Speaker/Room Acoustic Problem

+1 @james633 and @erik_squires

Some kind of sound diffuser behind your seating position might also help tame the room mode that is exaggerating your midrange and drowning out treble.

If this a small bedroom with a closet setting up with gear sitting inside closet space so you can place gear on side of one speaker, as opposed to in the middle of a speaker set, can free up room to experiment with speaker placement.

As a previous dedicated apartment dweller I think I have a pretty good handle on what's going on. The problem is probably a combination of excess and muddy bass plus early reflections, including the ceiling.

You need corner bass traps.  One cool thing is that even treating 1 corner in these small rooms can be a huge improvement.  I used 2 GIK Soffit traps stacked. I've had them for almost ten years and 4 apartments before moving into my current home.

Another problem is usually the ceilings are too low. Panels between the listener and the speakers are ideal.

@rick_hilton , It would help a lot if you had a measurement mic so I could get an idea what you are listening to. Many people want their system to sound brighter than is natural. If I had to guess or pick the most likely problem it would be your amp. If this is the case no amount of room treatment is going to fix it. Maggies are a very smooth but low impedance load and they are not very efficient which means amps with small power supplies need not apply. A 100 Watt/ch Class A amp that weights at least 50 lb will do it. The LRS also benefits greatly from subwoofers. Taking the bass out of them from 100 Hz down cleans them up and doubles their potential output. Speakers get brighter as you turn up the volume. The Maggies come into their own at 85 db and up. They should play effortlessly at that volume without any sibilance at all. Also LRS's beam a bit. For the best treble you really need to be right in front of them and they have to be toed in facing you directly. Maggie LRS actually tend to be on the hot side. I assume you have a jumper wire and not a resistor in the treble attenuation position?

If it works maybe pop for something really cool?

DeKay

Interesting. I had a pair of Theil 2.4 is a 11x12’ room once during a basement remodel. Sounded good with silly amounts of bass lol.

I also have a home theater but in a very large room and the entire ceiling is treated with 6” of mineral wool and an acoustic drop ceiling.

#1 is the small room boosting the bass making the highs seem soft?

#2 before and after treating my ceiling really changed the sound of the room so maybe but in the near field I am not sure it will matter that much.

@dekay

+1 great idea!

This is a very perplexing problem. It really does sound like overdampening.

OP, if you put some photos of your system under your UserID it might give us some more clues. Planar speakers like some reflections. Like my Apogees liked reflective wall behind the speakers… did not mind having my equipment in between my speakers. My Sonus Faber Amati Traditional speakers do not go for it at all.

That’s a good idea. Worth a try! 

Tape some lightweight finished paper to the cloth ceiling (like wrapping paper) as an experiment.

DeKay