Hi Rick,
SF is way too “purist” to supply plugs as means to modify their designs and certainly not for Cremona Auditors. However, I’ve done it any way and now the only way too listen in hope of some tracks behaving correctly is too moderate listening levels and use some slight DSP, although I hate doing that. 13 inches from rear wall (only) is the domestic rule for WAF and allows for sufficient walking space, unhindered TV viewing and all that useless stuff. When it sounds right, it’s really quite nice. As soon as a track has a heavy-handed bass encoded into the recording, then you immediately rip your hair out.
At my age and at this point…I’m looking for an install, tweak and forget system where I can get back to the music and forget about my audiophilia nervosa. I have three other systems in the house so sometimes I migrate to another room, but who can neglect their big rig?
Then I would say… “what’s for dinner, Batman?”
I’d say it was more than reasonable not to want speakers in the middle of the room and to be able to see the TV. The proper place for speakers is against the wall. I’d suggest getting shot of the SFs and getting something that works properly near the wall. For absolute wall hugging there are SBLs. Kudos S20 are bottom ported and work well with only 20cm or so behind them. The PMCs mentioned previously also work well near walls, as the transmission line port is on the front. The twenty.23 or twenty5.23 are small elegant floorstanders and sound very good.
Do you have a photo of your set-up?
Fully agree. All this business will be my “after vacation” project beginning late August. I have a good premonition about the PMCs and may have a listen to Neats, notably the Ekstra.
Hi Mike, I could do that but given the multi-million dollars setups on this forum, I’d save myself some major embarrassement by refraining to do so…I have a handle on the problem and possible solutions and will cross that bridge after summer period.
Sounds like a plan. My local dealer in Portsmouth has lots of PMC so you could get the ferry from Caen and make a weekend of it. Home dem wouldn’t work though!
If you do audition PMCs make sure they are well run in. Mine needed a good 100 hours playing time before they started to sound really sweet. They didn’t sound bad new out of the box, but nowhere near as good as the pair I had on home demo prior to buying or as good as they sound now.
Since you’re in France, try to see if you can audition JM Reynaud speakers. Most of them are a variant of transmission-line design with front port similar to PMC. They are designed to be fast and musical, usually a very good match for Naim and generally quite room-friendly.
I may be in a minority but I have no problems with the “chicken grills” on my ATC SCM 11s - they protect the drivers but allow them to be visible rather than hiding them away behind fabric that doesn’t give much protection. You can easily take them off as they are only held on by magnetic strips. More importantly to me is that the speakers sound great, can be sited close to a rear wall and are excellent value for money
Your opinion is, of course, just as valid as mine, even if we see things differently. Enjoy them.
Take your point about the grills. I ordered my ATC 19s in satin black. Look great and the grills don’t show up as much against the black. They do grow on you… 
Indeed, that looks rather acceptable!
Talking about grills, I have asked someone to create custom grills for my SBL’s. We have a busy family so the only chance for them to survive were steel grills. Until now, they have proven to be effective.
All sorts of custom grills are possible. A small trade-off in SQ should be acceptable to my ears.
Don’t understand the whole grills-grumbling thing. Don’t like 'em, leave 'em off. It’s as simple as that and makes no difference to SQ that I can hear. Personally most speaker stands don’t appeal to me, especially spindly black metal ones combined with natural wood finished speakers. But I’m happy to accept others have different tastes without making sarky comments.
Roger
I just noticed that my dealer in Ashford has the twenty5.22 listed on their website for the same price I paid for mine, £2550.
Couldn’t agree more,grills on or off,no difference in SQ,mine are on all the time,but that’s due to having a 14 month old grandson who’s just started tottering around!
I wouldn’t rule out ProAc Response D2 or the new Studio SM100, a little marvel. After Dali Mentor 2 and Totem Rainmaker I finally got the last ones right. Certainly after some tuning, tweking and taming, given the complicated location, as can be seen in the pic below; but finally the sound I was looking for, without any bass boomed nor bloated problems.
I tried multiple rear ported speakers with and w/o foam plugs and could never make them work in my space. I finally gave up and bought Harbeth 30.2’s which was what I wanted in the first place.
I’m using NDX-2/SN2 plus power supplies. I just bought a 555PS to replace the XPS and I’m awaiting an estimate to replace the NDX with a ND555.
Bud
Where I come from, and by that I mean my home, my use of “wifey” would ensure that I could no longer afford my nice Naim kit.