laid back speakers

What speakers are you using now? If you think the amp is bright, why don't you change the amp?

Vienna Acoustics. Smooth as you can get. Very wide soundstage. I have a pair of the Bach's that I am going put back in the living room one of these days. I am thinking about a Krell 300il or something like that.

Tim

And when you're tired of the laid back Vandersteen sound...

You ship them to Bill LeGall of Millersound! He truly performs a transformation of miraculous proportions on them. Hopefully, my friend, Vinh Vu of Gingko Audio, will chime in here to vouch for that. He runs Millersound modded Vandy 4s, and his brother has Millersounded 2s.

As far as laid back speakers go, maybe you could look into some used Dynaudio or Merlin TSM, older Dahlquists or Frieds, or some of the Totems (some of Totems can be bright).

B&W? Don't think I would ever call them laidback.
You could also try some Cardas quadlink. They can smooth things out a bit, add some fullness and depth. I quite like them even though I have more expensive cables.

Vandersteen, Just awesome.
I have 2ce sigs I was so impressed I upgraded to 5A comming in about 2 weeks. But the 2ce I haven't hear anything as good for the price they are really transparent and easy to listen to.