I am listening to Billie Holliday and the sound is in-room, warm and sweet of that ERA and that is how it should be if the speakers were bright it is easy to hear by the way, I am coming from Quad ESL 63's so If these were bright they are long gone. I can get them bright with the wrong cables and power cords can break a system. In my experience, these speakers give you only what you feed them from your system and amp. I use them with the spikes off and now on the front only, the back spike is useless and cannot pentrate my carpet and pad due to how short they are, sound better without them on the back anyway. I also say try them with just the front feet on was spikes, to see how they work on the floor you are using, toe-in makes a bib impact on brightness also and every room is different, but try toeing them in to the tweeter hits your intter should next area, and listen for brightness or if it improved, then slowly take them out 1/4" at a time and listen the speaker with either improve or start getting brighter, once you find the ideal spot to your ear, take them out 1/4" more and see if you lose the sound you liked if so go back to what you had them and for you room they are good to go, also I found you have to get the speaker to work with the size of your room, I had to pull mine in close than one might think would be correct buy my loft is 122" only I had them wider apart, but one day I moved each in 3" and wow they locked into the room and imaging and center fill improved and any brightness was gone, so you really have to play with this speaker or any speaker, my Quads were hard to lock in and one day I toed them out 1/2" and the sound just exploded with dyanamcis, tone and color, and I had them 1-year at that point so it takes time to "learn" what makes them tick. My Quads could sound like a transistor radio with wrong setup or adding spikes under them.
