as an example, an mg 20.1 in a small room sounds better than any book shelf speaker in a small room, because i don't like box speakers. i can respect some brands , but i can't live with them very long. their faults annoy me.
A close friend tried to integrate 20.1's into a smallish listening room (well, smallish by 20.1 standards). He went through great lengths in everything from room treatment to stands to Xover to biamplification. The end result sounded very impressive, but ultimately restrictive in terms of throwing a realistic soundstage. Personally, I could not live with that huge compromise knowing I was not going to change the room. There are many alternatives that would work much better. Ultimately my friend decided the same and sold the 20.1's. He now uses a very different speaker design in the room which is much better suited to the space an the results are breathtaking in every which way. He'd also tried Quad 988's in the same room which rendered very similar challenges as the Maggies did. As good as both the planar speakers sounded in there I would NEVER be able to live with their faults within that space. At the recent CES I heard a pair of very odd speakers from Gradient called Helsinki. It was designed to alleviate some of the major challenges of integrating the speaker into any room. I don't know how it actually works in practice since I only heard it there, but the theory, which I'm sure can be better stated on their site, seemed like an interesting concept, and, more importantly, their sound was outstanding. I think I've seen them written up in a recent rag too.
