Speakers for large open 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.