Recommend speakers for a large living room

I will sell you my Revel F2062 for $40k and then you will have $10k for a big-ass rug.

I am planning on moving to Montana and they have big spaces. I want to buy a vehicle and have $75,000, what should I buy?

That is about the same as your question.  What components are you using?  How loud do you listen?  What music do you listen to?  Given your statement, you are listening in multiple positions, do you intend to have a critical listening position, or are you interested in just having a balanced sound throughout the room?

If it is the latter, I would suggest you consider a set of Ohm Walsh 4000s and 4 subwoofers in a distributed array for smoothest bass throughout the room (something like Rythmik F15s, HSU ULS-15 MK2  or SVS SB 3000).  I would also invest in a few thousand dollars in room treatments.  The speaker setup will run you $10,000-12,000 depending on the subwoofers, all in maybe $15,000.  Put the rest of the money to use for something else.  

Thank you for providing so much information. I agree that the red circles make sense for your speaker locations.

Apologies in advance for this: What I’m going to suggest is not something that you can buy off-the-shelf, to the best of my knowledge; however I will be speaking from experience.

Speakers with a very wide radiation pattern could provide wide enough coverage, but with an omni you’ll be getting a strong early reflection off the wall behind the speakers. Early reflections tend to degrade clarity and imaging, in particular image depth.

For that off-to-the-side sitting area, a unique problem arises: Even with wide-pattern speakers, the image will be strongly pulled to the near speaker because its output will arrive so much earlier than that of the far speaker.

Imo here is a solution: Imagine a pair of speakers with 180 degree dispersion designed to have their backs up against the wall. The INNER 90 degrees of each speaker (which would cover the living room sitting area) is of a fixed loudness, but the OUTER 90 degrees of each speaker has adjustable loudness. So each speaker would have two arrays of drivers: A fixed-SPL array for the inner 90 degrees, and a variable-SPL array for the outer 90 degrees.

What you would do is, turn down the loudness of the OUTER 90 degrees on each speaker, until you still get a decent soundstage in that off-to-the-side sitting area.

This can work because the ear localizes sound by two mechanisms: Arrival time and intensity. The near speaker will inevitably "win" arrival time, but if we reduce the SPL of the near speaker’s output by the right amount, the far speaker will "win" intensity (loudness) by a comparable margin, and the net result will be an enjoyable instrument spread from well off to the side. The effectiveness of this approach will vary throughout that area, but for everyone in that area it will be better than with conventional speakers whether omni or wide-pattern or whatever.

One beneficial side effect of getting the radiation patterns right for this approach is, we will have very little energy in the midrange and treble regions bouncing off the wall behind the speakers as undesirable early reflections.

Another benefit of the well-controlled radiation patterns is that the reverberant field would have essentially the same spectral balance as the first-arrival sound, so the tonal balance would hold up well throughout the entire space. This may not be the case with speakers whose radiation patterns change significantly, as that skews the spectral balance of the reverberant field, and the farther back you are, the more the reverberant field dominates the perceived tonal balance.

In the centered living room listening area, within the coverage pattern of each speaker’s inner-90-degrees array, each speaker’s outer arrays will just be adding a bit more spectrally-correct, late-onset reverberant energy, which is desirable. So everybody in the room benefits.

(I design speakers and spend time working with radiation patterns to help meet particular requirements, in case it wasn’t obvious.)

Duke

I listened to the German Physics speakers and was unimpressed.
They were good, but not great- especially for the price.
If you can listen to MBL, I think you would be on a better track-given your budget.
Bob

Definitely check out the OHM Walsh speakers at

https://ohmspeaker.com/

These are tweaked omnis that are designed to go closer to walls than many speakers out there, especially full omnis like GP or MBL.

Also you will save a lot of money with OHM compared to either of those and they are made right here in good old Brooklyn, USA and offer top notch customer service and support to boot.

Model needed and cost is determined by room size. Couldn’t be easier to choose the right model for a specific room. Bigger models for bigger rooms cost more. The biggest model can be adjusted for room size. That’s it.

