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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
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
French Fries,

I am not sure if you saw my earlier post - it may have crossed with yours earlier today.

I have ATC SCM 100 active speakers and an ATC SCM 0.1/15 Sub. My room is similar to your room except for 9 foot rather than cathedral ceilings.

I can confirm absolutely, 100%, without a doubt, that this system in my room achieves SPL levels and dynamic range similar to live rock music and easily surpass SPL's in a classical concert hall (barring real cannons for 1812).

Since I received the ATC SCM 100 actives about six months ago, this is the first time in my life that I have lost the urge to continue to turn up the volume. I admit defeat...my ears simply can't stand to go as loud as this system can (even though the sound remains clean with extremely low distortion levels, well below 1 % THD, no harshness no smearing).

If this is what you truely seek...then look no further than ATC.

There are a few other speakers used by rock recording studios that you might try, such as Meyer, but I have no direct experience to guide you. One advantage of ATC is that they are also liked by some classical sound engineers too, for example Telarc and Hans Zimmer use ATC.

Sorry if this sounds like a shameless plug for ATC (a proud owner speaking)....but I believe that nobody would dare disagree with my contention that high-end ATC speakers are well known to deliver exceptionally high and clean SPL levels with heaps of headroom and dynamic range. ( and isn't this what you are seeking?)
gregm
3,409 posts
 
Shadorne -- the ATC 100 are quite large, and very expensive. They are also active so there go frenchfries' Mark Levs. OTOH they're also good spkrs IMO -- better than the present ones -- but they still won't reproduce the scale of a Mahler 8.
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
Gregm,

Yes I agree 100%. My comments are limited to extremely high SPL, dynamic range and low distortion...but none of this adds up to the live experience. No two speakers could ever re-produce the real thing with a large orchestra and chorus on the scale of Mahler 8 (speakers are point sources while orchestras are distributed).
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