Polk R700 Polarity & other issues

That thread was pretty funny..all I have to do is think of the word Airhole now and it brings a smile to my face.
I will say, I've never seen a cardboard enclosure.

I've been much happier with them. If I would have thought to record anything when I first had them you would have been able to hear the softness or tone of the bass.

As far as placement and axis there is more I can still try. I felt they sounded a little better when I pushed them back a hair into that rear cutout. Initially I pulled the TV and the speakers out way further than normal, but found myself inching back for a fuller sound. The TV stand was a hair in front of the speaker baffle, good eye picking up on that. I've been pushing and pulling on everything so much I lost track of it. At the moment if you were to imagine on-axis being straight forward the speakers are only slightly toe'ed in. One difference between these and the R200's is the 700's disappear nicely when sitting in the center position, it's definitely a shining point of the towers.

With some treatment and carpet/rugs they obviously would perform better in my opinion. I also think they would be better suited for a larger room, large rectangle room. Kinda is
what it is though. Tweeters are about 8 feet apart, couch is 8 feet away.

Since adding some EQ I've been running the one sub cut off around 55hz and I've been content. I'll experiment more with that, see how going higher works out. Same with positioning, I'm not set on that perfect spot yet..but I'm also a little limited on
how wide and how far I can come out due to wife
constraints and layout of room.

Constant state of confusion...but my home is in Florida

@ChrisD06 yes, my lower bass is more than adequate now. Especially if I run the subwoofer. I feel like the 700's have even improved over the last week or so..as I've been runnin' these sucka's about 18 hours a day. I can assure you they sounded nothing like they do now.. before switching the upper and lower post wiring, adjusting the EQ, and putting some real hours on them. I do feel the lower mid bass could use some tweaking, seems a bit recessed compared to the low bass and very clear midrange, maybe when I get a chance I'll record some tracks that highlight what I'm talking about..although I'm hoping this issue will improve with more time played on the
speakers. I think I'm going to hook up a dedicated preamp (tube) in this system instead of running off the dac/pre, that should make some overall improvements as well. I've been pretty happy with the speakers, they've turned out much better than what I initially thought.

I have used some EQ's back in the day, in the 80's and early 90's me and my buddies always used them. @pitdogg2 named a few of the usual suspects..but back then probably every piece of gear I had added its own touch of distortion, plus clarity and detail was something I was completely unaware of. I just wanted it loud and to go boom boom. Then yes, at some point using EQ and tone controls became blasphemy. But mostly because I found standalone EQ's to be more harm then good. I'm sure I wasn't using them properly but I also feel they did something negative to the signal. Just introducing an EQ into the line changed the tone and clarity, but they were probably cheapish junk too.

I definitely look at room correction a little differently, it is a great improvement. With that said I didn't always like how Dirac made the mids and highs sound. It does something that just doesn't sound right to me. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but it could take a little liveliness or presence away, slightly veiled. I felt Dirac was best when only
adjusting around like 500hz. That RME dac I have is frickin awesome when it comes to EQ. I've had it almost 2 years but didn't realize the full power of it until the last 12 months or so. I just wish it had a few more bands. I've wanted to try better or more boutique type dacs lately, like these newer R2R's, but I don't want to give up my little PEQ
settings. Always compromises in this "hobby".

@msg is spot on as far as my past experiences with tone controls..Too broad a spectrum, or never the frequency I needed adjusted, and then ultimately just **** everything up. Other than maybe taking some harshness off some tracks or adding a little bass with vinyl they were not very precise. That RME dac has 2 tone controls, but you can choose which frequency you want to be able to adjust, and you can slightly adjust the Q or width of that frequency. Still not perfect due to the limited Q on the tone controls but definitely a step up from
what I experienced back in the day.