I own 2 pair:   larger 5XXX models I run in one system  with 12" driver room adjustable and smaller more basic 8" model in another.

Joseph Audio Pearl 3s with Audiokinesis Swarm.  Boom. 

JBL Everest DD67000

Thanks everyone for the response. Lots of great info here. I have reached out to MBL to organize a demo & am also going to check-out Ohm speakers next week. I hadn’t thought about adding sub-woofers. Question, if I were to add 4 sub-woofers, how would that work? Is there a pre-amp that could handle 4 sub-woofers?

Tekton Ulfberts.

Legacy Audio Focus.

Like the JBLs

Thanks everyone for the response. Lots of great info here. I have reached out to MBL to organize a demo & am also going to check-out Ohm speakers next week. I hadn’t thought about adding sub-woofers. Question, if I were to add 4 sub-woofers, how would that work? Is there a pre-amp that could handle 4 sub-woofers?

You may want to consider speaking with Duke (Audiokenesis).  He is a well respected speaker designer and the first to offer a consumer distributed bass array.  

In regard to adding four subwoofers, you simply run each in mono.  If you were to use the Audiokenesis Swarm system, it uses a single amplifer for each subwoofer.  My only concern with using the Audiokenesis would be if it would have enough output capability given the size of your room.  Again, Duke would be able to answer that, as he also designs systems used in larger environments. 

http://www.audiokinesis.com/the-swarm-subwoofer-system-1.html

I would put Sound lab 845's along the window wall of the sitting area. Line source dipoles will limit early reflections and Sound Labs still disperse over a wide angle. Line source speakers project power better so they will fill that rather large area better. Every where but the listening position is back ground music. The image is not as important. 

Question, if I were to add 4 sub-woofers, how would that work? Is there a pre-amp that could handle 4 sub-woofers?

Well first off this is definitely the way to go. I tried a bunch of things and going to four is so much better than anything else I have to say its the only real solution. Well, unless you go more. Five now in my case.

Connecting is easy. All the bass down where subs run is mono. But even if for some reason you want to run stereo (which I do, but not for this reason, it really is all mono) that's still easy. The options are too many to list but just to give you my example, two run off one channel, two off the other, and the fifth runs off the bypass out from one of the sub amps.

Mine use the Dayton amp, same one Duke uses and recommends. This amp has plenty of flexibility with adjustable phase, crossover frequency, level, EQ, bass boost, and bass cutoff. Duke uses one amp for four subs standard, with the option to run two. There isn't much reason to run two, the advantage is not for volume but flexibility, being able to adjust two subs independently rather than all 4 together.

Mine are 10" drivers, higher quality but similar cabinets. Doing it again only thing I might do different is go even bigger. Its just really hard to appreciate until you hear it just how wonderful really good deep bass is! Because, whatever you think you heard that was, unless and until you've heard four or more sorry, you just don't know. Its that much better.

Really low bass is so much different than the way things work up higher that it almost doesn't matter how you do it. What I mean is four self-powered subs will work just as well as four passive ones, and the four don't even have to be all the same. Mine for example, two are ported, two sealed, and one is a Talon Roc actively powered. You cannot tell where any of them are, and it all blends seamlessly with the stereo image.

I would second, or third, the Ulfberht's. They would be right at home in a room your size. Together with a distributed bass array, flat-out awesome.

Skip the others. Skip the power hogs. Ulfberht and Swarm. You can thank me later.

I think these threads are generally filled with people suggesting obscure speakers that are 1/5 the budget you have.
Big space, big speakers. I’d recommend at least starting out with some of the larger Focals, B&W 800D3, something in the middle of the Wilson range. Really it’s impossible to say without knowing what electronics you have (or want) and what music you listen to.

Sound Lab Ultimate series is  what I would recommend.

Mcreyn wrote:

"If you were to use the AudioKinesis Swarm system, it uses a single amplifer for each subwoofer. My only concern with using the Audiokinesis would be if it would have enough output capability given the size of your room."

Thank you sir.

And thank you too millercarbon.

