listening99,
1) Just so you are aware, it is an old wives tale that bass waves cannot be produced in a room smaller than the wavelength (think of the great bass cars have). It is in fact far different. When length of the bass wave exceeds twice length of the longest room dimension, that is the frequency of the lowest resonate frequency in your room below which there are no standing waves. This is also the frequency at which, in an ideal room, you will gain 12db per octave, but in the real world with losses due to walls, it is less than that. In your case, this frequency is about 48hz.
Keep in mind, the above frequency and gains are independent of boundary reinforcement. What you are hearing is likely boundary reinforcement in the other rooms as you get close to walls.
2) Before you do anything else, treat your first reflection points and see what that does for your imaging, I would expect a substantial improvement. For the moment, just treat the sidewall and floor, you can use pillows to try it out. Below are instructions and a link to a video.
https://www.gikacoustics.com/early-reflection-points/
3) I agree, a pre-amp would likely represent a significant improvement. The Schiit Freya + is an excellent value. (Full disclosure, I have a Freya S and an original Saga). If you are not going to run balanced connections, you can get the Saga + for $399, or one of the remaining closeout original Sagas from Schiit's closeout page for $199 plus the tube (this may be the audio deal of the decade and the reason I bought one for my desktop system).
4) Do not spend more money on your 2ci speakers. I love Vandersteens, but your money is much better spent on purchasing a used pair of 2ce, 2ce signatures or 2ce signature II (in increasing cost order and quality order). The 2ce was a significant upgrade from the 2ci (I have owned the 2c, 1c, and 3a sig in the past and spent considerable time listening to the 2ci, 2ce, and 2ce sig).
1) Just so you are aware, it is an old wives tale that bass waves cannot be produced in a room smaller than the wavelength (think of the great bass cars have). It is in fact far different. When length of the bass wave exceeds twice length of the longest room dimension, that is the frequency of the lowest resonate frequency in your room below which there are no standing waves. This is also the frequency at which, in an ideal room, you will gain 12db per octave, but in the real world with losses due to walls, it is less than that. In your case, this frequency is about 48hz.
Keep in mind, the above frequency and gains are independent of boundary reinforcement. What you are hearing is likely boundary reinforcement in the other rooms as you get close to walls.
2) Before you do anything else, treat your first reflection points and see what that does for your imaging, I would expect a substantial improvement. For the moment, just treat the sidewall and floor, you can use pillows to try it out. Below are instructions and a link to a video.
https://www.gikacoustics.com/early-reflection-points/
3) I agree, a pre-amp would likely represent a significant improvement. The Schiit Freya + is an excellent value. (Full disclosure, I have a Freya S and an original Saga). If you are not going to run balanced connections, you can get the Saga + for $399, or one of the remaining closeout original Sagas from Schiit's closeout page for $199 plus the tube (this may be the audio deal of the decade and the reason I bought one for my desktop system).
4) Do not spend more money on your 2ci speakers. I love Vandersteens, but your money is much better spent on purchasing a used pair of 2ce, 2ce signatures or 2ce signature II (in increasing cost order and quality order). The 2ce was a significant upgrade from the 2ci (I have owned the 2c, 1c, and 3a sig in the past and spent considerable time listening to the 2ci, 2ce, and 2ce sig).