Wadav,
My sweet spot is fair--not overly tight. If I have the speakers back toward the wall (regular listening and dancing with my daughter) they fill the room with sound and are pleasurable throughout. For critical listening, I pull them out into the room and toe them in a bit. When I do that, I have them about 6.5-7' apart, and I sit about 9-10 feet away, maybe less. The sweet spot is roomy enough for 2 people on the sofa, maybe 3.
I found them to be super veiled and wanted to return them (also my wife wanted even smaller speakers too--even those these are pretty thin and elegant. They grew on both of us.
I would wholeheartidly agree with the review (Stereophile or Absolute Sound) that said the baffles restrict a good bit of sound. When removed they are more open and a bit brighter. I found the speakers have broken in a good bit.
As with all things audio, there are some great things and some that were different from what I had (Totem Arros). These are not a bright speaker. If anything I think the aim was to try to be neutral and a touch laid back in the midrange. The treble and mids gets just a wee tad harsh if I push them hard with poorly recorded music. Yet, I also run across stuff that seemingly has no volume limit.
When placed closer to the front wall, they push out an incredible amount of bass, so much so that I occasionally use the port plugs to tune them down a bit. When pulled into the room, they never overload the room with bass volume. There are some tracks that simply blow me away. I haven't had such an amount of bass since I had Cerwin Vegas in college! This bass is certainly taught and musical though.
There are moments when I'm astounded by these speakers. I auditioned a $5800 pair of Totem Forest Signatures that I loved. These compete nicely, and I'm super happy.
I'll probably try out more watts or tube before upgrading or changing.
I'll tell you this...one thing they do that's fantastic is they wear two hats super nicely: (1) they give me the imaging and detail sonics I want during critical listening; and (2) they get up and boogie for ambient listening, dancing, entertaining.
I'm super curious--I must admit--to see what would get me an upgrade in terms of another loudspeaker or amplification, etc.
I'm happy to try to answer any questions or help.
Can I ask, what did you listen to these through and what are you comparing them to and looking for?