I’ve found that my near-wall, front-port, downward angle setup works pretty well. Breaking the relationship with 90 degree walls plus foam isolation pads neutralizes room effects. I recall people building custom listening rooms with 4 degree inward-sloping walls to avoid standing waves…am I getting the same effect by putting the speakers high and slanting down…?
Once I figure out my brand/model preferences I’m plotting to spend 10x more on technically superior speakers. Sooner or later. However, these basic ELACs perform in the HD-6XX ballpark and are fully satisfactory for a background music use case. They have slightly diffuse and rolled off treble but expansive imaging, plus all bookshelf speakers have bass limitations. Frankly, one gets more for the money with mainstream speakers than similar quality headphones.