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Can speakers be too large for a room

The reason I ask this question is I recently moved from a 10 ft x 10 ft home office/listening room with a nearfield setup (B & W CM1 and a CM sub with a Bryston B100SST intergrated amp) Which sounded wonderful to a 11 ft x 18 ft office/soundproof listening room. So I purchased a pr. of Sofia's from audiogon. Although they sound very good. They seem to want more. It's hard to explain. I'm kinda new at the highend music. My new office is built for listening. I have lots of bass traps and reflection panel to help tame the small room. So accoustics are not a real problem. The sound seems to be a little restricted. The amp pushes 200 wpc @ 4 ohm. There is no way to turn the volume past halfway, but the speaker don't really start sounding there best until you turn up the volume. Which gets a little fatiguing after a while. I know these are not technical terms, but i don't know how to explain it.

My question is could the sofias be to much for the room.

If so what would be a good choice for a replacement. I mostly listen to jazz and blues with a little classic rock.

Price range 6k to 10k

Thx Matt
mwilliams

Showing 4 responses by almarg

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almarg
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I've read through all of this and it's not clear to me exactly what the symptoms are. That's no one's fault, of course, especially considering your statements about being a relative newbie, but I think that a more specific characterization of the problem would bring help that is better focused.

As I understand it, you have no problem driving the speakers to uncomfortably high volumes. But at comfortable volume levels there are problems in the highs. What sort of problems? Are they too weak generally, so that the sound is dull and muffled? Or are sharp transients sluggish? Or are they simply poorly defined and inaccurate. When you say "I removed the walls panel and it did help, but it still needs something at the reflection points," in what way did it help, and what leads you to say that it still needs something at the reflection points?

And what kind of music, among the jazz and blues that you primarily listen to, tends to bring out the problem to the greatest degree? Female voice? Certain instruments?

Regards,
-- Al
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almarg
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A further thought, following up on my previous post:

Among the recordings that you have done the assessments with, are at least a few of them presumably high quality audiophile-caliber recordings, with minimal dynamic range compression, minimal equalization, and minimal processing generally, AND have you listened to them at approximately real-life volume levels, similar to what would be heard in a concert hall or jazz club?

If not, what I'm thinking is that with recordings that are some combination of low quality, inaccurate, overly compressed, distorted, overly processed, etc. there is a natural tendency to listen at lower than real-life volume levels. The more accurate the recording and its reproduction, the higher the volume level that can be tolerated without fatigue.

And listening at lower than real-life volume levels will tend to invoke the Fletcher-Munson Effect, which causes our hearing mechanisms to perceive highs (and lows) at reduced levels relative to the mid-range.

Perhaps that is a factor here.

Regards,
-- Al
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almarg
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MWilliams -- Thanks for the clarifications. Yes, dull cymbals would seem to suggest simply weakness in the mid to upper treble. My feeling, though, contrary to some of what has been suggested, is that enhancing that part of the spectrum by enhancing first reflections would be compensating for one problem by introducing another. With the likely result of unwanted side-effects on imaging and other parts of the spectrum.

All I can suggest, if you haven't already done so, would be to take one of your better quality recordings containing cymbal crashes, and play it at realistic "live" volume levels, with the tweeters of the speakers aimed directly at you. If there is still significant dullness, then I would have to think something else is wrong somewhere, although I'm not sure what that might be.

Good luck!
-- Al
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almarg
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One thing I am going to try is to raise the speakers some. This is my office, so my listening position is higher than normal. I,ve read that the tweeters should be about ear level. I am going to try and raise the speakers about 2 inches. When listening the soundstage seems to be a little low.

Matt, you'll definitely want to consider this quote from John Atkinson's review of the Sophia in Stereophile:

In the vertical plane ... the speaker's balance doesn't change much as long as the listener sits with his or her ears below the top of the enclosure. Stand, however, and a large suckout appears at the upper crossover frequency, which appears to be just under 2kHz.

A suckout around 2kHz would definitely have an effect on cymbals, in the direction of dullness.

Also, note the frequency response plot for your former speakers (the CM1's) in this review. If you click on Figure 2 to expand it, you will see that most of the treble is elevated by around 5db relative to the mid-range. That is significant, and perhaps your experience with that speaker is affecting your expectations. In contrast, as noted in JA's review the Sophia's are essentially flat from mid-range through treble, aside from some small and narrow peaks and valleys.

Hope that helps,
-- Al
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