Big speakers in small room at moderate volume levels

Good thread. 

I don’t have any speaker advice but most all of our rooms are not large enough to support bass waves without bending them. Even a 40hz wave is 28’ long and that makes even the 1/2 wave 14’. It is just the way it is… a speaker that goes down to 40hz will still have standing waves (a spike followed by a dip) in most rooms. You need to find the residence of the room and try to trap that frequency. 

With that in mind you need to “eliminate” the room and sit as near field as possible imo. The other key will be NOT to sit with your head near the rear wall where that wave is changing direction. 

If I were you I would be looking at what speaker works the best in extreme near field (thinking driver placement and integration) and think about sitting very close to the speakers. 

 I read the whole thread and see your are off the A3 now but I am curious  why you did not look at the S1?   

This guy says it better than me. 

https://youtu.be/xECtAruK0fM

@james63  Thanks for the awesome vidoo link. I just watched the following. Nice to hear some of the science behind the acoustics.

How To Get Good Bass In Small Rooms - www.AcousticFields.com 
What Are Standing Waves In Rooms? - www.AcousticFields.com 
How To Make Your Room Sound Larger - www.AcousticFields.com 

Unfortunately, I am sitting in the exact worst sport you have identified. There is nothing I can do about it because I need all those computer monitors on my desk. In the photo of my room you see the desk chair is against a 31 inch wall.

I am getting room treatment panels for that 31" wall and the closet space and it is supposed to make it appear as if the wall does not exist right behind me. That is the takeaway from the description my friend with the Spendor D7 gave regarding the wall behind his couch. He has tamed the wall it in a manner that made the sound non-fatiguing. I am hoping the same happens to my situation. I have the opening of the closet space and now the ability to open the entrance door which I hope will make that 31" wall less of an obstacle. Without treatments when I play music  (KEF LS50's) that is loud and hard the the sound is rather good with the room entrance door open, not so good with it closed.

The reason I went to demo  the Magico A3 over the S1 was because felt that the price of the S1 was not something I wanted to pay for that type of speaker. Also when I went to audition the A3 I was under the impression I that the house I would move to would have a larger office space.  Maybe 2x as large as the current one. However, I decided to move to this current place because it is perfect for my kid.

Another speaker that is maybe similar to the Magico S1 is the following:

https://vividaudio.com/products/kaya-25/

I heard the big brother, Vivid Kaya 90, on the same day as the Treo CT and Magico A3. It sounded great but (somewhat like the KEF Blade)  it was too large a sound for my room and expensive. I know you are thinking about a Magico. Take a look at the Vivid if you have not done so already, it is an excellent speaker..

@audiotroy After watching those videos mentioned above it seems like the Magico A3 would really be tough to get into my room. Of course you did say that too. The Treo CT maybe possible. If you think driving to LA to bring a pair of Magico A3 's to my home is a PITA (it is). You should hear my 20 year old story of buying my Revel Salon 1 from Los Angeles when I lived near San Francisco. There were massive boxes that I drove by-myself to pick up, an open bed rental truck, a raging winter storm that I thought was going to destroy the speakers,10* hour drive, pea soup fog with 2 foot visibility on a major hwy, police pulling me over,. Fun times.

However, there is something that @tomic601 mentioned that I spent about 4 hours investigating yesterday that may give me some options.

@tomic601 I took another look at the "Who has Luv for the Lyngdorf 2170 and is thinking about the 3400." thread. I read it from beginning to end. I actually posted some questions into that thread a few months ago.  

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/who-has-luv-for-the-lyngdorf-2170-and-is-thinking-about-the-3...

It was a good read and I did a deep dive into the posters eventual systems and other thread comments (spent about 4 hours). It also got me feeling optimistic again on the bigger floor-stander for my room. My take away as pertaining to my situation:

1) Having a treated room prior to apply Room Perfect DSP is not a bad thing and will cause Room Perfect to have to do less work. Your speakers can have the burden of reproducing certain freq's removed by getting rid of the room treatments and having the Room Perfect deal with it. However, I would not do this and plan on keeping my acoustic treatments. Let the speaker work.

