Speakers That Will Party Hard


A friend built a house and turned his large basement into a party ballroom. My wife and I didn't know him during that process and he had those tiny "wall wart" sized Bose satellites installed in each corner of the dance floor. Also had two subwoofers installed, however, the problem is those plastic Bose mini-speakers. They don't sound very good in general and when the music gets cranked a little, they break up badly.

Anyone have any idea of good satellite speakers to replace the offending Boses? It would be nice if they could play loud for longer periods of time and also sound musical.

Thanks in advance, people!
tomryan
Good suggestions all. However, some satellite speakers will work for this situation. The music is not played anywhere near "techno club" levels. These people are ballroom, Latin, and swing dancers so they find rhythms and phrasing in dance music, not just beats. I actually just realized that a local dance studio uses JBL pro monitors (with 6" woofers) and a couple of subwoofers, and is able to play that system real loud. I'll bet Paradigm has something that'll work so I'll check a high end store not far from here that carries Paradigm. I'll suggest Ron replace his subwoofers also, I bet a couple of Velodyne would work just fine.
Tomryan, instead of JBL (very harsh) try Dynaudio BM-6A $1,699 / Warfdale pro active $339 / Genelec 8030A $599 which put out almost bass as the big Dyn's. They all have serious bass impact being active monitors even if you don't need the volumes.
B&H
In a large room and with the dancers obviously not sticking to the sweet spot, a loudspeaker's power response (summed omnidirectional response) is much much much more important than its on-axis response. All the moreso given that a dancehall's acoustics are likely very lively. Unfortunately, very few small speakers are designed to have good power response. The BBC-designed LS3/5a was among the few.

Any speaker not designed for corner placement will almost certainly have poor tonal balance when placed in a corner.

I agree that the Bose satellites are being asked to do something way beyond their capability.

What size/weight speakers are acceptable? How many will be used? What's the room size? What volume level is required? What's the available amplifier power? Budget?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but this is an unusual application. If I had to make a suggestion knowing only what's been posted so far, I'd suggest you look at the little Mirage omnidirectional speakers. At least they'll have a fairly smooth power response, which I believe is highly desirable in an application like this.

Duke
Cdc - The speakers will have to be passive as Ron already has an amp and is only agreeable to replacing speakers. I know JBLs have a rather well deserved rep as being on the "bright" side of things. However, the studio that uses four of them doesn't have that problem. For whatever reason, their music never sounds harsh or tense. I had forgotten about Genelec and that's a good idea. I know of a DJ service store not far from me.

Duke - The speakers have to be no large than what would hold a 6.5" woofer. Will have 2-4 ea. Room area to cover is 19ft x 39ft. Hard to say how loud is loud. We'll have to bring some speakers home and try them. Again, the music will not be played anywhere near as loud as a club would. His amp is 100wts for 2 channel which should be more than sufficient, however, it is a mass market Harmon Kardon so I'll check that with the speakers. Most of these type of amps are badly overrated. Not sure of budget as Ron is still bummed out about buying "the best speakers in the world", Bose, and getting such poor performance. I've tried explaining some basic physics as regards speaker size, construction, and ability to reproduce the electrical signal being input. Ron's face just glazes over.
I'd go looking for a pair of Soliloquy 5.0's and hang them. They are small and can go wicked loud while still sounding great.

R