Given the size of dpal’s total space and its irregular shape, I would expect the bass to be quite good in there without needing four subs distributed asymmetrically around the room. A distributed multisub system makes a small room behave much more like a large room in the bass region, and dpal already has a large room!

So I don’t think a Swarm-like system would offer as much improvement over two bass sources as would be the case in considerably smaller rooms. When I have done custom systems for similar-sized rooms where aesthetics was a priority, I have just done two large subs.

Imo the sheer size of the dpal’s space calls for a LOT of air-moving capability in order to do low bass at high SPL, so I’d recommend two big subs over my four small ones.

(The Swarm was reviewed by Robert E. Greene of The Absolute Sound in April 2015, and the review is online, in case anyone is interested. It subsequently received several awards from the magazine over several years, most recently this summer, so apparently the concept has a good shelf life.)

* * * *

SoundLabs have been suggest a couple of times. Yes they would work very well; it MIGHT even make sense to go with two 90-degree panels per side arrayed to give coverage over 180 degrees, assuming that listening area off to one side is a high priority. But I’d have to do some math to see if that would really make sense.

Disclaimer: I’m a SoundLab dealer.

With MBLs or SoundLabs, I’d suggest diffusion of some sort on the wall behind the speakers so that the early reflections are smeared rather than being strong and distinct ("specular"). I would try to avoid using absorption there because absorption kills shorter wavelengths (high frequencies) more effectively than longer ones, and can thereby degrade the spectral balance of the reverberant field, and in such a large room the reverberant field will dominate the perceived tonal balance throughout most of the room. Both MBLs and SoundLabs do a very good job of creating a spectrally correct reverberant field.

Duke

Daedalus Audio. look into Lou’s biggest. 

+1 on all those who ask for other electronics, music you typically listen to, and would add the questions:

what sonic profile do you lean towards?  Value accuracy? Or warmth? Sonic truth? Or musicality.. yeah they are all subjective terms but the folks on here are a wealth of information if given the right variables... 

what systems have you heard that truly made you excited, or at least interested in hifi? 
Sounds like you have the budget for a truly amazing system. What a great adventure you have in front you!

Best

Benj

Audiokenesis response above is why it is worth speaking with a designer that does this for a living.  I completely missed that because of the size of your room, room modes are not much of an issue.  With the size room you have, you are really getting into commercial sound reinforcement issues where the experience of someone with that background would be very helpful.  

Tekton https://www.tektondesign.com/# has some very good speakers that can fill up your room with sweet music.

I have the Double Impact but I would love to own a pair of Encores

Most of the money in multi-driver large speakers goes into cabinetry.
HUGE savings are had when it is eliminated, like Magnepan, Sound Lab, etc


I too have a large room 38 x 19 x 11 with open stairwells. In decades past I had Accoustat 2 + 2s, and Magnepan 3.5Rs (both open baffle). Due to them needing to be well away from the front wall, their physical size intrudes into the room, both really cut up the physical space, which I never liked


My personal choice is for a speaker that has consistently won TAS Awards: Emerald Physics, specifically the 2.8s. Their newest version has dual 15" carbon fiber woofers and 12" carbon fiber mid range coax and DSP. Normally a bargain at $10K, but Underwood has a huge sale going on right now


Another issue is the amplifier power needed to create a proper SPL in a large room. That can be really expensive, but here again is a real bargain: Tweak Audio EVS 1200 which is 600/1200 wpc using newest class D modules with lots of Pixie Dust, $2200

hth

I have 25' x 25 'x 16' high open ended room. Found a pair of Dunlavy SC-V speakers. VERY large speakers, sealed back, no ports. Sound fantastic in my room. They are hard to find but worth the effort. They fill the room. I can generate 125 db with no sweat. Krell 400 cx amp. Whole system was less than $30k. Never heard anything like it. Dunlavy was a genius. 

You have the room and the space how about the Magnepan 30.7 it should fill that room nicely and probably eliminate the need for subs., plus you'll have $$ left over.
If you haven't heard them they are definitely worth a listen.

