Focal Aria 948

Current amp is an Antique Sound Lab Hurricane Dt Monoblocks paired with a Conrad Johnson PV2.  

I prefer a little bass slam also.  Still like my old Cerwin Vega D3 for that. Was looking for some upgrade. D3 lack a little midrange.

Did you spend a lot of time positioning them? Performance is very highly dependent on positioning. Typically I start with the official recommendation and work from there. Distance from back and sidewalls, and triangle size are important.

Also, are they broken in. It is best to get a hundred hours on them.

Your electronics are oriented towards musical, natural, and mid range bloom. That is the strength of them. Tube stuff will have detailed nuanced bass that is very natural. Slam is something you get primarily from solid state equipment with a lot of power.

I second the positioning. I'm willing to bet they aren't far enough into the room or too close to the wall for the seating position. It took a lot of trial and error for me positioning my speakers to get even bass response in the room.

I had them hooked to a Pioneer SX 1250.  Still lacked bass.

I will give the proper position thing a little tweaking tonight.

The dealer ran them for about 200 hours before he loaned them to me.

Make sure you don’t toe them in very much. Focals like to be pointed at 90 degrees to the rear wall, or with minimal toe-in.

The imaging will improve and hopefully you will hear them as less bright and more bass. However, Focals do tend to soak up current in the bass and are not very tolerant of lesser amps. This is not, IMHO a good thing, just experience.

A non-destructive experiment you might also try is to plug the ports and back them up to the wall as much as you can.  Make sure to only use clean socks, as dirt and body oils can affect the port refraction.  <j/k>  but I do actually suggest trying it.