Smaller speaker - bigger Woofer?

What you didn't see was the $3000 budget, which is the real crimper. In a related but another thread.

and Dave unfortunately you have not recommended something that will work. Which is why I resulted to offerring something unusual.

Larry actually for what you want to spend and the equipment you already own, your best options are either the ATC SCM35 or Dynaudio Audience 80 with subwoofer and or bookshelf speakers like Dynaudio 25's or ATC SCM20's with a subwoofers. What you want is a big midbass sound which can be dialed in with the right crossover settings and right speaker combo you can get what you want. It may take 2 subs in your room.

Vandersteen have a horribly thin midrange and your amplifier is choking on the speaker which is killing the bass output and making the speaker sound even thinner. WRONG SPEAKER!!!

I have solved this problem for many people and I know what you need but unfortunately in this forum you'll never believe it to be possible. I'd have to show you for you to believe it. but Dolby prologic II is the gateway for you and proper setup of your surround. Im not sure if your Cary processor has the goods to be good for multi channel music as the attention to the setup parameters is a bit sparse, especially in the subwoofer crossover department. but you can try.

Let me just say they don't make what you are looking for, most the cabinets for a high performance speaker with big drivers will cost more than your budgeted for.

You have to get the right sub with the right speaker and crossover. Understanding what it takes means everything.

Most people are not able for one reason or another to align their subwoofers properly so that the units are time coherent. In your case you surround processor does not have a sophisticated enough processor to manage proper integration. So i don't disagree with what you have experienced but it can be done quite seemlessly. I do it all the time with my own system.

If you like you can order some custom speakers, I emailed you on this matter. You may not have received it. It is not a joke and I am already building a pair for someone else. They are exactly what you are looking for except the trade off in size means a subwoofer is needed to give the last octave a boost in Dynamic Range.

They are a three way with 6" mid and 8" woofers 44"H, 10"w, 14"D they have active crossovers which gives us plenty of Latitude to make them sound anyway you want. All I have to do is send you a corrected file and you upload the new file to the crossover and the edit is made via email. This is not a toy one off I'm offerring you.

I agree the Linkwitz site is a good guideline for two channel systems and dipole bass. It wouldn't hurt to read but at the same time it doesn't address your issue directly.

I have helped with the construction of the Orion and it is a very good speaker. But its more than you mentioned you wanted to spend and somehow (from experience) may require component complexity you won't desire.

And I challenge Didactilly to suggest a speaker that fits your description and fits your price range. Since we know its very easy to vaguely criticize when you don't feel morally obligated to offer a hard solution at the same time.

Yes I am offerring service, because no one has come up with a solution yet and my commercially available ones didn't seem to resonate well.