IMO: The space needs to solve two things, and must be designed together.

First, Home Theater, Surround Sound, Light Control. It's solution, viewing location and furniture layout will effect:

Second, 2 Channel Stereo Music System. Sometimes the home theater run in stereo mode will be the music system, you have room for both.

You have a huge wall with no windows, that will help with light control for viewing. I would go to a Home Theater Designer with both plans and photos with ceiling and lighting information. My opinion is a 5.1 surround system is enough, anything further ought to be considered only when designing and building a specific theater rather than this which will be in a multi-functional space.

A proper center channel is very important, and full range front with perhaps a pair of subs, depends as it develops.

My setup, in a smaller space, 13 x 24, is a music system from the far end, and my small home theater is across the width of the room at the opposite end. My primary listening chairs (2) simply spin around 180 degrees, so they are side chairs in the home theater, and primary chairs for music. All my chairs are somewhat acoustically transparent, wicker backed rocking chair, wood frame slat backs, open arms, so sound from either active system is not blocked/absorbed.

Do yourself a favor, get very efficient speakers, that will keep the needed size of amplification down, reducing cost, size, heat.

Once you have the layout(s) solved, the furniture placement/movement solved, then the types of speakers, width of dispersion, can be resolved.  

The OP really has yet todescribe what he is trying to achieve.  You'll have two seating areas, but is the goal to have equal quality sound in each sitting area simultaneously?  Are you trying to achieve high volume levels or do you want to be able to have a conversation with someone while the music plays?  Are soundstage and image important?   Most importantly, is your intention to have a "normal" person's apartment, or will this basically be a large dedicated audiophile listening room?  I ask because some of the loudspeakers recommended by others are quite large (refrigerator size) and require placement away from walls.  Add to that cables and powerful amps and your living room won't look like a living room.

I have 38 X22 room with multiple seating areas and Von Schweikert VR55 Aktives work beautifully as they are adjustable in the self amplified base going down to 21 HZ at -2db, about .5% distortion across audio spectrum and rear facing ambience tweeter response to the room. They fill room well and sound great from more than just a narrow sweet spot

Holly crap that's big!  No recommendation just a congrats on such a big room!

Klipsch K-Horns or Cornwall IVs. Or, with your budget, Something from Volti Audio.

Daedalus Zeus.  They demo this model in rooms that size at audio shows.

I wonder if you purchased a decent receiver and set up a pair of speakers for that separate sitting area.  Then turn on and off the remote pair when you want to listen more critically to the two main speakers?  Not an expert on this.  Perhaps you are willing to give up some critical listening and strive to get dispersed sound throughout the room.  Adding some subwoofers would also help distribute the bass throughout the space.

Thanks for all the responses. Some really good information here. To answer some of the questions, my main goal is to ideally have a speaker system that works across most of the living room, specially the 2 sitting areas. Ideally it will sound great in the kitchen while I am cooking, as well as both sitting areas. 

On what music do I listen too, its mostly latin music (salsa etc) & old rock (the beatles, elton john, david bowie etc). I mostly listen to digital recordings.

On which speakers do I like, I currently have 2 other listening rooms (in different apartments). One has B&W 805d2 & the other Sonus Faber Olympica 3's. I used to like the B&W but have grown tired of them, I prefer the musicality of the Olympicas. I am planning on replacing the 805d2's with Focal Diablo Utopias. The big difference is both of this room's are audio rooms, with a specific listening position that honestly is very narrow. For the new living room I was hoping I could use a different kind of speaker to make the listening positions wider - thus I thought omni-directional speakers would work best. 

I could buy a pair of Focal Maestros' which I really love, but they have a narrow listening field. 

On which amp's, cables etc. I have bought nothing yet. My plan is likely buy the same brand as the speakers manufacturer for amp's etc, or just buy McIntosh which I really like.

Just seems to me that if you need to add a sub woofer to your speaker set up, it isn't a good set of speakers set to a good sound system.  I know and have heard what a sub woofer can do, but I would rather have a good system with great speakers that do the trick and not have another box on the floor.

