>What speakers are you using? It's been a while since I ran into anything other than a subwoofer with a big enough magnet to cause problems with interference; if it is the subwoofer, it's relatively insensitive to placement (as a rule, low frequency sound isn't localized by the ear, so subwoofer placement is not critical). With my CA 4 Point Surround, I set the front pair higher than the ear, spread about the same distance apart (3.5') as I am back from the speakers which are behind my monitor, with the rear pair spread fairly wide, at a height lower than the listener's ear. There's no center channel speaker - the subwoofer is in front of the desk on the floor. The SB Live! software has tests that help you adjust the sound level and line delays to adjust for the speaker positioning, letting you alter the apparent location of the centered sound image.

This is actually just an innocent-looking, little 4" JBL rear/surround speaker for my stereo & TV system, not the Compaq (it has its own Altec speakers, but I just use the main stereo for most sound, mainly - working in style, you know). The JBL surround system has 6 speakers, including subwoofer & center. It's really harder to situate the little rear-surrounds than the large floor speakers, the rears need to be high-up and there's hardly anywhere to place them where they'll channel sound well.

The little JBL *really* messes with the monitor, just now testing moving it around near the monitor, for whatever reason. It may be that nearby stereo components and PC speakers are compounding the magnetic effect or something...but I was kidding previously about a big imbalance problem, moving the rear JBL about a foot away from the monitor solves the problem well enough.