Overkill for small room

@letshearit no worries, thanks for the clarification!

I think they are fantastic speakers. You are right that they would be a better fit for a bigger room. I have the Evoke 20s for a room similar size with 1 sub, and they are awesome. The moment I can afford a pair of used Contours, I will buy them! I heard them many times at a local dealer and I love them.  

Wow, this a wellspring of helpful info.

One question about damping: is this a function of the amp or the speaker?

If I understand 'good' damping correctly, it involves quickly stopping the woofer's motion when no bass signal is present. Do I have that correct? This would be especially important with larger diameter woofs and subs, no?

Sounds like a great choice. DynAudio speakers are excellent. Particularly if you have control of the room you can really dial them in. There is plenty of room to pull them in from the walls and back. You can easily make a ~6 -7 foot triangle with the speakers and seat, with lots of room behind for a deep soundstage .

I just helped a friend set up a set of full sized Wilson Watt Puppies in a room about that size. They sound great from a whisper to head banging volumes. They are set up along the short wall with the equipment rack off to the side (amp in between ((Audio Research VSi80). Not putting the equipment in between the speakers was important. The speaker wall had tall windows which we covered with cushions behind curtains, deadening the window reflections.

I have a smaller room than yours and am running Fritz Rev7 SEs.  They have a similar size footprint, woofer, frequency response, as well as being rear ported.  I know it’s not the same speaker but I do not think you will overload the room with bass.  My room is not.  I’ve even added two subs to my setup and it still doesn’t overload the room.  I have some decent treatment though.  I think you will be fine.  You can also plug the rear port if you like and see what that does.  I plugged mine with some memory foam inserts I made myself.  Good amplification with a good damping factor would help bring you nice tight bass.

I had Dynaudio Contour 1.8 floorstanders in a room your size and the bass was tight and solid but not at all boomy. They were probably amongst the best speakers I have owned and I have owned plenty over the years.

Many thanks for the helpful comments thus far. You've made me feel better already. 

My main concern is ending up with bass that's muddy/boomy/hard to control. With a small room, I won't have all that much space to pull them away from the front wall. They're rear-ported and allegedly require much care in placement to really shine, so I was concerned with distances from the back wall and side wall being problematic. 

Do I turn it up to 11? On rare occasion when the right song deserves it, but most listening is at med to med(+) volume. 

I've not used room correction previously, but I trust it's highly effective since it seems extremely well utilized among forum users here. I imagine there's a learning curve with Dirac/ARC as well.

I don’t think they’ll be too much. It is possible though that you may require additional sound absorption panels in that room. Dynaudio speakers love to be cranked up. If you like to listen at low levels these are probably not for you. 

They need to be on stands, tweeters at seated ear height. Lower, tilted back, aim tweeter to seated ear might work better in any room, it changes the angle of reflections off the floor and ceiling, while toe-in changes the reflections off side walls. I would rig up temporary piles of books/boxes, see which sounds better, then go for stands that height.

They have a rear port, so out from rear and side walls, OR, temporarily cover or stuff the port to put them closer to the corners. You gain placement flexibility and you will find you do not lose much bass extension.

Toe-In: To avoid scuffung the speaker bottom and stand top: I would put 3 small ’skid plates’ on the speaker bottoms (2 front/1rear), so the stands can stay at their ’normal’ position’, and the speakers stay put normally, but will move with some effort. play with alternate toe-in, starting with speakers facing the listening chair.

Yes the Contour 20i - apologies for omitting crucial information.

I also meant to pose the title of the post as a question, as in "Overkill?" but I forgot the ?

Noobies.....🙄.....what are ya gonna do?

you mean Contours? I am confused that you are asking a question with such incomplete info, being the key part of the question.

room correction could help for sure. 

Another option to add Dirac cheaply without messing up the quality of your pre and DAC is a mini dsp SHD studio. This is an all digital unit, you can place it between the source and DAC. It will do the correction in the digital domain and pass it to your DAC. This could be used to fix any overloaded bass in the room.

1.  Whether you are nuts is irrelevant. The fact that you are asking questions on this site is all we need to know.
2.  Why would they be "too much" for your room? Are you planning on turning it up to 11? Some speakers just need more oomph to really sing.

no they will work fine they have deep enough bass to sound full but not too deep to overload the room

we would recommend using an nad m33 amplifier which has dirac room correction, and very high current

use a goodset of stands and bring the speakers into the room.

Dave and troy

audio intellect NJ

nad dealer

I have not heard this specific one, but heard the floor standers. At the same time I also heard the Special 40 from Dynaudio. These should be good speakers for the room size you mention. And you are correct - these might need an amplifier that is comfortable driving 4 ohms load. With such a amplifier, you might be able to listen to this speaker at moderate volumes without overpowering the room with bass.

Hope people who have direct experience with these speakers respond soon.