Thanks, James. The room is pretty hot with all the glass and the tile floor. The glass, sheetrock and a 10' X 8' X 5' bumpout at the left rear of the room also tend to munch bass. Thank God for the suspended floor, as tile over concrete likely would have been a dealbreaker for a nice stereo in this room. At some point I will add a larger Oriental to cover more of the tile between me and the speakers.
The palms behind the speakers actually helped a lot to cut down on reflections and made the perceived tonal balance a bit warmer. I'm thinking of putting more behind me to cut down on rear wall reflections - at less than $50 a palm with pot they are certainly a lot cheaper than hopping on some endless cable merry-go-round or something!
All of which kind of gets back to my point about the Salon 2s not being that lean - because a truly lean speaker would have driven me out of here very quickly! To your particular observations about how they sounded with Mark Levinson amps, I agree, they just don't show much oomph in that pairing. But put them with amps that hit hard down low, and they will, in spades.