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Speaker Distortion or Room Interaction ?

my floor-standing speakers are quite powerful already, and sound very clean up to a certain (fairly loud but not party-loud) volume. BUT past
that, the sound starts becoming increasingly smeared and eventually becomes harsh and unlistenable, probably due to room reflections, but i have no way of measuring speaker-distortion levels like they do in stereophile. my room does
have some reverberation issues, which i've treated with echo-busters to good effect (although the room is still far from "dead"). but this is my living room also, so i really don't want to add any more room treatments. at the same time i've been seriously looking at even bigger speakers for a few years to get more resolution, sonority, and headroom in the low bass dept. in other words, i dream of listening to large-scale works of music at more realistic volume levels with a minimum of distortion. SO, the question is, if i go ahead with an upgrade, am i going to run into the same problem, or possibly even encounter worse room interactions?
or would a larger speaker sound so much better at a more controlled/lower volume level that it would be worth it for that alone? i know what some of you are thinking- build a dedicated listening room, otherwise the dream of recreating beethoven #5 will forever elude me.
french_fries
plato
1,543 posts
 
Questions you need to be asking are: How large is the listening room? What is the speaker's sensitivity rating? What is the maximum rated output of your speakers in dBs? How loud is your listening level? And how much amplifier power do you have available?

What I'm thinking is that it's very possible that your amps are simply clipping and being driven into serious distortion and this is being reproduced by the speakers (which can be harmful to both speakers and the amp). It may not be a room overload issue at all. If you don't know the answers to the above questions, then this is the most likely cause of your distortion (not enough amplifier power). Know that your volume control could be relatively low, at 11 O'clock for example, and you could still be driving some amps into distortion at that setting. Where the amps clip, relative to the position of the volume control, depends on the output level of the source feeding the amp and its own input sensitivity...
jond's avatar
jond
5,911 posts
 
It sounds like it might be clipping, but until you give us more info it's impossible to even speculate.
gs5556
1,239 posts
 
And while we're guessing, what is your idea of an "upgrade"?
warrenh's avatar
warrenh
2,299 posts
 
Doesn't sound like room acoustics/interactions at all. Jond said it: "clipping" IMO.
french_fries OP
815 posts
 
my speakers are eggleston andra-2's. my amps are levinson-33h's (the speakers have low distortion, and the amps have adequate power). the room is 14.5 X 20 ft with a cathedral ceiling. as an upgrade, i was thinking about, let's say, a wilson maxx-2 sized speaker. my point was/is, when secondary reflections degrade the focus and purity of the sound that reaches your ears, you can either cover the walls from stem to stern with absorptive material, or keep the volume level below a certain level. if a larger speaker would sound even more coherent with more low-bass at that (safe) volume,
it might be worth the expense- but i have to wonder.
i heard the wilson WAMM's a long time ago in an acoustically great room, and for the 1st (and last) time a symphony orchestra actually sounded like one- the sense of scale was enormous. i'm not expecting quite that in MY room, but for the $$$ involved with an upgrade, i'd like to get alot closer to that ideal. or do you reach the point i have where you have speakers with 20-20 freq. response and incredible musicality, and just call it a day, forgoing the ability to re-create mahler #8 or handel's messiah?
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