Congrats on the purchase! You have the same setup that I do. It has been a prized possession of mine for years, I've brought the axioms with me every place I've moved
The M22's respond very well to equipment upgrades too, mostly because they are such transparent speakers! Tubes work very well.
I also have my M22's on "barstools" at the moment like you. I found that in my room, at about 2 feet away from the wall, the bass sounds the best. 6 inches can actually make a lot of difference, so play around with the distance from the wall.
BTW, I always thought the M22's sounded a little better in smaller rooms. In one large room setup I ended up getting a lot of plants in the house and additional furniture over time, and that helped the M22's sound "closer" like they do in small rooms. But 3 of those setups were in dorm rooms...so...take that advice with a grain of salt
Good luck!
