Vandersteen's, optimum placement, room limitations

Very much agree with Sdcampbell's excellent advice in your situation. A good stand mounted front ported monitor is your best bet. Avoid a rear ported design with the distance limitations behind the speakers as that will not be enough space for the rear port to sound as designed. Having owned both the 2.3's and 2Ce's, I think both need space to breathe. Some suggestions in addition to the Focal/JM Labs 906 would be the B&W Naut.805 or Sig 805, Tyler Acoustics Ref Monitors,perhaps the Ref.MM 3A de capo, although not sure if that one a rear or front port. :)

All of your feedback has been quite helpful. I should add a couple of points to clarify my position- my listening room has the speakers against the long wall, which is the only place I can put them- it's a living room about 18 feet wide. Speakers, though only 20 inches from front wall, are about 7 feet apart, and would be about 6 feet from left side wall and 5 feet from right side wall. The only other speaker I've seriously considered so far would be the Von Schweikert vr4-jr's, which I think are actually front-ported. Don't want to go to 2 CE's, wasn't satisfied w/ their sound. I do want speakers that go down to 30Hz or below; want a bit deeper bass than I get w/ my Thiels. My impression has been that stand-mounted monitors don't tend to go that low, or give a great soundstage, all other things being equal, but I'm not too knowledgeable about them. My Thiels don't sound as good as they could in current position (20" out), but are serviceable- my sense has been that Vandy's would suffer relatively more in that position... Any thoughts out there on relative sensitivity of Thiels, Vandy's, Von Schweikerts in that position, plus stand monitors that go low, w/ great soundstage? Sorry for the length here, just have a lot of questions about this...

No, monitors won't go to 30hz unless they're powered like ones from Paradigm or Definitive Technology. Neither of these has a rep for being exactly smooth. Of course if you find 2Ce Sigs dark then maybe you'd like one or both, although your electronics might be a bit better than this.

The problem remains that you're in a smallish room but want big speaker sound, especially at the low end. Whether that will work might depend on how porous your walls are to low frequencies, along with a lot of other factors.

I think small speakers with a sub makes sense for this case, because the active low end can allow you to adjust the bass level somewhat to the room. So I might suggest monitors with sub like a pair of the von Schweikert LCR-15 center channel monitors (reportedly better than the VR 1), the Totem Arros (floorstanders), Joseph Audio RM7si Signature Mk2 (or maybe even floor standing 22 to around 40hz), VMPS 626 with FST tweeters (rear ported, so a question mark). The last three would tend away from the 2Ce Sig kind of warmth you didn't like.

There might be more problems with time aligned monitors since you have to sit so close to them. Even though they can all be adjusted vertically that can begin to change the image height and floor bounce and so forth. Also, their off axis response might be less smooth, including that of the first order crossover VMPS, and that might be a drawback in cramped quarters.

HTH. It's all so subjective....

Thanks, Suits_me-

You gave me some helpful things to consider. Also, I'd like to thank everyone else for their feedback.