Speaker size and soundstage

Think about it are manufacturers' top models smaller than their entry levels? If small was the best way wouldn't loudspeakers get smaller as their cost and performance increased? Wouldn't the end goal of loudspeaker design be to get as small as possible? 

The monitor audio gold generation 5 and platinum generation 2 both have incredibly huge three-dimensional sound stages.

I think people have different definitions of soundstage. IMO, it means a speaker's ability to portray the musicians in the places they were put in the recording so instruments can be identified by location.

That sounds more like what I'd call "imaging", namely, the precision and accuracy of the musicians' apparent placement relative to each other ... and within the soundstage.  I think of "soundstage" as the 3D space bounding this placement.  Presumably, most audiophiles want a soundstage with the greatest apparent breadth, depth, and height achievable for playback of any given recording. But presumably they also want sharply defined images, along with the illusion that the speakers disappear within the soundstage. 

The Bose direct-reflecting design can achieve a big apparent soundstage even from very small satellite speakers along with a single subwoofer. That may sound impressive and pleasant at first listen, but I wouldn't expect very precise, accurate imaging (or frequency response) from that approach.  Admittedly I have not listened to Bose speakers for many years or in a wide variety of settings.  

On the other hand, I had a pair of Totem Arros, which are small floor standers with a reputation for excellent imaging.  I found they did indeed consistently produce a sharp center image and the speakers did indeed seem to disappear within the soundstage. However, the soundstage was not especially wide, deep, or high (at least not in my set-up).  Furthermore, the skinny boxes could only accommodate 4.5" woofers, which limited the bass impact.

Lots of factors and trade-offs. 

w123ale - shhhh keep that on the low low bro, speaker wires can't possibly make a difference **wink** (sarcasm intended)

+1 knotscott - yes, drivers that play well together in an inert enclosure,  crossovers with a deep symmetrical anti-phase at correct crossover points that reduce to the point of elimination of breakout from drivers. The baffle design and driver basket interactions with the baffle, correct cabinet size for the drivers not the room.

Yes, knotscott same page here.

Such fantastic input; greatly appreciated! 
I changed the setup yesterday by swapping out entry level cables with higher end cables. The dynamics in both speaker changed dramatically with both opening way up. 
The Tektons now have much greater extension, but are a little sibilant (may mellow as the wire burns in). The Dyns  soundstage is expanded substantially and they now fill the room and feel, perhaps, more balanced than the Tektons—more listening needed!

So to confirm other comments, the system and electronics do of course make a difference here, and in my case the speaker wire seemed to be an earlier limiting factor.

Sound stage has more to do with phasing, crossover points, driver dispersion, driver placement, and the shape and size of the front baffle than actual cabinet size. It’s also heavily influenced by placement, and the rest of the system.

Forget either, and go out and buy some big azz Tannoys...you will get what you are looking for. My choice for you, the Ardens. Thank me later....although, I will point out that the cheap diamond 225's are a bit of a miracle little speaker...they produce an incredibly wide sound stage and produce copious amounts of bass for their size and price. I still own mine, despite now having tannoys....read about them in stereophile, $449 and a crazy good little speaker if on a budget. 

The size of the cabinet has more to do with efficiency than anything else. Given the same bass extension, a larger cabinet will require less power than a smaller one. That’s the trade off for low end - really big or really inefficient speakers. The size of the soundstage has more to do with dispersion and baffle effects and setup. Maybe someone has a link they can post to a useful video or paper by an actual expert. 

I got a fairly holographic presentation and deep bass with a standard version of the Salk Songtowers with at least half my LPs in my old 18' x 26' room. In my new place, they sound pretty good with better bass balance but not so magical.

It's about total system synergy and there's no way to tell until you get them into your room.

There are a couple of items for comment.  

First is room acoustics.  It's probably the most critical component in soundstage.  A well-tuned room is both the starting point and the finishing effort in any listening environment from the basement cave to the symphony hall.  Without the room, it will not be possible to set up a fully satisfying system.

A very easy and inexpensive room tuning solution is using 5" artificial ficus trees available at most home decor stores.  "At Home" stores sell them for $40 each.  I ended up with about 15 scattered around the room, mostly behind and next to the speakers.  They act as diffusers and work great.  It's probably the cheapest and most effective room tweak available.

Next is optimizing speaker setup.  Much as been written about speaker set up.  Most is total crep.  But do try to keep the speakers away from the back wall and the side walls.  Place an artificial ficus between the side wall and the speaker a little forward of the speaker to break up the sound heading for the side wall.  You don't want those side wall echoes.  

What is a "bigger speaker?" What is a "smaller speaker?"  

