two front walls can be live but cross-fire from the speakers will require about half of each rear wall to be absorbed (at least for the middle third of their height) in order to control less than 22ms reflections off the rear.
It seemed possible to get a decent sound out of such an orientation, but not without serious thought as to treatment location/amount. I will still very likely end up doing that project, but have a few ahead of it in the list (finishing a drainage system, new roof/siding on house, new 40 x 60 shop) so probably won't get to this one til next year, when my old studio will be gutted and become part of a general 36 x 48 storage building (now a small shop and studio, but definitlely NOT sound proof by any stretch of the imagination)
C7, you want a sub to be neither at a peak or a null of any of your room dimensions (other than sitting on the floor, it's hard to stay out of floor/ceiling peaks :=) - If you place the sub in a null, no amount of increase in power amp size will sound good, it will only blow your woof from trying too hard. If placed at a peak in modal response, those modes will be over-excited and turning it down will then give you dips in response at non-modal frequencies.
There are some good white papers at
http://www.harman.com/wp/index.jsp?articleId=default
on speaker placement, written by Dr. Floyd Toole - unfortunately the site isn't responding for me at the moment. Basically, the simplest way to place a sub is to put it in your chair, then move around the room til the bass sounds the most balanced, (kneepads help for this part :=) and finally, put the sub where your head was when things sounded the best. Done.
There is an axial mode spreadsheet at that same link that shows you the first 4 modes for each room dimension - it does a peak/null graph for each axis, so you can find distances in all three planes that are at neither peak or null - these places work out to be (usually) best places in your room for either your head or speakers (or instruments when tracking, for that matter)
Gotta go for now, hope some of this helped... Steve
), I'll be in an L-shaped room, approx 436 sq ft, with the biggest (24' x 14') area behind me. The room is my living room and dining room areas, and has a vault ceiling from 8' to 11'.