Advice please! Managing bass in non-ideal speaker placement

[Antrawks]

Hi folks. I'm hoping you can advise me with a bit of a conundrum. I've got an Onkyo CD player and Sony Xperia IV through a Moondrop Dawn Pro as sources leading into a Cambridge Audio AXA35 amp. I'm auditioning Q Acoustics 3020c speakers to play mostly 70s UK classic rock (including remastered albums where the vogue seems to be to push the bass). For reasons of aesthetics in our living room, I have to position the speakers a little too close to the wall (5 inches rather than the recommended 6-12inches in the manual), 4.5 feet apart, sat 3m in front and a little low (tweeter at 55mm - but actually not too far below my ears when in my relaxed seating listening position). The room is 5m x 4m, soft furnished and carpeted.

As you can imagine, this is not ideal for bass, though I don't mind a bit of bass. However, I want to control it. I have the speaker bungs but I'd rather not use if possible.

I'm thinking of using lumps of oak as speaker stands (again, aesthetics are important). Questions:
1) Would you use spikes through the carpet onto the concrete floor?
2) Would you stand the speakers, which have rubber feet on each corner, directly on the oak or on an acoustic material?
3) Would you angle the speakers up? 15 degrees?

I realise that none of this is ideal but in my reality the speakers need to fit the aesthetics of a day to day living space.

Should the Q Acoustics not work out I'm considering Polk ES15s with their unique rear port arrangement as an alternative.

Any and all advice, thoughts and views would be most gratefully received.

Cheers
Ant

 

[staticV3]

Hi @Antrawks!

Questions:
1) Would you use spikes through the carpet onto the concrete floor?
2) Would you stand the speakers, which have rubber feet on each corner, directly on the oak or on an acoustic material?
3) Would you angle the speakers up? 15 degrees?

None of these will help you manage bass.

To manage bass, you'd have to move the speakers further into the room, away from walls, install bass traps, or use EQ.

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

In addition to this:

To manage bass, you'd have to move the speakers further into the room, away from walls, install bass traps, or use EQ.

... you can try plugging the ports. That might help so close to a wall. So try the bungs.

Personally I prefer ported speakers to stay ported though I do preferred sealed designs. But this is a situation where I would put my preference aside.

I would go sealed or front ported in such a situation, so consider that if you move on to a new audition model.

 

[izeek]

a lot depends on your floors. concrete and you're pretty much golden. wood floors will need decoupling/isolation.

 

[Antrawks]

Thanks for your help, folk. I'm acting on advice given here.