My speakers don't "dissapear"

Because of the shape of the baffle and the placement of the drivers (tweeter over the bass unit), speakers have an asymmetrical radiation pattern as far as height dispersion pattern. If the tweeter is too high, you could tilt the speaker forward, but, that may not have the same result as tilting the speaker backwards if the the tweeter were too low. In other words, it may work or it may cause other problems. You need to give that a shot, as well as lowering the speaker and either have it fire straight or even tilted up a little. A lot of stand mounted speakers are "voiced" to be on lower stands with the speaker tilted slightly up.

Since my first set of Red Dawn cables were damaged I had another set on order. In the meantime (for most of this thread) I was unsing DIY cables and finally, this morning, I replaced them with red dawn revision II, 2 meter cables.

All I can say is WOW! I'm glad I optimized my set-up with the DIY cables. The muted highs are muted no more! Bass is smoother than ever and quite tight. Overall coherency is spot on. All other aspects like stage width remained the same. The ONLY drawback, and it's a minor one, I noticed was in the midrange. Before, vocalists were up front and center and in your face. Now, it's like they took a couple steps back. Not too much of a drawback, but enough to take notice although the improvement in the frequency extremes makes the presentation much more enjoyable to me so I'll gladly live with it.

I really have to thank you guys for all the tips in seting up and optimizing my system. It's very enjoyable and the music just flows. Thanks again guys, I really appreciate it. Trust me, I'll be back when I decide to try some tweaks like bass traps and room treatments. In the meantime, I have like 100 cd's I need to listen to...