Request advice-need "brighter" speakers than Totem Hawks

Smart move on your part. Now you can begin to rediscover your music.

What are the settings you use on the parametric.  It would be useful info.

@onhwy61 
Sorry for the massively delayed response. 
A couple caveats before I reply to your request:
1. I tuned the EQ to work with my ears (lots of high frequency hearing loss). YMMV.
2. So these settings may be best for someone with similar issues. They are not good settings for people with no high frequency hearing issues. 
3. I was wrong: in a previous post I mentioned that the Ashly had no "shelf" functionality. Oops. I have shelf settings, which happen to be very useful. They are included below.
4. I adjusted both channels identically (L/R).
5. The settings given are for my "average" listening experience. Really shrill CDs, for example, have necessitated different settings in the highs (much less gain). 
6. I have had good luck with these settings on an SACD I tried (classical), but the vast majority of my listening is to redbook CDs, which are also vastly improved.
7. The bypass functions are really nice, but the cables are still going through an extra box, which noticeably degraded the "bypass all" signal compared to no EQ box in the signal path. I put the EQ box in between the pre- and power amps.
8. Since the Ashly is pro-gear, I used all balanced cables in the hookup of the EQ.
9. It took a few days of messing around to get the settings dialed in. There is a lot of personal preference involved.

Ashly PQ-26 Parametric EQ settings for a person with hearing loss in the high frequency range:

Master volume: -3db (gives me some headroom). 

Shelf-low:  60hz, +5db (no Q adjustment)

16-800hz: 16hz, +3db, Q=1 octave

50hz-2.4khz: 1.6Khz, +6db, Q=1.5 octaves

160hz-8Khz: 500hz, +3db, Q=3 octaves

500hz-24Khz: 24Khz, +15db, Q=3 octaves

Shelf-High: 14.5 Khz, +12db (no Q adjustment)

"Shelf" refers to setting a constant horizontal line starting at a particular frequency and gain, with no Q (for High Shelf all frequencies above the set freq. are increased/decreased by the amount of gain set--there's no "curve" or bandwidth envelope. Great feature, especially for my needs. 

I tried not to mess too much with the mids, because they were OK to begin with, but that wasn't the case once I started tweaking the low and high frequencies--a lot of presence and soundstage went away. The highest gains are set for higher frequencies to deal with my hearing. The bump to the bass is likely not necessary (certainly not needed for my hearing impairment) but when I tried it, the music sounded more lively, and I could hear the "attack" much more crisply in the lows. On the highs, you would think that setting the shelf up the way I have it would make the fully parametric setting (500hz-24Khz adjustment) redundant, but since I have bypass switches for every frequency adjustment (a great feature), I tested the combinations of these high freq. settings, and having both engaged gave the best results. 

Hope this is interesting to some.
Best,
-B
Other gear: Marantz SACD 8005, Eastern Electric MiniMax DAC (set on Solid State and modded--tube removed, nice op amps swapped in instead of ICs), Simaudio Moon P-5 Pre-Amp, Simaudio Moon W-5 Power Amp, Totem Hawk Speakers. Audience Au24SE cables throughout. 

Thanks for the response.