Component Advice for Small Room with Lively Surfaces


Would sincerely appreciate any recommendations and advice from the community for a system for a listening room in a new home. Here are the parameters:

  • listen mainly to classic rock from the '70s and '80s and enjoy a good, deep bass
  • room measures 15' W (along wall where components/speakers will be placed) x 14' L x 9' H
  • room has wood floors, glass on 3 sides and stone on the 4th side
  • fabric window shades are present on 2 of the glass sides
  • built-in wood album display built into one of the glass sides
  • want the ability to both spin vinyl and stream
  • budget up to $50k

After auditioning the MBL 116, N31 and N51, I was about to pull the trigger but am wondering if an omni would be the best choice for a room with these characteristics and my listening preferences? Unfortunately, I am unable to audition these components in my room. Would monitors work best or full-range floor standers?  I do appreciate a good, deep bass. Have to admit this is a very confusing and subjective process, yet I am wondering if anyone who has faced the same set of parameters has any thoughts?  Many thanks for any tips and advice you would be willing to offer. Very much appreciated.  
vanquish
My thoughts are:

Speaker Dispersion: If you can handle a tight listening area, get speakers with controlled dispersion. Horns, panels, line arrays and bi-polars are good ideas.

Acoustics: As I read your description, you don’t have a lot of surface area you can treat, so treat the ceiling and floor as much as you can, as well as the stone wall. Also, consider standing up GIK soffit traps in the corners.

https://www.gikacoustics.com/

EQ: Consider a pre or integrated with built in room correction like Anthem. This will help you get the most out of your speakers with least effort.

https://anthemav.com/products/series=str-series

Strongly encourage you to talk to GIK first, get the best you can in room acoustics, followed by EQ. More at my post here:

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-not-buy-subwoofer.html
"In my opinion working "with the room" rather than "against the room" matters a great deal... especially in small, lively room"

This makes alot of sense Duke and I am wondering if there are any particular dipoles and horns that you would recommend? Thank you
millercarbon, thanks very much for your recommendation on the Raven. Had no idea they are made in Texas, which is where I live. I will be sure to check them out. Really do appreciate your in-depth explanation and observations.

erik_squires, thank you for your thoughts. You are correct in that there is not a lot of surface area in the room that can be treated. I don't think the stone wall is treatable either as it has stainless steel built in cabinets for components and albums and 4 stainless steel niches for guitar displays. Will definitely check out your suggested acoustic and EQ treatments. Are there any particular controlled dispersion speakers that would be worth considering? 

Thanks to you both.
I had a challenging room though not as bad as you describe yours. I ended up using ARC room correction. I used Dirac as well but I liked Anthems line of products better. Either one should help with reflections and bass integration, I found the latter more important to me as I am not a fan of boomy bass that vibrates your insides. Another thing that would help is rugs on the floor and upholstered furniture.
Edit: I didn't notice you mentioned spinning vinyl. ARC or Dirac used would be doing analog to digital conversions which is something you might not want.
Vanquish wrote: "This makes a lot of sense Duke and I am wondering if there are any particular dipoles and horns that you would recommend?" 

In my opinion SoundLab fullrange electrostats do an excellent job in a wide range of rooms, assuming they can be positioned five feet in front of the wall.  Less than that and they can still work well, but we will need to diffuse the backwave or, as a last resort, absorb it.  SoundLabs have an exceptionally uniform radiation pattern across either 45 degrees or 90 degrees front and back, depending on whether you go with the new (45 degree) panels or the old (90 degree) panels.   I prefer the new 45 degree panels UNLESS a rather wide sweet spot is needed. 

I make low-coloration horn speakers with room interaction very much in mind, which includes something that I don't think anyone else is doing:  I include user-adjustable additional upwards-and-backwards firing drivers to fine-tune the reverberant field. The fairly directional output of these additional drivers bounces off the wall behind the speakers and then off the ceiling before arriving at the listening area, so it arrives after a sufficiently long time delay without requiring much distance from the wall.  My website is under revision but you can see my current models at James Romeyn Music and Audio.  Jim is my partner. 

You mentioned Texas... I'm located about an hour from Dallas. 

Duke