This was something I figured out today, after a bout of boredom.
In my bedroom, where I had space to burn, I was running 6.5" bookshelf speakers...they had to be placed over 2.5 feet from the back wall to have optimal sound balance (BR-1 kit speakers). These things sounded great, but I ended up using them in my living room, after I decided I wanted to get rid of my surround sound (living room is the same size as the bedroom...small apt, 11x14).
Well, the living room is far more cramped...and the speakers are now just over a foot from the wall...the bass got boomy, and was drowning out the mids.
After a while of experimenting, I decided to try out my good ol "smaller" speakers, my Cerwin-Vega V5M shelf speakers. These are a 5-1/4" woofer 2-way. At just over a foot from the wall (I never even moved the stands, the distance gain was from the speakers being that much smaller), these things have nice tight bass, and the tonal balance is back.
I guess many of you are probably saying "well duh, space cadet!", but sometimes when you get used to a certain speaker as being "better" than the other, you might forget that it is after all, a matter of having the right amount of speaker for the room....it's like adding salt to soup.
That said, I might end up buying a better 5-1/4" speaker instead of the maggies I wanted...I figured maggies would be overkill....this is pretty much proof of that in my mind.
