Can speakers be too large for a room

11x18 is on the small side for Sofias, but I think it should work. From your description, it sound like your room is pretty heavily damped, so that may be part of why you have to goose the volume for the Sofias to come alive. Maybe you need to pull out some damping and see if it energizes the room more at a lower volume level.

Here's another thing to consider: tube amps seem to have an easier time at resolving minute changes of amplitude and low level detail. I suspect your speakers would come alive more at lower volumes with a high quality, high powered tube amp, such as from VTL or Audio Research Corporation (ARC). The best setups I've ever heard were Wilsons powered by VTL or ARC.

Matt, if the problems you are hearing are a function of your room treatments, the first reflection panels are the most likely culprit. It is very easy to overdampen the midrange and high frequency sound in a listening room. Most rooms use a combination of diffusion and absorption in order to effectively deal with first reflections without sucking the life out of the music.

If you find that the sound gets better as you remove the first reflection panels, you might experiment with diffusion as an alternative to the absorptive panels that were removed.

Cincy_bob
I removed the walls panel and it did help, but it still needs something at the reflection points. I guess diffusors are my next option.
Do you have any recommendation on diffusors. I built my absorption panels myself, but i think the diffusor is out of my leaque to build. They also seem to be pretty exspenive.

Johnnyb

I thought about tubes a while back. My B100 can serve as a pre amp easily with a switch, but the heat and maintenance is more than i want to deal with. I do construction on some recording studio's where i live and the sound engineers all say to go tube. they also say to leave them on 24/7 so they do not need to warm up when your ready to use them.That's a lot of wasted energy,to much heat for such a small room and to much wear on the tube. The studio's have unlimited funds. I don't.

Now that you have eliminated the absorption at the reflection points to positive effect, it would be prudent to try an amplifier with about twice the power of your integrated, say 250w/ch into 8 ohms and then doubles down (doubles the power output as impedance halves). It will probably wake up the Sophias nicely.

Hi I have a similar problem. My room is 13' x 14' with a 14' ceiling A Frame. I can't put any floor standing speakers in that room that go below 40Hz. This holds true of ported designs even more. I had LIving Voice Auditoriums and the Avatars in my room, Vandersteen 2Ci, VonSchweirt Model 3, Athenas, Alon's and many many others over a 3 year period. Only the Alons worked after I purchased a new amp a Odyssey Audio Stratos. I'm a tube guy but that combination was deadly. I got tired of the boomy sounding speakers and opted for a pair of Spica TC60's. I ended up with a pair of Dali Suite 1.2 subs which are acoustic suspension. It has taken some work but finally I have a very good balance.
To be honest it sounds better than it has any reason to.

Because of the price range you have, the sky is pretty much the limit. I would choose Harbeths or Spendors and then the Vienna Acoustics are pretty interesting. I would choose a speaker that have great dynamics and excellent timing. I haven't heard any of the Proacs lately but they have always been one of my favorites. When I am able to move up, the Harbets and the Spendors will be one of my first choices to audition. Why? Because they have excellent balance in the music spectrum and servers many genres of music well. Of course there are other speakers but those two come to mind first. And they are both tube friendly and you should never get bloated bass. I don't know if the Bryston Integrated will be a great choice but I hear is is a wonderful integrated amp. Most of their gear is wonderful.