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 1 response by ckoffend

Having owned a couple pair of Wilson speakers. . .

First, 100 watts (8 ohms) of power is generally sufficient for most Wilson speakers - they are pretty efficient. Though I think in general terms that more power is frequently better in general.

Second, I have run various Wilsons in rooms smaller than your with excellent results. I have not owned the Sophia's as I personally like the WP better for my listening preferences. The W/P run in smaller rooms than yours have done very well.

In terms of a replacement, I cannot recommend highly enough the Wilson Duettes. However, perhaps your problem is that you don't like the Wilsons in the first place, then perahps the Duettes will also not be to your liking. I ran the Duettes in both nearfield and regular listening positions with terrific results in both. They are much less susceptable to placement, very good flexibility and have external cross over (included) that allow for tailoring the sound to your room via easy to replace resistors (these are included with the speakers and are no more difficult to change than wiring the speakers from your amp - 5 minutes no electrical experience - no tools - well maybe a screw driver).