There were other models with "bigger" bass, Sonus and B&W among them, but it was often boomy or slow (which could have been the fault of lousy room setups). I thought with my ARC Ref75 amp, it might be smart to stay with a speaker known for bass control.

The bass performance of the D30R is of course very room dependent. I do think that downward facing port design achieves a specific and articulated bass, but is more easily obscured on poorer recordings. I've used a digital front end exclusively (that will change in two weeks; VPI Prime is on the way) and I find some music presents a jaunty bass, almost quick. On other recordings the bass loses itself in traffic, especially anything with modest to heavy dynamic compression, like Vampire Weekend, for example. Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" or "Tusk" has no trouble.

This is also a byproduct of Audio Research components, I suspect. They don't use the tagline "High Definition" for nothing.

I'm in a big room and the D30Rs are right up against what they can maintain in terms of presence and soundstage. I might have chosen the 40s if I could Go back in time (and somehow had more cash). Yet the mids on the D30R are heavenly, voices and horns so clean and textured you want to cry. The tweeters are stunning and hard to fathom sometimes. Dimensionality of complex music like Buena Vista Social Club or some well recorded classical is first rate. Overall its a beautiful sound and I'm always full of gratitude when they play. Yet there are points to consider regrading bass performance. 

In a smaller room such as you mentioned they should be fantastic.

Mark, that's a great idea for the cables! My current idea is to wait for the TT and see what the "temporary-permanent" arrangement looks like on the rack. Right now it's a real cable mess!