MBL 

A couple of negative wisecrack responses that started the answers. That attitude is not helpful imo.

I would suggest auditioning Magicos. The S7 perhaps. I can vouch for the S3 sounding absolutely amazing and being able to fill a very large room with huge dynamic sound. I’ve not heard the S7, but they have to be the same incredible performance just bigger sound and more bass?

If it is not a secret, where do they make one-bedroom apartments with such a large living room? It is quite impressive. Some remodeled loft?

You have an interesting challenge ahead of you. That’s a larger room but that’s not the main challenge. The dinning area and living room area should have good sound quality if you place the speakers in the areas marked by the red circles. The sitting area to the side of the speakers will likely have several compromises. Maybe some sort of speaker trickery will help but I don’t know. How is the seating arranged in the sitting area? Any room treatment in the plans? Bass will not be an issue. Having enough output will be important. I suggest considering high sensitivity speakers with decent power handling capacity for high SPLs. Not so you can play loud but so dynamic peaks are reproduced. Many good speakers suffer from dynamic compression in the mid frequencies. They will get lost in a large room. I also suggest considering a line source design either OB or closed cabinet. Line source speakers attenuate less per distance than point source speakers do so more SPL will be available in your kitchen. They also have minimal floor and ceiling interaction. I suggest looking into DSP with room correction as well. Room correction will help integrate your new speakers with the room. I haven’t tried this but it’s possible to optimize for two locations and switch from one to the other depending on where you are. The space in front of the speakers should be fine. The room correction might work better than expected for the side space.

I also vote jbl everest . 
My room is 56x36x15 . I dont use anything but jbl . Currently my set up is wide dispersion tweeters and horns 2405 and 2441 w 2310 lenses . 2235 15” woofers and two 2245 18” subs. Horns and tweets powered by 100w rogue tube amp , woofs powered by 150w mcintosh , and subs powered by 600w x 2 mcintosh . 
More than enough oomph to fill the room . With the ability for sweet dinner time listening and intricate detail even at the lowest volumes . And all out mayhem at the higher registers.

 This entire system is half the cost of the budget you claim to have for speakers . By the time you have worthy amps and preamp youll be at 100k. Difference is i have a setup i can tweek infinitely .
 A 100k setup is what it is . You will have to like it even if it bothers you like a drip on the forehead. Chances are though a mcintosh c52 pre with a couple mcintosh mc1.25k amps and a pair of jbl dd67000 everest will sound pretty freakin awesome. And look drop dead gorgeous to boot . 

If it helps with your planning, bear in mind that speaker setup (positioning) has as much influence on the sound as all of the hardware, if not more.

At the very least make sure the speaker manufacturer will visit your room and place the speakers to work optimally with your room. 

I design and install loudspeakers for Aluminous Audio so I can speak to the critical nature of speaker placement.

Alta Audio's HESTIA-sensational 32K-35K /pr.I was part of a review panel and was really taken with these. Out performed everything we heard including MAGICO, WILSON, FOCAL, JOSEPH AUDIO, YG ACOUSTIC, KEF and RAIDHO to name a few.

Thanks all. Adding Magico M6's & Alta Audio Hesta's to my listening array.

@glupson the apartment is a loft in Soho, Manhattan. With that said, if anyone recommends I speak with someone in the area that can help with the project that would be helpful.

On room treatment plans, I plan to use some bass traps in the ceiling corners, but I am also open to doing more but I do want to make sure the aesthetics are preserved - its a living room at the end, not a dedicated studio.

Great open baffle Great new Speaker 
from Spatial Audio X3 with powered low 
Bass Xover from 90 hz on down, world class AMT on top German BMG midrange mid Bass, and emmenande pro series bass driver with latest 
200 watt Ncore Bass amp. It nice wood finishes. Being too over 95 dB efficient 
you can use a Smaller tube or solid state amp with great results ,and a 60 day satisfaction return policy .
they are that good and  for $7500 
a no brainer they beat speakers 3 x their cost .Not investigating these would be a Big mistake only out 3 months but raves at the shows ,check out too on Utube. 

