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Can speakers be too large for a room

The reason I ask this question is I recently moved from a 10 ft x 10 ft home office/listening room with a nearfield setup (B & W CM1 and a CM sub with a Bryston B100SST intergrated amp) Which sounded wonderful to a 11 ft x 18 ft office/soundproof listening room. So I purchased a pr. of Sofia's from audiogon. Although they sound very good. They seem to want more. It's hard to explain. I'm kinda new at the highend music. My new office is built for listening. I have lots of bass traps and reflection panel to help tame the small room. So accoustics are not a real problem. The sound seems to be a little restricted. The amp pushes 200 wpc @ 4 ohm. There is no way to turn the volume past halfway, but the speaker don't really start sounding there best until you turn up the volume. Which gets a little fatiguing after a while. I know these are not technical terms, but i don't know how to explain it.

My question is could the sofias be to much for the room.

If so what would be a good choice for a replacement. I mostly listen to jazz and blues with a little classic rock.

Price range 6k to 10k

Thx Matt
mwilliams
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
MWilliams -- Thanks for the clarifications. Yes, dull cymbals would seem to suggest simply weakness in the mid to upper treble. My feeling, though, contrary to some of what has been suggested, is that enhancing that part of the spectrum by enhancing first reflections would be compensating for one problem by introducing another. With the likely result of unwanted side-effects on imaging and other parts of the spectrum.

All I can suggest, if you haven't already done so, would be to take one of your better quality recordings containing cymbal crashes, and play it at realistic "live" volume levels, with the tweeters of the speakers aimed directly at you. If there is still significant dullness, then I would have to think something else is wrong somewhere, although I'm not sure what that might be.

Good luck!
-- Al
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almarg
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One thing I am going to try is to raise the speakers some. This is my office, so my listening position is higher than normal. I,ve read that the tweeters should be about ear level. I am going to try and raise the speakers about 2 inches. When listening the soundstage seems to be a little low.

Matt, you'll definitely want to consider this quote from John Atkinson's review of the Sophia in Stereophile:

In the vertical plane ... the speaker's balance doesn't change much as long as the listener sits with his or her ears below the top of the enclosure. Stand, however, and a large suckout appears at the upper crossover frequency, which appears to be just under 2kHz.

A suckout around 2kHz would definitely have an effect on cymbals, in the direction of dullness.

Also, note the frequency response plot for your former speakers (the CM1's) in this review. If you click on Figure 2 to expand it, you will see that most of the treble is elevated by around 5db relative to the mid-range. That is significant, and perhaps your experience with that speaker is affecting your expectations. In contrast, as noted in JA's review the Sophia's are essentially flat from mid-range through treble, aside from some small and narrow peaks and valleys.

Hope that helps,
-- Al
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shadorne
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MWilliams,

Al has a great point. Another concern might be tweeter compression (this is certainly a problem with the WP 8, as evidenced by Soundstage Measurements - I have no idea how the Sophia perfroms in this respect). Yet another possibiliity is "JITTER" - this can kill the proper sound of cymbals - making them sound dead and closed in - in stead of open.

Finally, have you considered that he prototypical B&W speaker has a boost around 4 KHz (or a hole between 1 KHz and 3 KHz if you like)- it is possible that all your reflection treatments were helping to tame this. Now that you have the Sophia's coudl you be deadening the room too much?
mwilliams OP
47 posts
 
Hey Almarg,

Great read thanks.

According to the article I should raise my speakers at least 4 inches. I have kneeled down and noticed differences. Thats why i was going to raise them . Just to see. 4 inches is alot. So I will have to come up with something sturdy enough and rigid enough.

Shadorne

I don't beleive I have a big jitter problem. Most of my real listen is done with my Bryston cdp into the built in dac of my b100 connected by a Transparent Reference grade interconnect.

As far as over dampening. I am working on that. On another forum I talked with a guy that has his on line of diffusors that lives within a few miles of me. I was thinking of taking down the first reflection absorbtion panel and trying diffusion.

Trial and error seems to be the only way to work things out.

That and great help from you guy's.

It's very appreciated

Matt
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