Was going to reply to the original making this point 
All I really care about is recording, so yes, this is exactly what I want.
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Or were you referring to my fear of shredding a speaker? It’s possible to generate sounds in a DAW that would let the smoke out of the monitors. The amount of protection in the monitor varies.
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With most DAWs it’s possible to do that without any instrument plugged in at all
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I’d considered studio foam, especially the bass trap in the corners. Obviously, this depends on the size and shape of your room. If the room is too dead you can always add a few defusers.
I added the foam to the shed it noticeably improved the sound. Originally, the room was too “lively” I needed to control the resonance, by adding the acoustic foam I was able to dial the sound to a pleasant level. Since my ceiling is not flat(it’s half hexagon) I didn’t find the bass trap to be a problem, yet. There’s no noticeable residual low frequency trap in the corner, and definitely no extra reverberations.
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Yeah, I was referring to shredding the speaker. In my simple understanding of speaker technology, if the audio going through it is within the frequency range supported and the volume doesn’t exceed what the speaker is capable of, then it should be fine. I’m not understanding how certain sounds can damage the speaker more. Again, I’m not saying I’m right, I just don’t understand this subject.
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Pumping raw instruments through speakers can be really rough on them, depending. Synthesizers can be especially brutal; just because a speaker supports (say) 70Hz in its response does NOT mean driving a raw, high amplitude 70Hz square wave through them will be good for it. Unfiltered, uncompressed transients in general are tough on speakers.
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I’m sure you are right, but I have no idea what a square wave or transient is. Sure, visually I can imagine a square wave, but as to what that does to the sound I have no clue. 
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Transients are easy to visualize - think of a momentary part of a sound wave that is much higher amplitude (i.e. louder) than the rest of the wave. A drum hit is a good example, where the initial strike is much louder than the drum sustain tone.
So, if you have adjusted your levels based on the average level, the short part that greatly exceeds that average can drive the speaker much harder than you would expect for a given volume.
Square waves (and sawtooths, and other basic waveforms) you can visualize by their names - the square wave is a set of waves that jump right to a given amplitude and fall off to 0 with no slope to the wave (or more usually the negative amplitude). Sawtooth looks like it sounds, a triangular shape. These basic waves (along with sine waves) are the building blocks of some types of synthesis and are very common in classic synth sounds. You hear them when you hear the classic Moog sounds and so on. This is a pretty good description (with sound examples):
So, when you look at the raw square and sawtooth waves, in a way they can be thought of as a constant series of transients - immediately jumping (or falling off, depending) across a large amplitude range. And as such can be damaging to speakers at high volume, without care.
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I just watched a youtube video and they talked about placement of speakers this is the image they used.
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You hit the nail on the head. Both of these can be easy to exceed if not paying attention.
Instruments (and virtual plugin instruments) put out a tremendous range of sound compared to what our measly recording and playback systems are capable of.
Putting even an acoustic guitar on an expensive fast meter reveals that the initial string pick (“transient” first impact before the level quickly falls to the note ringing out) can be 20 dB higher than the longer note. We can think that a bass slap does at least that much too. 20dB is logarithmic, which translates to 100x more power. If you thought you were using 10 Watts of your system to get the normal playback level, that initial pick will attempt to draw 100x or 1000 Watts from your system. (That number gets silly high when we start with the Wattage of a concert PA system). Something in the chain is going to stop that 20 dB peak from getting through the system. You want it to be something that you control and not something that unintentionally distorts or breaks.
If this is so crazy why isn’t everything blowing up? That peak usually gets knocked off somewhere, maybe with an input limiter on the DAI where nothing bad happens.
Just be aware you are handling powerful materials and its best to know what the safety plan is.
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I took the advice that many of you gave me (thank you) and spread the two monitors apart. I had to build another shelf, but it was worth the effort. The sound seems to be projecting better and more evenly (unless it’s my imagination). I also put them on Studio Monitor Isolation Pads as a few people suggested. I have them tilted slightly downward because of how high they are from the floor.
Before:
After:
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@DaveT might chime in on the effect of the corner vs. a flat wall, I have no idea if it matters, just noticed the corner.
But if it sounds better, than maybe it doesn’t matter.
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@John_E , it shouldn’t matter, so long as there’s an equilateral triangle between the monitors and the listener and the monitors are angled towards the listener appropriately.
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It doesn’t look it in the photo, but it’s only a 45 degree break in the wall. The monitors are pointed directly at where I stood with the camera, which is also where my studio laptop is, and approximately where I stand when listening to playback.
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I’m going to stop short of getting involved in design review of listening/studio spaces beyond linking to that Neumann good practices document. I don’t see any problem having a 45 degree kink in the wall.
The best thing I can say is that it’s necessary to mix some bass and see what it sounds like someplace else. Did it work or was it a surprise? If it’s a surprise, something gets done to align the studio perception with the real world. Maybe adjusting levels. Maybe adjusting where the bass cabinet sits. Maybe adjusting where you stand to listen.
Rooms will possibly have physical places where the bass is really hot and places where it sounds like there’s no bass at all, at least for some notes. This is never easy to work out, even in professional recording studios.
Last year I worked on tuning an Atmos screening room with about 8 rows of seats for a gaming company. The philosophy used in the design was that they wanted the subwoofers time aligned to the mains, so the designer split the subs left and right and mounted them adjacent to each main. That’s an OK design choice, except when the one place in the room where they cancel each other out perfectly turns out to be the favorite seat of the head of the company. By then the front wall was built and finished.
I also remember a theme park ride with a large rolling ball where the subwoofer stack kept getting taller and taller to produce the desired impact. It sounded amazing . . . in the parking lot.
The point being that even projects with big budgets and well intentioned designers can get the speaker positions wrong for a particular scenario. Having a home studio that allows for trial and error without spending on architecture is a fine plan. At least you only have to make it sound good for you without worrying where the producer is going to sit and how it sounds there too.
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And even if a producer stumbles by… there’s always the producer switch 
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This is what you actually start to pay big money to get as a feature in a room. Non-parallel walls solve many acoustic problems.
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Look at that @PamPurrs, you added a high cost feature to your setup!
You are ahead of your time!
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