Thanks, James. The room is pretty hot with all the glass and the tile floor. The glass, sheetrock and a 10' X 8' X 5' bumpout at the left rear of the room also tend to munch bass. Thank God for the suspended floor, as tile over concrete likely would have been a dealbreaker for a nice stereo in this room. At some point I will add a larger Oriental to cover more of the tile between me and the speakers.
The palms behind the speakers actually helped a lot to cut down on reflections and made the perceived tonal balance a bit warmer. I'm thinking of putting more behind me to cut down on rear wall reflections - at less than $50 a palm with pot they are certainly a lot cheaper than hopping on some endless cable merry-go-round or something!
All of which kind of gets back to my point about the Salon 2s not being that lean - because a truly lean speaker would have driven me out of here very quickly! To your particular observations about how they sounded with Mark Levinson amps, I agree, they just don't show much oomph in that pairing. But put them with amps that hit hard down low, and they will, in spades.
The palms behind the speakers actually helped a lot to cut down on reflections and made the perceived tonal balance a bit warmer. I'm thinking of putting more behind me to cut down on rear wall reflections - at less than $50 a palm with pot they are certainly a lot cheaper than hopping on some endless cable merry-go-round or something!
All of which kind of gets back to my point about the Salon 2s not being that lean - because a truly lean speaker would have driven me out of here very quickly! To your particular observations about how they sounded with Mark Levinson amps, I agree, they just don't show much oomph in that pairing. But put them with amps that hit hard down low, and they will, in spades.