What Could Cause Center Image To Present Lower than Expected

Lost but not defeated

Very well said!  Put another way — YOU’RE LEARNING VERY VALUABLE INFORMATION!!!  Yes, what you’re doing now is hard and often very frustrating, but keep fighting the fight and you’ll get there!

Question - in a perfect world --- should it ever appear that an instrument is coming directly from the speaker in the soundstage? Or should everything be presented in an open space? I hope this question makes sense.

There are some recordings — oftentimes older recordings — where the sound of an instrument or singer will just be “stuck” to the speaker.  Nothing you can really do about that because it’s just baked in and can also be a function of the speaker design characteristics.  But, I find the better you get your speakers dialed in the less “sticky” they become and images tend to just float better in space.  This is the prime benefit of the effort you’re putting in now.  I’d forget about tilting the speakers back at this point because you’re just introducing another variable into the equation you really don’t need to deal with on top of all the other very important stuff you’re trying to figure out.  Keep experimenting with the basics — distance from back wall, distance between speakers, toe-in, etc. — and once you get that right, and you’ll know it when you do, then maybe mess with how far to tilt the speakers back if at all.  Keep in mind, your speakers were not designed to be tilted so just don’t do that until you have the other stuff right.  Just my $0.02 FWIW, and keep fighting the good fight!  It’ll pay off. 
 

In the description of your speaker on the company website they talk about it having adjustable rake angle so they obviously understand the importance of it in relationship to your seating distance, seating height and ear height.  Calculate the distance from your ear to the floor in a normal seating position and then adjust the rake angle of the speaker so that your ear is in the acoustical center of the speaker.  It may involve you asking the dealer or even Totem what the designer intended the acoustical center of this model to be. As the speaker is normally tilted backwards from the photos that will probably involve tilting the speaker forward a bit.  This has been a proponent of Vandersteen speaker set up for decades. 

After many adjustments, hours of listening and one major addition, I have come to the point where I need to work with the room. I am still @ 7' apart but now 56" from the back wall and sitting in that 7'-8' away. I was able to get a slight rise in the image. 

During this time, I have also introduced subwoofers, which absolutely blew my mind. I was able to audition a pair of REL T/7x's. This did nothing to the height of the image, but I was able to experience how subs do more than provide low frequencies. I listened for hours and enjoyed the enhancements. I had the opportunity to talk with someone who previously sold both Totem and REL products and suggested than the sub I should use is the S/510. He stated a whole bunch of audiophile terminology, but it was his expressive explanation that drew me in. I returned the T/7x's and ordered the S/510's. He was completely correct. It made a noticeable difference, and they were easy to integrate with the Forest's.

Now, I borrowed a Nordost system set-up & tuning disc. After going through the set-up tracks, I had two areas, which I think are related to my issue, that my system (so called) "failed"

Track - LEDR Tone Up - which created a sound that was to rise straight up from each speaker to @ 6'. My experience was the tone rising up and at the top it moved toward the center. The included manual states that this could be from strong reflections. Also, stated problem with tweeter but I will assume that is not the issue. 

Track - LEDR Tone Over - which created the same sound but originates outside of the speaker and works across to the other but in an arch, with a peak at the same height as the Tone Up from above. I was able to hear this; however, the tone only rose about half the height, if that, as the Tone Up.

So, this is where I would like to start with room treatments, but not sure what to use to address the issues stated above.

Looking for suggestions as what to use to begin this new journey in my audio education.

Thanks

Scott

Two things you can do to raise the sound stage- 

1) Definitely bring your speakers away from the wall!  4 inches is much to close for them to develop the space around them needed for a large sound stage in all dimensions.  Try for at least 2 feet or more as you can manage.  

2) Try varying degrees of toe angle- experiment from none all the way to aiming at a spot 2 feet in front of you- in small steps.  

3) Tubes.  Your modwright amp uses 6DJ8 tubes and the type of tube has a large impact on sound stage- that is why we love tubes.  

See the link below and get the ones you can afford beginning with the following brands-

Amperex (always a sound stage winner)

Telefunken (likewise)

Siemens.  

Good Luck ! 

6DJ8 Tubes From Brent Jessee Recording (audiotubes.com)

@avanti1960 no offence but none of what you recommended will affect image height. What affects image height is rake angle and it is somewhat speaker - dependent. In general, raking the speaker back will raise the image but again, with some speakers, especially when the Mid / tweet drivers are far above the sweet spot listener's ears, raking forward can raise the image. Tubes, toe - in and distance from the front wall will do nothing WRT image height.