Confused!


Slowly piecing together a respectable yet reasonably (for me) priced system. Right now, it's about the speakers. Was looking for a budget yet legit bookshelf, and landed on the Polk Rti-a3's and Elac Debut B6's. 

The Polks have a great clean sound, more than enough low end, and sizzle on the top. In fact, too much sizzle. I like things crisp, but not burnt. Where's the midrange?

Enter the Elacs. Andrew Jones, rave reviews, should be a sure thing. Great low end, fantastic middle, but missing some crispy goodness. After the Polks, sounds like someone threw a wet blanket over them. A day with them on their own though, I'm beginning to like them more. A lot more. Although, still finding that I'm twisting the evil treble knob that I shouldn't have (new amp day comes later) clockwise.

Finally, a question. Is there a more Polk-like B6, or a more B6-like Polk out there for less than $700? Should I stick with the Elacs and fiddle with placement? They will be forced to be close to a wall, about 1 foot give or take. I'm about ready to return the Polks, there's just not enough in the middle to handle riffage.

Room is about 12 x 13. Front end is a 10+ year old Yamaha HTR-5560 run in stereo mode and an Onkyo C-7030 CD player. No 'table in my future, I sunk my early retirement funds into CDs starting 30 years ago, can't comprehend investing in vinyl. Music tastes are mostly rock, punk, indie rock, blues, metal and its several subgenres, and a good sprinkle of jazz and polka. Speakers will be on stands.

Help!
iron57
Everything about your Elac sound problems seem like speaker placement and room issues to me.   The Elacs don’t like where they are sitting.   Either pull them out from the wall or get some corner bass traps and see how it goes after that.   Where is your listening position? Are you near the back wall?   You might need corner traps to fix the bass.  You could have bass build up that is taking away your highs. 
I own a pair of B6s for occasional fun with a smaller set up. Not knowing how new yours are, they do benefit from some break in time to open those highs up.  I found that 30 hours on them at healthy volume, say played at an average 80-85 dB at 10 feet did the trick.
Try this.....take 2 of your coats ....place one each on the floor in front of your speakers.   If you like the sound, get a couple of inexpensive rugs instead of the coats.
Thanks for the suggestions, last night I boxed up the Polks and took them out of the equation. With all of the A/B switching, I was driving myself nuts, and suffering from analysis paralysis.

I put the B6's back on the stands, and left them for an hour or so. Came back to them with fresh ears, and I'm really starting to like them. I moved them out from the walls a bit (they are on two different walls, either side of a corner. Listening seat is equidistant from each speaker, on a couch, which is in front of 3 windows). This non ideal setup doesn't have much room for changes, due to furniture placement.

Will do some more adjustments tonight. Thinking the advice is spot on, they are too close to the wall, and likely sending some extra bass waves out. Not so offensive that things are too muddy, but enough to cover up some high end detail.
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