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 martykl

I know that many A'goners are happy with Wilson speakers in small rooms, but...

While others will disagree, I've always felt that most of the Wilsons I've heard (going back to the original WAMM with Crown electronics)sound like they're "voiced" for large-ish rooms. I haven't heard the newer Sophia iterations, but I have heard the original Sophia. I thought it was a very good sounding speaker with bass a little too ripe for the audition room, which IIRC was a bit larger than yours. My impression was that the bass would probably have been more neutral in a larger room. From that experience, I would guess that the bass from the Sophia would likely dominate in a room with dimensions like yours.

Like I said, others will surely disagree - just, MHO.

Marty