You don't lack bass, you have too much treble

@erik_squires  And just what do you think you are going to do about bass in any normally sized residential space?

Wow, @mijostyn you keep arguing about things I'm not talking about so I'm going to just let you have that conversation over in the corner by yourself.  Have a great weekend.

Also, if your stew has too much salt, add more potatoes.  Same Yin-yang balance I'm trying to talk about here.

When you limit reflective sound in any room the sound obviously becomes more localized to the speaker. The speaker gets sonically smaller

@mijostyn 

For the record, I'm not just spouting theory from books or an AI app.  I've heard this work many times.

You are missing almost all the context from the title of the thread and the additional context I added in other messages.  When I say that absorption can make a speaker sound bigger I'm specifically talking about their bass output.   Says so right there:

You don't lack bass you have too much treble

The common acoustic absorber has two functions and you are only thinking about one of them, which is about reflections and imaging.  The other function, perhaps the most researched and most important is in providing band-limited absorption to the total energy in a room.  This function is why high end panels have charts of Sabines vs. frequency.   If you can hear how wide and tall your speakers are then you probably need new speakers.

So, now that we've established I'm not actually talking about height, width and depth of your speakers but how much bass they seem to put out (see title of thread, again) you need to consider that most acoustic panels are limited to the mid to treble ranges. 

So, then what happens when you take mid and treble energy out of a room?  You end up with more bass.  It's like taking out the veggies from a stew until you only have the meat left.  Is there less stew?  Sure, but now it's beef stew and that's better than it was before. 

As also mentioned, so before you go that route, this is not the only approach possible.  I mention it to help A'goners consider multiple options.  Since taming coherent reflections is also a good thing, this approach may have multiple benefits.

If you treat a room by hardening the walls and removing the carpet, then yes, you can make a speaker sound larger.

Which is the opposite of what I'm recommending, but you do you.

@fynnegan  It is absolutely true that we don't all get to build a room just for our stereo, but I think many of us have at least some options in choosing to treat or add curtains or rugs.  My point to this discussion was to inform readers of how the speaker room interaction matters above the bass frequencies so they'd hopefully expand the choices they can make to get better balance.

Really kind of surprised at some of the nay-sayers on this thread.  I may need to reword some of my original points.

Point 1:  The room and speaker placement choices act like tone controls.  That's not all they do, but this is a very important point.  The size of the room and the speakers in them play major roles in the perceived balance between bass, midrange and treble.

Point 2:  Balance is what matters, not necessarily absolute levels. 

Point 3:  I've heard modest 2-way systems with ~ 7" woofers transformed by room treatments in smaller rooms.  This isn't just theory, it's practical experience that good room treatment was a wonderful idea.

Point 4: There are other ways to solve your lack of bass, including of course adding a subwoofer.  This thread is not trying to claim there is only one way to deal with an issue, but I specifically asked the reader to "think about" room treatments early rather than late in their process.

@audiokinesis My favorite all time speakers, the Snell A/IIIs used that trick, also contributed significantly to imaging.

Oops, my bad, the extra energy I noted is ultrasonic.

@curiousjim

I did take a look at the Stereophile measurements for your speakers. While Stereophile does not do compression measurements, they do show a pronounced hump in the presence area. A Schiit Loki may be just the thing for you.

The other thing I note is that off-axis the speakers have a lot more treble energy than mids.  Definitely a speaker worth treating the sides and first reflection points for, as well as moving away from side reflections.

@curiousjim Well those are the non-speaker reasons for what you are hearing.  The other possible reasons are amplifier distortion or the speaker is compressing. That is, for whatever reason you are reaching the limit of the driver motion, and that seems odd at such low volumes.

@curiousjim You may have the speakers toed in too much. Many speakers are really designed for little to no toe-in, so the slightly off-axis response is a lot smoother.

Another thing to try is the floor behind and in the floor between speakers. Bare surfaces there can often result in a lot of hash. Also, most underestimate the benefit that treating the ceiling between speaker and listener.

Lastly, check the wall behind your head.  Try absorption or dispersion there as well.

Treating a room makes speakers sound smaller not bigger.

Not if you do it right, no. 

Subwoofers can make a system sound bigger [...]

Yes, they can.

The point I was trying to make is that what we hear is relative, and the overall balance matters.  Yes, a subwoofer increases bass.  Reducing mid-treble reflections in a room has similar effects as adding more bass, with the added bonus of often improving imaging and reducing listener fatigue. 

@audition__audio  Do you believe you can have too much or too little bass, midrange or treble?

@minorl I encourage you to step up your game a little. Gated and blended responses are far better than pink noise, which you get with Room EQ Wizard and a calibrated microphone or OmniMic. 

You'll get a far better idea of what you are hearing that way.