Appropriate room treatment can make a small room sound much bigger and accommodate larger speakers. A front ported speaker works best when you don't have room to pull them out.
I found the issue in my room to be related to the woofers being 3 feet off the floor. The nodes created between the floor and ceiling persisted despite extensive bass trapping and diffusion. What worked for me was using a Marchand HPF at 80hz and having a sub on the floor.
I also use a White Instruments 4856 graphic equalizer to tame peaks and nodes. That's something that requires experience and persistence. I use an RTA to start, getting things essentially flat. Then comes the hard part. Extensive listening to familiar music, analyzing which frequencies need changes, and an iterative process for refining the settings over time.
It's not brain surgery but does take time to learn to associate particular frequencies with the changes you want to make, and it adds another dimension to the hobby that I enjoy. After a couple of hours of tuning I can sit back and enjoy months of listening without being distracted by hearing something I don't like.
I would prefer a room and system that didn't require the EQ but I don't have the room to build that so I optimize what I have.