Speakers that sound great in terrible rooms

I would agree with what some others have said regarding near field listening, avoiding reflections, and narrow dispersion speakers.  As a starting point you also want your seating position in a place where you have the most even bass response - play the room as they say.

Another vote for Larsen speakers. I have a room in which I have little flexibility in speaker and listening position. I've tried a number of speakers in that room over several decades and have never been satisfied. In the last year I installed Larsen 6.2 speakers. After all these years, I'm happy with the sound quality. I enjoy this system as much and in some ways more than other rooms where I have complete flexibility with the speaker and listening position. Others have also been impressed. When I play program material with low bass content, it sounds like I've added subwoofers.

Surprised that anyone that sensitive about not changing their room to improve sound would choose that room to set up a system in the first place.  Is there no other room in the house that would have better acoustics?

Sometimes performance of the room can be improved by just drawing the curtains - is that too much meddling in the aesthetics?

If putting the system in the best room in the house (from a sound point of view) or doing anything at all to eliminate glaring sonic issues are not acceptable, I'd say that the best speakers for that person would be a pair of really, really good headphones.

The ones put in the ceiling .

@bpoletti Couldn’t agree more! I’ve just moved from a ranch home with cement floors to a two-story home. The second floor listening room is RIDICULOUSLY bad for audio. The floor is acting like a speaker. I cannot believe the difference from the ranch home to the 2nd story home with the exact same quality components making up my 2 channel audio system. 
The rooms are very similar in size. Basically, it’s a “smallish” room, 11x12x10. The dedicated listening room with the cement floors in the ranch home was ideal for my 2 channel audio system. I had my system “dialed-in” and was thrilled to death with the sound quality I was getting, from an all-tube audio system. 
Now, I don’t even want to turn my audio system on!
Yes, setting up in a “near field “ configuration has helped somewhat to take the room out of the equation and the “bad acoustics” of the room.

For example, it’s harder to follow bass lines and the overall quality of the sound” suffers. There seems to be A LOT of “leakage” of sound. Especially noticeable when walking under the rooms where the stereo is playing. Sounds like a damn night club, thump, thump, thump. 
Anybody have any ideas to help room acoustics in the Vegas area, other than moving my man-cave, 2 channel audio system down to the first floor living room, which OF COURSE ain’t happening with the ol lady.