Speakers for large open room

Coincident Total Eclipse and Total Victory.

A friend has a room even bigger than yours and he has used both these speakers. He prefers the TEs and I must say they sound excellent in his room. Another big advantage, both are quite effecient and you would not need more than 50 wpc (and probably considerably less) to drive either speaker to very high levels.

Budget ?

Hi,
I have a pair of Duevel Venus Loudspeakers in a 18 x 21 room with 15 ft ceilings. Driven by a 50 wpc Sophia Electric KT 88.Fills the room nicely.
Art

I have a 25 x 28 great room w/ cathedral ceiling and a glass wall of doors and the Dunlavys work fine ... especially since I bi-amped them ( a few weeks ago ) .

Certainly not ideal, but I can relate. I have a similar crib. My Zu Definitions with only 18 SET watts move an incredible amount of air. Wonderful at low volume too. You forgot to mention a few things: budget, components, what you're driving now, music tastes?

Loveswhatkindofmusic? Budget? Rest of system?

For my own tastes vintage Klipsch LaScalas or Khorns (if you have the corners) make me very happy paired off with the right amp(s). LaScalas worked brilliantly for me with 8 watts of SET in my studio which was also quite large. These are very large speakers though, so be prepared to give up some real estate. They don't do well at the WAF line-up downtown at the station either.

Marco

Great WAF and easily filling a 38X22 with 10 foot peak ceiling room are my VonSchweikert Vr4SR's. They are really beautiful sounding. Using 200 watt per channel solid state. Hope this helps.

Thanks for your responses...I listen to classic (orchestral) 90% of the time...vinyl 75%. Components are Rega P-25 with Grado, Sony SACD 777ES, either Audible Illusions pre/Pass Aleph3 or Magnum Dynalab 208 receiver (100WPC).Will probably buy used at up to 3k...Also, this is a bright/hard room with wood floors/oriental rugs. Thanks again.

P.S. I presently am driving B&W Matrix 804's...

Even before I saw that you have b&w's, I was going to suggest B&W Matrix 801 SIII's. That's if you have the room for such gigantic heavy speakers, & if you want to go to a more powerful amp(s). Theil 3.6's are another suggestion. Also B&W Matrix 802 SIII's, but you'll need more power for either of those as well.....

I had the Matrix 802's in a smaller room, with 240 wpc. Gorgeous on Orchestral music. Merlin VSM's would be nice if you want speakers that don't need a lot of power, but I'm not sure how they'd work in that size room.

For that kind of money you could get stacked Altec Model 19's. :o) Those should fill the room nicely.

Avantgarde! Duo or if budget allows Trio

my living room is almost exactly like your room. It's been really frustrating to the point I finally built a dedicated room in my basement for my primary system. I have tried many speakers in the LR though. You want something that produces deep bass and plenty of it. I also found placing them on the long wall works best for me - with the backs to the window.

I'm using vintage Infinity Monitor IIa's there now. They're set about 2' out from the window and 10' apart. The listening position is a sofa against the other wall. These speakers are flat to 22Hz, and do nicely in this configuration - though not as nicely as they do in a more optimal room. Other speakers I've tried in that room sounded like a transitor radio.

Big Tannoys from the Prestige range.

Yagbo12...I'd have to give up my new flats boat for the Avantgardes! Would anyone consider Vandersteens for this room?

In applications where the you have either a highly reflective room, and/or a very large room, and/or you sit far away from the speakers, the reverberant sound will play an especially large role in establishing timbre.

The reason is, these three conditions result in the reverberant sound that arrives at your ears conveying considerably more energy than the first-arrival sound does.

Under such circumstances, a speaker that does an exceptionally good job of generating a spectrally correct reverberant field is desirable. Another way of saying this is you want a speaker with a smooth power response (the power response is the summed omnidirectional response of the speaker). I can go into more detail about these subjects if you would like.

The Klipshorns and the Deuvels mentioned above are two speakers that do a very good job of getting the reverberant field right. In general, cone-and-dome speakers don't do a very good job in this regard because the power response is not smooth due to the large variations in the drivers' radiation patterns.

Other speakers that do an exceptionally good job with the reverberant field include models from Avantgarde, Classic Audio Reproductions, Edgrhorn, PiSpeakers, Mirage, GedLee, Magnepan, SoundLab, Linkwitz Orion, Audio Artistry, SP Technology, Gradient, Shahinian, MBL, and Tannoy. No doubt I've left some out. Disclaimer - I'm a dealer for some of these. I also manufacture a couple of reverberant-field-friendly speakers, which will be making their debut at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in a couple of weeks.

Lovesmusic, will the speakers be placed close to walls, or stand out in the room away from walls? Is corner placement an option?

Thanks,

Duke

Thanks for your responses, and to you Duke. Corner placement is not an option. Speakers could be three to five feet out from walls.

Thanks for the additional information, Lovesthemusic.

If a dipole speaker is an option, you'd want the speaker about five feet out from the "front" wall. Placement fairly close to the side walls is okay with most dipoles. I don't think 100 watts is enough power for SoundLabs or Maggies, but it's probably enough for Audio Artistry or Gradient dynamic dipoles. The Orion is a multi-amped active speaker; you'd need to replace your present amplification.

Your 100-watt receiver would probably work well with the Duevel Venus, Shahinian Obelisk, Mirages, or SP Tech Timepiece speakers.

If you can get away with large enclosures, then the vintage Altec Model 19 or somewhat smaller Model 14 would be good options, and your Aleph 3 should work well with them. The GedLee and Tannoy Prestige series speakers would also work well with the Aleph. Speaking of which, do you know what the output impedance (or damping factor) is for the Aleph 3? That might be useful information.

Generalizing here, I'd say that the omnis and quasi-omnis (Duevel, Shahinian, MBL, Mirage) will give you a richer, more laid-back presenatation, similar to what you might hear in the back third of the concert hall.

The dipolar speakers (Magnepan, SoundLab, Linkwitz Orion, Gradient Revolution) give a presentation more reminiscent of the middle third of the concert hall.

The horn and waveguide speakers (Avantarde, PiSpeakers, Classic Audio Reproductions, SP Tech, GedLee, Tannoy, and mine) give presentations more reminiscent of what you'd hear in the front third of the concert hall.

I don't know if these generalizations help you narrow down your focus or not. A key to any successful speaker quest is "know thyself" - that is, know what you want, know what you don't want, and know what you're willing to compromise in order to get what you want.

Do you have speaker size and/or WAF considerations, and how loud do you like it? I think you will end up able to choose between several options that will work well in your room. What qualities in particular are you looking for in a loudspeaker?

Best wishes.

Duke

You could try the new JMLABS Chorus 836 V.
Sphere.