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The room and hardwood floors could be a factor, however I would double check a couple things on the receiver first. Make sure your analog source is connected to the audio1 or audio2 inputs on the receiver. According to the manual, direct mode disables the tone controls and DSP, along with "display and operation of the option and setup menus". I'm not sure if that last part means speaker setup is bypassed or they just shut off the display to reduce noise. I'm also not sure if YPAO is considered part of DSP but make sure your speakers are not set to "small" and/or YPAO has the EQ adjusted funky. Even in direct mode, it appears like an analog signal gets converted to digital to pick up some bass management and then goes through the DAC - i.e. ADA conversion. This is typical. If your subwoofer-out is working in direct mode with a 2-channel analog source, then some ADA is going on. If so, then make sure your speakers are not set to small and consider turning on the "extra bass" option.

I know you only need 5.1 but there are more 7.x options available with better feature sets in your price range. For example, this Yamaha is one generation old and about as future proof as you can get - for $350: http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/yamrxa750bl/yamaha-rx-a750-7.2-ch-x-90-watts-networking-a/v-receiver-rx-v679/1.html This is the latest generation Yamaha for the same price with a little less power: http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/yamrxa660bl/yamaha-rx-a660-7.2-ch-x-80-watts-networking-a/v-receiver/1.html#!more I wouldn't worry about power or specs too much as long as you stay with one of the major brands in this price point. With an AVR, make sure it has all the features and connectivity options you need now and for the foreseeable future.

PS - welcome to the forum!

Does the Yamaha sound bright in pure-direct mode when you are feeding it an analog source? Pure-direct will shut off your subwoofer but it will/should bypass all internal DAC processing and be a good test to see where you should go next.

Are the tweeters working? Were you able to audition them at the previous owner's home and if so, how did they sound there?

I'm building a new back patio / pergola right now. My plan is to use the R-15PM's out there. They're very portable and just need an outlet. They can use bluetooth or hookup an iPhone or laptop via line-in. I'm purposely trying to avoid hardwiring and hanging some outdoor speakers. Just my preference.

According to my wife, I'm the only "big dip" in my listening room.

I wouldn't spend any money on them until I did some troubleshooting first. Make sure the marantz doesn't have them set to "small" or some kind of room correction enabled. Try running them in pure-direct mode, or better yet, bypass the marantz temporarily as a test. they're efficient enough to connect a source directly to the amp.

I would just use the QNAP software built into the device (QTS 4.2) and select all four disks to create a single RAID-10 volume. This will yield a little under 8TB usable. Set a daily snapshot schedule on the volume so you have a fallback point in case of corruption or user error. I'm not familiar with this device or software but I have something similar from Western Digital (My Cloud.) The last bit of protection would be to connect a USB drive to the QNAP device and setup a weekly backup schedule to the local USB drive. The volume snapshots protect you for data corruption or user error, but if their is a bug in the QTS software that corrupts the entire 4-disk RAID-10 volume, then your external USB drive is your safety net. (you could also setup a rotation of two USB drives to keep one offsite at all times.) The option that you mentioned, I'm sure there's a way in QTS 4.2 to setup two raid-1 volumes - 4TB each. this would separate your failure domains. You could rip your data to volume-1 and then have QTS 4.2 do a daily internal backup/sync from volume-1 to volume-2. Bottom line is I would let QTS do the data protection and just let your NAS clients, whether windows or mac, treat the QNAP as a giant shared drive(s).

Have you checked the Klipsch website? They have several bookshelf speakers to choose from. I also enjoy my R-15PMs, the powered version of your R-15M. They are flexible dynamic speakers that punch above their weight class.

Three wins in a row coming up. You heard it here first!

Enjoy comme-ca, then. Save your argent.

IMHO, if your current drivers and crossovers are in good shape, leave them alone for now. Same goes for your amp and pre-amp. First play around with low cost options that offer the biggest bang for the euro: room placement, speaker positioning, listening position, room treatments. Your next biggest bang for the euro would be to add a subwoofer. Again, this is assuming these LaScala's are up to spec. You can download REW (free) and use the mic on your laptop to run some test sweeps to check if a driver is spitting out distortion. I use two subs with my LS2's to add some (and even out) bass below about 80hz.

Those look like modified file cabinets from the 1970s. Do the badges cover up the lock? :-)

A null is an area of the room where the troughs/valleys of sound waves for a particular frequency range converge. I think it's pretty common in most rooms to have weak bass in the middle of the room and stronger bass along the walls. How is the bass if you stand behind your chair?

Is your chair in the middle of the room or against the back wall?

I'm going to hang on to them for now - I don't think I'm done with them yet.

Fell back to the K77's again. I can't get the CT120s to be tame with the crossover in the LS2. I'll leave well enough alone for now. The good news is I'm like an F1 pit crew swapping out tweeters in my LS2's.

"Trust but verify." It wouldn't hurt to ask for a second opinion. It would give you some peace of mind,

Succumbed to the peer pressure and re-installed the CT120's yesterday. So far so good. I'm sure I'll be tinkering with them.

Keep me posted. I may try mine again if I can figure out a way to get them EQ'd better. Then I can truly compare them to the K77. I suspect they have a cleaner more accurate voice than the K77, but I don't know for sure.

Nice tweeters but they ran too hot through the AL-5 (?) crossovers. Struggled to get them balanced. See attached measurement of both drivers running solo through the AL-5 crossover. K77=blue. CT120=green. The CT120 already has about an inch of open-cell foam in the throat of the horn in an attempt to attenuate it a bit, otherwise it would be hotter.

I mess around with stuff for about a year before ending back up with stock Klipsch. On my main floor, I have stock Heresy III's that I tweaked and positioned before finding the right location for the room. Been enjoying ever since. In my basement, I have stock La Scala II's that I've moved and toe'd all over the place, and even replaced the K77 tweeters with Crites' CT-120 over the summer before returning to stock a few weeks ago. Bought a miniDSP UMIK-1 mic to use with REW that has helped me dial things in. Not sure I'm done tweaking the basement but I've been enjoying them as-is for the last month. My back thanks me. (My wife makes fun of me when I start doing REW sweeps with my mic.)

Mozart's Requiem Mass? Sorry couldn't resist. I blame it on the old fashioned I just drank. My apologies in advance.

I live in the same town but I need another amp like I need a third eye. The guy has quite a setup in the background there.