Physics of downward firing woofers

Ralph, did you remove the carpet to compare or move everything to identical room ?

As you know I have a set and have shown with them at shows since the early 1990s.

I've had carpet underneath mine and also bare wood floors (went from wall to wall to tribal rugs about 10 years ago). At shows we've often had carpet and it seems like other factors of hotel rooms are issues- usually we are trying to tame the highs in the room. Things like false walls and false ceilings are far more problematic for bass. Such things act like bass traps but usually you don't run into problems like that at home.

Downfiring is probably not a very good idea if you have carpeted floor. Unless I am terribly wrong.

I've never seen it make a difference. The Classic Audio Loudspeakers models T-1 and T-3 have down firing woofers. Somehow the bass sorts out how to get to your ears whether there is a carpet or not.

I think there is something to the height of the speaker off the floor, but my Fulton Premieres had down firing woofers and it was a lot closer to the floor than my CARs are. Overall the Fulton was less efficient, but I don't think that had anything to do with the woofers in particular.