There are 2 issues.

1) People don't understand FOV. You need at least 30-degrees to get an enjoyable viewing experience. For cinema scope, you need 36-degrees (the THX recommendation). You (and many people) get motion sickness because you don't follow this often overlook rule.

2) Angular resolution is important. You spend all that money for 4k just not to be able to resolve it? Why did you 4k then? 8ft is simply too far for a 55" screen. The optimal distance in conjunction with viewing angle is actually 6ft for a 55" screen.

It's a recommendation based on how we master movies in the studio. Most studios use a 65" OLED TV and a 31" mastering monitor. Doesn't matter which display it is being viewed, but at any time both will always be at 36-degree FOV for the person mastering the content.

Welp you weren't even sure if you got the sofa distance correct, so... that's on you? Do you also realize that it's not the sofa that needs to be 6ft from the screen, but your head instead? Half a foot already changes the FOV significantly btw.

It's preference at the end of the day indeed not disputing that, but if we go the conjecture that everything is a preference then we won't have a benchmark. Imagine if we had to master movies at 15ft away from a 31" monitor. Think about the consequences.

You're mistaken about Sony's viewing distance recommendation btw. They're talking about angular resolution (hence they wrote there, viewing distance) not FOV. They are related, but they are different things.

That's fair and to be frank, it's barely elementary science nothing near rocket levels
But it's your equipment at the end of the day like you said, so yeah set it up how you like.

My opinion is - you paid so much money for all that equipment and if you're not going to place it right for accuracy, why did you buy all of that for? It's very much the same for speaker placement for example.

Happy viewing.

You're missing my point.

It doesn't matter if you're gonna spend 5 hours a week on your TV or 5 minutes. My point was, make those minutes the best minutes you can get out of your TV. But how do you achieve that? You do it by sticking to references that people has spent decades in researching - they did the work for you, all you gotta do is adhere.

If you get a JVC NZ8 and you don't even bother to set the throwing distance right in relation to room length and screen size because the image would be too big, then... why did you buy it? That's what I'm saying.

I'm just here telling you what the correct values are and you're telling me you like wrong values because you like it better, and that's ok. Stick with it.

Yes you're wrong, but that's ok because you don't feel comfortable with the recommended distance.

I would suggest you stick with the closer distance and give it some time. Maybe a few days and see if you could adjust to it, because like any calibration you will have a perception of "old is better" because you're used to it. But again, it's up to you if you want to make the switch or not.

75" will be the new 55" in a few years time when 8k becomes mainstream, 85" will then be the new 65". The more affluent customers will have 98" in their living rooms.