I have 40.2 40th Anniversaries in a large acoustically treated 18.5 x 23 room w/ 9-12’ ceiling. They are 7’4” out into the room, 7’9” apart, and almost 5’ from side walls. I do have them on shorter stands (by inches). Even with this placement and treatments, I believe the speakers being lower to the floor is causing a bass issue in a particular range, so I plan on going back to another pair of stands… Oh, I also have the speakers towed-in only an inch or so. So this is not the towed-in pointed-at-the-listener type placement that may be typical for this speaker. I prefer the large, wall to wall soundstage, as well as tweeters not pointed directly at my ears…but that’s a personal sensitivity issue…
With this setup and a 150w Wells Audio Innamorata Signature amplifier, w/ 200 damping factor, I have been able to get big and bold room-filling sound. With the right cables and the right articulate gear, these speakers can actually play bright if one wanted (at least within this placement type. Not as much pointed at the listener)… These are chameleons to a certain degree, as much as I have been able to swing their sound from the above…but then make a few changes to gear and set up and they can turn to that more typical softer / more polite type sound. For instance, with placement, scoot the speakers 1/8th of inch back closer to the front-wall and the forward-projecting of the sound into the room is gone and the sound recedes all the way back to the front-wall and has less impact. Similar but different affect with exacting distance apart from each other and the side-walls. So, exacting placement is key IMO with these speakers.
I did recently hear my speaker on a new 100w GaN stage class D monos w/ 2000 damping factor and it took bass control to another level! But they didn’t play nearly as big in soundstage and played with less forwardness and less in-room presence. I prefer the bigger, bolder and brighter sound, so somewhat lesser bass control it is for now with my ss amp.
My point is these speakers, IMO, are more ‘tunable’ than some may think. But it is a very careful balance, that can go out of balance quite easily. They are top notch in transparency and refinement. Get placement perfect and with well matched neutral and articulate gear and they can really ‘wake up’. Oh, and I found that LESS bass traps, than other speakers may want, helped bring the bass level down a bit. But I think the .3 is better yet again in the bass, over the .2. Just as the .2 is better than the .1 in this regard. So by design you’d have a percentage less issue in the bass to begin with.