DPal,

PMC - Perfect for any large space.
I don't understand why so many are stuck in the past and ignore the most advanced Dynamic speakers in the world. Every aspect of reproduction makes PMC  superior. I could go on & on but why don't you just have a listen to one of there larger models like MB2 SE.
You owe it to yourself to check them out and peruse their website thoroughly! Just see the users list......
I sell them up here in Canada so I'm definitely bias....

I do have a stereo system in a living room of similar size. I can’t recommend specific speaker model but will echo previous comments about room treatment (and subwoofers). The biggest issue at the moment at my home is taming the room. Spend some thought and money into treating your room and you will gain much more than you can get from the different components at this price level.

Sam Laufer at Laufer Technik is working on a new line array speaker called The Note that is supposed to tackle both of the primary issues you have: excellent 180 degree radiation with stable imaging, and large room oomph. They need to be paired with good subs, but that’s probably a good solution for your space as well. Information is just starting to Trickle out about them. I am considering a pair for a 23’ x 55’ space that has placement issues as well. I just heard he will be at the nyc audio show in a few weeks demoing them. 

dpal,

Thanks for the answer. I guess I narrowed your location to a few blocks as I was imagining SoHo. I really do not think places of that composition exist outside SoHo, Tribeca, or maybe a few more spots on the island. I am sorry that I have no useful advice. Others do.

Have you tried Lyric HiFi? They are in Manhattan, they say they do custom installations, they do cary very fine equipment, so, hopefully, they have encountered similar situations. Same goes for Innovative Audio.

I have a similarly large space.  35x30x18 high with mostly glass to the east, winding staircase to the north side with a balcony overhead, open to the southern direction to the kitchen and the west wall under the balcony overhead is all stone with a fireplace.  It's a very convoluted area to say the least.

I have a pair of Bryston Model T signature fully active speakers, however I am running them with the heavy duty PX1 external crossovers.  I have three subs spaced evenly around the perimeter to the sides and back, one is the Bryston Model T sub with three 8 inch drivers, the other two are made by Axiom Audio (who builds all of the Bryston speakers).  One is the EP800V4 and the EP500V4.   

If you are a full bodied type of listener, that is you enjoy powerful dynamic, super clean music; these speakers will impress you.  If you took it up a notch and added three amps each to both the left and right main speakers with the Bryston fully active crossover, it will take it to a whole new level.  I am not sure you can do all of this within your budget, but if you skip the 6 amps and just do what I am doing, you'll still be very pleased.

IF you want a coherent soundstage from most any location in that large area, you would have to go omni: OHM, mbl, and GP being the three I would consider with your budget. For larger mbl models, you still might have to go used on a $50K budget. OHMs would have teh unique advantage among those of going closer to walls for WAF in a lived-in space as opposed to a dedicated listening room where placement far from walls needed for true omnis is more practical..

If it were me I’d go biggest baddest OHMs and call it a day. Those would be the 5000 series currently with 12" main drivers. THere is even a limited availability 5015 version of those with built in powered subs that would do it all if available for just over $10K or so. My F5s are similar size, one model generation older, and no powered subs built in but I run them off 500w/ch BEl CAnto ref1000m amps. The Ohm Walsh model decision will be totally objective, mostly based on your room size. All models have similar design and sound, its just a matter of how much you need to deliver the bass best in any particular room.

Sounds like you are in NYC area so you might have the extra advantage of being able to visit the factory in Brooklyn for an audition. In any case, a generous guaranteed in home trial period is provided and if you are local, would not even have to worry about absorbing any shipping charges so there would be essentially no risk to audition in your actual room.

IF you are in Baltimore/DC metro area, I'd be happy to provide an audition.  Would just need some advance notice to plan.

In any case, Good Listening!

I would suggest listening to 30.7 Maggies, their size would not over power the room and properly set up the sound is amazing.

There are many fine choices, and synergy with the amp is critical as you listen to the candidates, Good Luck!