In-Room Bass coupling??? - Gradients

[RockLeeEV]

Okay so here's the deal.

I want to construct some dipole speakers (when I get some drivers).

Now it's been my experience that the placement that would probably work best for a speaker with rear radiation, is at least 4-6 feet from the wall behind it. This should give the rear reflection plenty of delay and hopefully get me that large, wide, deep soundstage that I'm dying for.

However, in the room I want to put dipoles (or perhaps semi-cardioid, inspired by keyser's build with holes-in-box), the walls are very stiff and the standing wave cancellations are intense.

My experiences with MONOPOLES have told me, that i get a huge wide Q, ~10db suckout from about 90hz to 140hz, followed by a ~ 7db peak from 140hz to 170hz, when I place the speakers out from the walls. They quite frankly don't want to be so far from the wall.

When I pull them closer not only the wall behind them but the parallel walls to the left and right, I get MUCH more even bass response from 100hz to 200hz. But the end result for "optimal placement for bass" is baffle about 2 feet from the side walls, and just over a foot from the front wall. I actually like the effect because it seems to have made the soundstage more lifelike, but I can't imagine it being "ideal" from a timbre perspective (not that these speakers have impeccible timbre anyways, but that's my goal for the next speakers)

I don't really feel comfortable adding bass traps, as the room is a bit dead-ish as is, and I'm trying to get more lively/spacious, not more dead/sterile. This might be especially relevant if a toed in (maybe crossfired) dipole's rear wave is aimed straight at the corner with the bass traps.

I'm thinking that the dipole will make placement more difficult from an imaging perspective, but could the placement from a bass perspective make that less problematic?

I've got a subwoofer(and hope to add more soon) below 100hz give or take. It's the 100 to 200hz region that i'm finding difficult. I've actually got things in a rough +/-5db window 20hz to 200hz right now, with the awkward near-corner placement of the monopoles.

Got any advice/predictions, or will I just have to wing it and see? I just want to place the speakers where they'll measure decently from 100hz to 200hz, but also give me a huge soundstage on classical music.