Seeking advice for speakers for my Family Room

I had a system layout almost exactly like yours about 2 houses ago! The house I moved into next was perfect for audio. My same audio system took a monumental leap in imaging and clarity with nothing more than a room change. Night and day. Reflective surfaces smear sound and don’t allow you to crank up the volume.

Your biggest problem is your room. And I know you probably don’t want to hear any of this...but no amount of money spent on speakers can fix it.

You have a pretty room but will not do so well with audio. Would be better if the entertainment system was against a short wall but I understand that the short walls are not ideal either as one long wall opens up to other rooms. Still there are simple things tou can do:

My advice is to start with a bigger, heavier rug. About 4 to 5 times the size of your current one. You can run the rug under your couches. Put the rug on a heavy felt rug liner. It will save the rug from dust mites and moths in a way that rubber netting slips can’t do.

Running the same floor tile up the wall is a design faux pas. Maybe take that down and replace with an acoustic wood texture (wood slats etc.).

Use curtains on the windows.

Put some art on the walls but nothing with glass. Exposed canvas paintings are great...wood carvings...textile art...you get the idea.

In a room like that, the improvements will be subtly accumulative.

An acoustic ceiling treatment/tiles might be the strongest solution. Something between your listening position and the speakers.

PSB towers might work, not bright at all.

Before you do anything.

 Try placing the speakers wider or on the outside of the windows.

PLease let us know what happens.

If your tired if bright box speakers try a Pair of Vandersteen multi enclosures.

  Best,

JohnnyR

@carlsbad yes, that is exactly what I intend to do down the road....

@vinylvin I do have the Polks all the way around in my media room, I was going to try and bring those down to the Family Room and try them out..

@auxinput  Will look into Marantz and the discrete analog output

@tony1954 @ricmci @markpop1227  @audiotroy Sounds like I need to attend to the room acoustics first (rather than later).

Will do that and report back.

@singere Meanwhile I found a dealer who actually had the Sonus Faber Lumina V's on the floor, I went by to audition them and I loved them! They didn't have too much in room treatments, so I think with some room treatments (larger rugs, shades/curtains for all windows, some more art or acoustic panels on the walls) with the Lumina V's should be a whole lot better. 

@ronboco I never auditioned Focal's, just went by what I had heard/read about them being brigher (slightly?) than the SF, but man these SF's sounded so good and looked fabulous too.

@searchingforthesound Yes, that is the plan. Another vote for Marantz.

@jonwolfpell @dbensky Thanks for the suggestions/offers, never even heard of some of these speakers. I am still a newbie in this space..:-) 

@soundmd Excellent suggestion on what exactly to do for the room issues. It makes sense to put the speakers wider so that they are in front of the windows for the window treatments to absorb the sound. Will look into acoustic panels, larger rug and artwork on the side wall. The back wall is going to be an issue. Will work on the other things first and see if that makes it acceptable. 

For speakers, i guess it jives well that I loved the SF's, they have the soft dome tweeter!

@sandthemall I pretty much expected to hear it reg the room. 4-5 times larger than the current one? Wow, so the entire surface in front of the speakers should be rug?

I think I can sell that to the wife. Actually, that will help solve the problem of the couch's feet making marks on the white tile! I started looking into vcoustics: https://www.vcoustics.com/, sounds like a whole new thing to research.

Based on all the responses here, I will try and fix my room acoustics first before getting new speakers, thanks all!

For this, do I need to hire an acoustician to tell me what type of acoustic panels go where etc? Sounds like that might be overkill and i would get 80% of the return by just doing the basic things:

-Much larger rug in front of the TV/speaker area going under the couch'

-Add curtains on the windows to the sides of the TV

-Larger wall art on the left side wall

-Re-evaluate. I don't know if I can/want to do anything about the back tile wall. This was the look we wanted...

-Ceiling treatment? What kind?

-Do these wall art panels need to be a certain thickness to be effective at sound absorbtion?

KG,

Glad you're addressing room acoustics before making any equipment changes.  You can spend a fortune on equipment, but if your acoustics are bad you'll never get great sound.  I don't think you have to go overboard on treatment either.  Adding a larger rug and heavy drapes will go a long way on lowering the room glare.  A  2" canvas covered art panel will do some good and won't stick out visually in a Family room setting.  If this were a dedicated listening room I would go with 4" or 6" thick panel; I'm considering the spousal acceptance factor here. 

You could use a much larger artwork here or perhaps a two piece diptych. These really are a relatively low cost way to go.  Do all these changes one at a time and you'll see how each one helps.  Let me know how it goes.  This is one of the fun parts of this hobby, these small changes can add up to big improvements.  Hey, where is your sub located?