Is my room too small

put room treatment in, and you will be fine. see my system pics.

without room treatment, its will never be much beyond midfi. you listen to your speakers interacting with your room being fed by your electronics, in that order.

I would never sit with my head near a wall. It is better to listen nearfield than sit next to a wall. Sitting next to a wall is about the worst thing you can do.

I used to have an 11'x13' room...best sound I had, after many trys (planar, stand mount, floor standing) were mid-sized, front-ported monitors (Paradigm S2) in a near-field (6' speaker to ear) setup - magical! ...although the Totem Arro was a very close second! Electronics were Naim.

The bigger the speaker, the more challenging it was to shoehorn all that sound into the room and not end up sounding "lumpy".

In the end, "smooth/even" sound won the day.