Hey,
How do you feel on PanGirl game ?
It can be your brain who don't understand what you're trying to listen or the position of your monitors ...
Can you show us a photo of your installation ?

Pan girl i seem to do ok, much better than stereo head anyway... i'll be moving the same desk to a bigger space in a month or so as i'm converting a bedroom into a studio space, so haven't repaired the acoustic foam behind, I only use the yamaha's for panning as the tiny mackies are cheap.

Hi Ben, in my opinion I see that your monitors are way too far from each other, try to follow the specs of your monitors, most probably you'll need to create an equilateral triangle between your monitors and your normal listening spot, make sure the height is also right vs your ears and distance to the wall is as recommended in your user manual. Here below an example of exactly 90cm on each side. If you do so, you'll have a better sense of where the sound comes from when playing stereo head.

No idea what level you're at with stereohead, but I also find it more challenging than pan girl, I think that's normal.

Your speaker positions look ok to me... but it's hard to say from a pic, and maybe moving them could help? Mine are also pretty wide, but still about that equilateral triangle Allan brought up. Just a big triangle lol.

My suggestions are to just do the practice at the beginning, and test the key points first and try to really imagine the sounds coming from the areas. Like for the trumpets I was actually imagining if there were two trumpet players where would they be standing. I first test with the widest spread, then the center, then I do the 50%, and then 75% and 25%. I just check those a few times and really try to imagine the sound in the areas, get a sense of where visually between my speakers I am hearing that, and then I start the level.

It takes a bit more time with stereohead for me to start hearing where the placements are. Sometimes the two parts sound really similar, and there are only few moments here and there that are different enough to hear a clearer separation. I just really try to sit there for a bit and hear how far out the left or right sound is, where in the room between my speakers am I actually hearing it, and then assess whether that looks like halfway, 75%, 25% etc.

But regardless, I find it harder than pangirl! So I think it's probably normal to have a harder time with this one. And if pangirl is fine for you, I'd say it's probably not your speaker positions.

Just looked at the pic again, looks like your larger Yamaha speakers are a about a foot above ear level.. judging by the laptop placement. But I don't know how tall you are and how far down you look at that laptop! 😅

I'm not totally sure, but it may be harder to hear panning if the speakers are above and not tilted down, there may be more sound diffusion going on from the ceiling before it reaches your ears... easy way to test this would be to try it standing or sitting higher and see if that helps. Might not help at all, but just noticed that and thought I'd share as a potential troubleshooting experiment.

Be careful at the triangle as Allan said.
Tweeter have to be in the direction of your ears. It's depend how tall you are but it seems to be very high.
To respect the triangle and the position, I turn the monitors.
Normally, those monitors have to be from 1.50 meters from the wall too.

I have also a big triangle here and I have to be in the exact position to be good at this game so it can be help if you adjust the position of your monitor. I think !

Thanks so much everyone, for the input, cetainly given me some food for thought! I am quite short and sit pretty low down to so them being so high may well be a factor an one i hadn't considered, thanks everyone will look how I can improve my scenario once i begin rennovating te new room really appreciate the help!! :)