Michael Fremer's system

Michael Fremmer is doing one thing with his system/room that goes against convention, and is very smart. He is using a big speaker in a smaller room. He has thought things out and arrived at what I consider the correct conclusion. Most it seems don't. (I didn't bother to read all the posts here, but I caught a general sentiment regarding room size over the course of discussion.)

If I had listened to the purported authorities, and the talking heads about rooms and speaker size I never would have had such glorious experiences as I have over the past decade or so. 

tommyc is on the right track, "Fremer does not seem like a dumb guy to me. He has heard a great many systems, probably more than anyone here. It’s his job. So don’t you think that he would know that he could get better sound with a nice pair of monitors, maybe a sub, and a low power tube amp at a small fraction of the price of his current system, if that was the case?"

Kudos, Michael, you know what you're doing. It's wonderful to select the path less traveled and be richly rewarded.  :) 

Shadorne, your point is valid about the bass hump. The Vapor Audio Joule White (reviewed) has a circuit which addresses that, and it's quite significant in its effect. It's a valuable feature of the speaker which I use depending upon the system. I can see some being put off enough by the bass hump that they would opt out of the larger speaker. Personally, if I had to live with it versus a less capable speaker, I would. Thankfully, I do not have to. But, a great deal of bass contouring can be done by treatments, amps and cables, much less the source. It's not like a person is stuck with wretched results simply because of a bass hump. 

We have people thinking they should expect ruler flat response and supposedly "perfect" results. Not gonna happen in probably 95+% of rooms. Of course, you can simply cut out a ton of low end! Problem fixed. Except for the fact it's not as convincing a reproduction of  the real music experience. :(  Who needs LF? The music lives in the midrange, right? Ugh. Like putting a speed governor on a race car. 

Someone will mention subs with a smaller speaker, but you are still stuck then with the compromised mains. 

You also bring up a good point in regard to driver integration. Everyone is different in how accepting of less coherence they are. Having used coaxial and full range speaker drivers I can appreciate that caveat. 

I have found that when building many systems of cost ranging multiples of 2, 3 or even four times the cost that making a cost-effective system sound as good as a much more expensive one is fiendishly difficult. Even making a rig half the cost sound as good or better is exceptionally difficult. The idea that diminishing returns kick in early is bunk. Unless you have handled such systems ranging in price from low to high, I don’t expect you to understand or agree.

Clutter makes surprisingly little difference in the overall sound in the room. I have cleared the room, and I have had extra components on the side and cables in the back. Perceptually there is a negligible difference. One might think the difference would be large, but it is not. However, I can easily hear the distinction between switching a couple power cords or a set of interconnects.

MF knows what he is doing; you guys do not understand it. :)