The Dynaudio Contour 30 is a VERY good speaker.  I haven't heard the Tekton.    

Soundstage and imaging can be somewhat controlled with the speaker setup and room acoustics.  Artificial ficus trees are the 

I have gotten spectacular soundstage and imaging using a speaker with a single 5" driver in a mass-loaded transmission line enclosure.  It was a nearfield setup in a larger room that the OP describes.  Wonderful system, punchy, tight and fun, but a little lacking in macro dynamic range and sub-80hz bass.  And nearfield listening helps to remove room interaction.

I get spectacular soundstage and imaging with my current 3.5 way four driver speakers with 12" and 10" woofers, 6" mid and 1" tweeter drivers in the same large room --- obviously NOT a nearfield listening setup.  But it does provide a very wide range of dynamics and sub-40hz bass at maybe 20 times or more the size of the 5" MLTL system.  

But the MOST satisfying listening comes ONLY in a room that is properly acoustically tuned.  

Baffle size and cubic inches make all the difference when it comes to dynamic full range sound in a large room and you will especially hear it when you get a true full size full range speaker that has a baffle three times the height and twice the width of the woofer you will not believe the foundation and depth of sound when you hear a big speaker loaf along in even a very large room. Small narrow baffle speakers with small drivers will not do this or any semblance of this type of sound at all in any size room.

Overall size of the soundstage, specificity/precision of the soundstage, dimensionality of the soundstage, scale of the soundstage are, in my experience, distinct and dependent on multiple variables including electronics, isolation, noise, room, speakers, etc.  The only one I’ve found to correlate with size of the speakers/drivers is soundstage scale (eg. musicians and instruments sounding larger or smaller).

Electronics also play a part. I found that my Revel speakers had a wider sounstage with an Arcam amp, than with a comparable Cambridge Audio amp. 

In my many years of audio, I have found that in a domestic living environment, the speaker/room interface is a total crapshoot.  I'm talking about rooms where you have limited placement options, seating options and furniture-moving options.  I have never found a correlation between speaker size and how they worked in my room.  Some did and some didn't. But you should experiment within the parameters you have.  Moving a speaker a few inches closer or further from the back wall can have a big effect on the sound.  

Thanks for the input all! Such an interesting journey to find the perfect speaker match with my room (can’t change), my gear, and listening preferences.

I just moved the Dyns further away from the wall, reduced toe in, and moved closer to the listening position. Definitely improved the sound stage. 
I guess for me, I look for a wide sound stage that fills the room and makes the speakers disappear. When the Dyns were further back the sound stage was definitely narrower and felt cut off at vertically—like the music just stopped at a certain height. I felt the need to keep increasing the volume to fill the room. The Tektons on the other hand fill the room and disappear at moderate volume.

Makes me think the Dyns are just not matched with the room and the listening configuration and electronics because they sounded brilliant in the store.

I think people have different definitions of soundstage.  IMO, it means a speaker's ability to portray the musicians in the places they were put in the recording so instruments can be identified by location.  Just know that few recordings have natural instrument placement and most are placed by the engineer through the use of panpots, or however it's done now.  But I think many people use soundstage to mean the physical size of the instruments.  I've never liked the Wilson Watt/Puppy because it always sounded like it made everything sound unnaturally big.  But their success in the market place certainly proves Wilson knew their target audience. But in the end, as with all things in audio, everything matters - the speakers, the rest of the equipment, the room, the recording and - most of all, your personal preference.  As far as bass response goes, IMO it depends on the room/speaker interface.  I'm getting better bass response with little Harbeth P3s in my room than I did with the much larger M30s.  Just the way the speaker works with the room.  

Speaker size has a lot to do with bass response.  It has very little to do with imaging.  Many times a simple two way monitor will offer a superior and huge image when set up correctly.  One of the things that amazed me with Tekton DI's and the Electron SE was how well Eric designed these to image so well in spite of their size and multiplicity of drivers.  Quite a feat.  

I remember a few decades back at a Chicago show, HSU had a pair of bookshelf speakers and a powered sub (or 2) in a very large room. It was pretty impressive. I came home and bought a pair of Reference 3As and tried 2 different Sunfire subs, but did not find them a good match for 2 channel HiFi. I sold both and bought several pairs of 3 ways and Maggie 3.5Rs.


Fast Forward to the present, I have a pair of Emerald Physics 3.4s (2 way with 12" concentric driver with 1" polyester tweeter) + a 10+ year old pair of SVS powered subs (the volume controls in their BASH plate amps are the weak link), BUT, is very enjoyable

hth

Nowhere near that simple.