Killer post.

I'll be curious to hear what you think it may do for vertical/height cues!

Cheers.

Using mono recordings with accurate tonality to determine speaker position by first obtaining a strong center image would probably be a very good starting point. I always use the center image (although with stereo recordings) as my main guide for determining the distance between speakers and for deciding how much toe in is required.

In a related topic I've often found that mono recordings with a proper tonal balance are a great way to determine the tonal balance of a system by removing stereo as a variable. For example a system that may sound a little bright on stereo recordings will almost inevitably sound very bright with well recorded mono material. So slight problems in timbre that show up in mono are an indicator of problems that might go unnoticed in stereo.

i ordered a stereophile test disk which provides exact duplicate tones from each speaker and the instructions state to set it up as nc described. worked wonders. best $9.95 i have ever spent on the hobby. also, there is some great music on there too including songs that are often referred to in the reviews.

Another option is to use pink noise in either channel. You'll probably find that the two speakers sound differently from each other. Then you might be able to move the two to their optimum locations. Let us know what you find.