2) The amplification stage after the DSP can be variable. You can use the Class D as built-in on the amp. Or, you can buy a separate amp and use the RCA or XLR pre-amp out to an external amp. One user on YouTube mentioned he has a tube amp, a SS class AB amp, and the default internal Class D amp hooked up. He uses solid state when he wants background and the tube when he is focused on the music. Not saying the tubes are better than the default it was just this posters preference. A lot of A'gon posters love the sound of the Lyngdorf by itself. I have not yet contacted your friend about the Lyngdorf and Treo CT.  I want to listen to the Lyngdorf first.

3) The Lyngdorf system sounds best with digital files. There is an upgraded analog input card that I would need to get and this does a A-2-D conversion of the signal. My listening of my analog sources are not that high. One CD a day on my modded Sony SCD-1 (a fun sound for me) and some KCRW.com FM radio (if they are not playing AutoTune garbage). Most of my listening is Tidal/ROON which the Lyngdorf is optimized for. It also has an Ethernet DAC streaming input, though the USB is supposedly still better sounding. My Sonare microRendu needs to follow my KEF  LS50's to whatever room it goes to so the Ethernet input can save me a few dollars until I get another Ethernet-2-USB device.

3) The digital processing of the digital files is done by a Texas Instruments chip. I do not think this is a DAC chip, though in reality I do not care nor do I need to understand all the details. It is supposed to be lossless or bit perfect or something of that nature.

4) The volume control is excellent and the volume comes from a silent background at all levels. I heard the beauty of the silent background with my old Benchmark AHB2 amp ($3K)

5) Dealer states that a floor stander the size of a Magico A3  or Treo CT can work with DSP in my room. I am skeptical but hope to be proven wrong.

6) I need to go listen to this amp this week at a local shop. I will make 2 trips down to the dealer. If the first trip shows me a general sound that I like without the DSP, I will ask to demo this unit again using DSP with something that approaches what I am looking to get. It takes time to dial in the DSP with the microphone setup.

As I begin this journey back into audio I am starting to become a bit of an audio geek. I have some interest (if / when funds permit) to try a tube amp and class A amp. Buy and sell gear just to try like a lot of you guys here do. A lower power requirement on the speaker will give me more options. Another plus for the Treo CT over the Magico A3. A few amps that I am interested in are the following:

- Benchmark AHB2 (buy this back, sold it to make an investment)
- BAT tube amp (had an old SS BAT VK-42SE preamp and loved it)
- Krell XD amp (want to demo this)
- Mark Levinson amplification 
- Pass Labs
- CODA pure class A amp
- and whatever else comes along

With the Lyngdorf in the pre-amplification stage, with or without DSP turned on, I believe I would have a framework to do this. You are not tied to any particular amplification if this is the intended nature for the pre-amp outputs. I will confirm this with my dealer visit later this week and also try the pre-amp out to maybe a Simaudio amp they have.

@james63  I forgot to mention that in my downstairs space. I have 30 foot long wall, when the adjacent family room is accounted for. So the science for the acoustics in that room  should say it is an excellent space. That space will get a family friendly big rig system. Just waiting on my lottery ticket for that one.

BTW - for anyone wondering why I am writing so much verbiage. It is a way for me to remember the things I am finding along the way. I have re-read this thread a few times to focus my thinking.

yyzsantabarbara,

The vivids look nice but I always ignored them due to price. I have the opposite issue as you with a 27’x25’x7.5’ deticated room (real estate is cheap in Ohio). I have the setup off center and a carefully selected seating position to help with the square room issue.

Low bass seems fine in my room but I struggle to get good mid bass impact and really need big speakers and that gets pricy (good and big…). With my duel subs I have a good bit of flexibility on speaker choice but the A3 is probably the smallest speaker I would go with.

For what it is worth when I was remodeling I put a pair of B&W 803s (not D) in a 12’x11’x8’ room and was really surprised that it sounded fine. I am sure the bass was lumpy but I remember thinking it was pretty enjoyable honestly with great impact in the mid bass. However I did not know much back then and it was my first “real” set of speakers which I grew to hate lol (too harsh).