Moved from medium attic like room to larger room, everything is too bright

I undesratnd you are limited in what you can do, but here are some ideas:

• Don’t forget the ceiling! White absorbers there can be inconspicuous and contribute to the overall reverb time.
• Consider GIK Acoustics art panels, which let you put just about any artwork over absorbers.
• I know you mentioned placement, but consider the AM Acoustics room mode modeller. Simulate your room and then try to keep your subs and your listening area out of the lowest modes.
• Tone controls. Schiit Loki if you don’t have them built in.
• Cross your speakers to the subs high, not low. 80 Hz sounds a lot better than 40 Hz.
• Measure and EQ your subs appropriately.

If you want to try something  cheap and this would be really only and indication of what the problem is and after you try this then you need to go looking for the best thing afterwards. Sit in you listening  chair. Have another  person run a mirror  on the walls a small mirror like a makeup mirror. Put a small mark on the wall where you can see the tweeter in the center of the mirror continue along the side wall until you can see the tweeter of the opposite  side speaker  mark the wall there as well. On the wall behind the speakers set something  on top of the speaker that is in line with the tweeter so you can also mark the wall behind the speakers in line with where the speaker would be. Now that you have the marks raid your towel cupboard  and put a bath towel centered on those marks  perhaps tape or pin them on the wall. Then take a listen  and see what you think. 

Lots of good comments. Room treatments and positioning… definitely. Some photos of your system (add to virtual system under your UserID)and room would be very helpful in getting more specific.

I also have an echo issue. The cheap and easy way to really tell is how easy it is to understand other people talking in that room, especially multiple people at a time, or the hand clap as suggested above. It can also be measured with microphones and software; the easiest is via ’reverberation time’ or ’decay’. Couches and padded chairs do work for that. I would also recommend thick felt rug pads to extend the frequency range the rugs absorb. The thicker the absorbing material is, the more bandwidth it will absorb. I find blankets useless because they will not absorb midrange well. They may work as a proof of concept, though. Echo is not limited to high frequencies. Some speakers are more directional than others, such as Sanders electrostatics, that may work better. I do not have personal experience in treating rooms for that speaker, though.

To everyone who wrote to me about this issue. HUGE thanks. Very grateful and plan to implement many of the (most doable) changes including rug pads and more art. Special thanks to @bobpyle who introduced the psychological element. Funny because by the time I had written the post and listened for a couple more hours, I was already appreciating new frequencies that had been missing in my old set up.

Also thanks to @gdnrbob who confirmed what I know: the speakers could be upgraded.

If any of you know of speakers that are not over about $600USD ($9000 CDN) that work well in a large room, let me know. 

Thanks again, Nadine