Speakers That Will Party Hard

This may sound like heresy but in my younger days I had a dedicated party room like your friends and had a pair of Bose 901 III's hanging from the ceiling which could really crank out the sounds.

On a more audiophile type recommendation, if your friend has the room and inclination this sounds like the perfect room for some Klipsch La Scalas.

first of all, have him get a decent amp. the breaking up is probably due to the quality of the amp more than the speakers. if he thinks bose are great, it is most likely that his 200 watt amp came from best buy or someplace along those lines. peak power is different from constant power, but low end equipment sales people don't know that. if he insists on sat's, try boston acoustics. i'm not a fan of satellite speakers in general, but those are decent sounding vs. the bose, and will probably take the abuse a little better. if it's just dance music being blared, go to a music store like sam ash or guitar center and get some dj speakers. they will do the trick quite nicely and won't sound any worse than the bose.

Ron wants to stick to ceiling hung satellites so there are no obstructions on the floor. He has Harmon Kardon amp and a Crate mixing board and Cd players. I've played around with the system and it really sounds like the speakers misbehaving; they've breaking up like crazy. But I will check the amp again. However, those tiny Bose sats look like toys and don't sound very good even at lower volumes. I just don't get that concept. The mid/mid bass drivers can't be more the 2.5" diameter.

I'll check out the Boston Acoustics as I know they make a respectable product.

Bbro,
In the 70s and early 80s I would go to a disco which used 4 ceiling hung 901s, two banks of Piezo tweeters, and two 6 ft tall horn loaded floor woofers. Man, we used to party 'till 4am, that is after the owners would lock the doors at 2am after kicking out the non-regulars. They paid off the local cops and would whip out the vodka and rum until everybody gassed around 4 in the morning.

You friend can't have his cake and eat it.

He will not achieve anything even remotely approaching a party hard sound level with satellite speakers....

Small satellite speakers definitely vary in quality and SPL output from manufacturer to manufacturer,however, they remain fundamentally near-field small speakers that will never play loud with any degree of accuracy....let alone at levels necessary to please a packed room of dancing party-goers. Satellite speakers are ideal for distributed low level sound without ugly imposing boxes that attract attention....they can sound very nice and make an ideal choice for many home systems in small rooms and have the highest WAF factor.

The only complete solution for your friends described problem, would be to get some bigger boxes. 12" base woofers are probably a minimum required with 15" being preferable....this means big ugly speakers.

If your friend is happy with bose (just unhappy about the SPL levels), then you can probably find a pair of efficient big box speakers for around $1500 or less that will more than meet occiasional basement party needs. Remember the "boxier" and larger the speaker the more likely you are to get an extended base response and SPL levels necessary to please a "party hard" crowd.

A word of caution, avoid the next best WAF factor speakers: the very popular tall narrow speaker designs with small (6" or smaller) base drivers. Whilst tall narrow designs can perform extremely well for individual listening and are very estheticly pleasing, these designs necessarily compromise base performance at high SPL's in order to achieve the nice tall shapely design. (if you friend doesn't believe this, head to the dealer and simply take the grill off just about any 6" base woofer cone and watch the antics/high excursions at high SPL levels).