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Speakers for the real world. Placement problems.

I am currently looking to get a speaker in the mid-tower region with nothing smaller than a 10" woofer even Dual 10" is better.
Must produce big soundstage and Low Freq.BASS on their own and Have the battle tank build quality. Cannot get away with any subwoofers at this point so that is why those attributes are very important and the most Important is VERY FORGIVING ON ROOM PLACEMENT!!! They will be in a 14' x 18' Space and several little obstacles with door placements and what not. So I kind of have to throw the 1/3 rules in stereo imaging out the window(pun intended). Goal is filling the room with good full sound. I guess a pretty efficient speaker would be a fine idea, maybe 92db and above. $2000 used is the limit. Currently running the Odyssey amp 150watt per channnel and an Audio research pure tube pre-amp 1960's amperex tubes, all equipment and cables built within the last 5 years. I'm not too interested in the Ear bleeders like cheaper Klipsch I prefer big power and sound with very smooth midrange and highs even at higher power levels. Mostly Rock and Pink floyd
big stadium kind of stuff listened to ALMOST always on VINYL. Thanks Guys and Girls!
matrix
cdelplato
110 posts
 
You might audition some of the Snell towers. The all have good, tight bass (37 Hz and below) and offer options not found on other speakers that make them placement friendly - such as a rear firing tweeter (can be disabled) for spatial effect, and a boundary switch to compensate for bass boom.

Chris
audiokinesis
2,737 posts
 
Matrix -

I don't know of any speaker that meets all of your criteria!

You see, there are tradeoffs between bass extension and efficiency that make it fairly difficult to find a 92 dB efficient speaker that truly goes deep in the bass within your price ballpark.

Speking of tradeoffs, in general small speakers do the soundstaging thing well, while big speakers do the bass/efficiency thing well. Getting both, once again, is fairly expensive.

And while there are technologies that make a speaker very forgiving of placement, they are also generally outside of your price ballpark, and don't include any 92 dB efficient speakers, to the best of my knowledge.

So, let me ask you a few of questions.

First, what exactly are the problems you anticipate as far as speaker placement? Boomy bass? Early sidewall reflections?

Second, if you can't have both deep bass and fairly high efficiency, what kind of balance is acceptable to you - in other words, what are you willing to trade off?

As far as soundstaging goes, are you looking for superb imaging for one person, or pretty good imaging over a wide sweet spot?

Best of luck to you.
matrix OP
305 posts
 
A wide sweet spot, Good bass Audiokinesis, I heard The meadowlark herons today and they are incredible build and sound but again outside the price range. They use pretty basic drivers, dual 6" about a 4" midrange and 3/4 tweet, not to exotic of drivers by no means but I think all the money is in the cabinets and crossovers, they are very impressive and I believe they are transmission line type. Anything out there even comparable? I would like to hear the Legacy Signature III which seem like a whole lot of speaker for the money, but that maybe a bad thing I dont know, finding a pair to listen to will be a chore. My worries audiokinesis is that I will have a semi-unconventional listening space, not too bad but I will be dealing with partition wall and doorways so not everything can be set up symetrically. Thanks for the info I am still doing the homework so keep the suggestions coming.
matrix OP
305 posts
 
Oh, by the way a few years ago I had a pair of Definitive technology towers which were transmission line Di-pole or Bi-pole I don't remember, anyway they were of good build quality and seemed like a really good design with 2 6.5" drivers in the front and 2 6.5" drivers in the back, and of course one tweet on each side, they were very strange sounding to say the least and I'm sure it had something to do with the backward fireing drivers because every speaker I ever hear with a tweeter or whatever fireing back I never liked, especially the ones with the volume(L-pad) built in. I would just turn them all the way down so not to hear the rear driver. Anyway I guess they would be great for rears in a home theater but not for Stereo imaging. Oh well. Thats why the meadowlarks shocked me because I never hear a real good transmision line before.
unsound
7,329 posts
 
Really tough requirements considering price point and existing equipment. The Dunlavys almost meet your requirements, but are probably out of your price point, besides as much as I like your amp the impedance load might be challenging. The only other speakers that comes to mind are Thiels. Again the impedance load is an issue, and they are not nearly as efficient, but you might be able to find something at your price point. May I suggest leaving money in your budget for some room treatment?
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