Is my room doomed? Pic

That looks like a room that you want to leverage and not fight.

If all else fails with what you have, you might want to consider a pair of omni design speakers like mbl, OHM , dueval, Morrison, German Physiks, or perhaps even Mirage.

A good omni design will best fill a room like that with sound in a natural manner. More directional designs will have sound waves bouncing all over creation in that room in a more destructive than constructive manner IMHO, no matter what else you do to try and tame it.

You may also need to place something more solid underneath the speakers in order to prevent them from interacting too strongly with the wood floors and delivering bass that is too fat and undefined.

mbl has some smaller monitors that are largely omni and sit on stands that I could envision being a nice fit to a room like that. Mirage may also for much lower cost.

Monitors on stands would help keep the floors out of the equation. The more wide dispersion or omni the monitors, are the better.

Floor standing OHMs would be a possibility as well. A smaller pair might work well in that room. These are bottom ported though so you would have to be careful about not going overboard with the bass as they interact with what appears to be lively wood floors.

"It's one thing for a dealer to sell you a $1000 pair of speakers and say "have fun"; but when you buy a precision instrument like this system, the dealer has a responsibility to make sure it is performing to your expectations."

I agree with that!

You would think closing the drapes would help if the windows behind the listening position were the major factor, but the OP indicates that closing the drapes did not make much difference, which is not encouraging.

"Is my room doomed?"

Never fear, the Audiogon acoustic hit squad is here!

Your name is not Smith and you are not a Doctor, are you?

Break in is real in many cases. A

But also in many cases, you are screwed with no recourse if you wait for it to happen and it still doesn't meet your expectations.

Not sure what your exact contingency options are with the seller (hopefully there is some kind of satisfaction guaranteed policy) but do not loose the opportunity to return if you have it as a result of waiting for break in.

"why omnis?"

See my first post above. Omnis will project the sound more evenly and naturally throughout the room. They require fewer room treatments in general in larger more difficult rooms than more directional designs. That's why I have landed on them in my difficult L shaped room where box designs and planars just could not cut it.

You can make a tough room work for you rather than trying to fight a losing battle taming the room to accommodate the speakers.

Omnis like OHMs will also enable serious listening from mostly any listening location in the room equally, even including outside of the speaker locations if needed. They also tend to produce a deep sound stage (with good amplification) mostly behind the speakers that extends past the rear wall which will help create a deeper perceived room depth.

I'd try to get things clicking with what you have first, or switch to different speakers that the dealer might offer if the Rockports cannot cut it in that room. If all that fails, OHM, as an example, does offer an extensive in-hone trial on their speakers that eliminates most all the risk (save shipping) if their speakers do not work out. The audition period is long enough to allow proper break-in as well.

Enzo,

did you hear the Gryphon/Rockport combo with a tube pre-amp prior?

That particular SS amp with a tube pre-amp is suspect for me along with the room due to its relatively low input impedance in combo with a tube pre-amp. An impedance mismatch between SS amp and tube pre-amp might account for some of what you describe you are not hearing that you did prior if SS pre-amps were what you had heard prior, regardless of the quality of the individual units.