I concur with AudioTroy’s assessment that high dynamic range and a lot of low-frequency air-moving capability would be really nice to have in gryphonite’s situation.
Legacy’s large floor-standing speakers have these characteristics. And as AudioTroy posted above, there are theoretically other possible solutions. I’d like to comment on one of them:
"A horn loudspeaker which again tends to be big and ugly and many times very colored without the delicatness of a great conventional speaaker, but great for rock and EDM..."
We all have bad memories of horn PA speakers so harsh they hurt our ears. This kind of speaker is designed for maximum SPL per dollar or per pound, along with durability, with sound quality being way down on the priority list. Unfortunately many audiophiles associate this sonic disaster with horns in general. While I’ll readily admit that many home audio horn speakers do have audible colorations, I believe that, with good design, there can be worthwhile exceptions.
Note that there is an extremely demanding area - extremely demanding from a QUALITATIVE standpoint - where horns are widely used. And that is, high-end studio main monitors. Many of the world’s best recording studios use horn or waveguide loudspeakers for their most demanding applications. A "waveguide" in this context is a type of horn that focuses exclusively on radiation pattern control, without acoustic amplification as a consideration. Among the prosound speaker companies that build horn and/or waveguide studio monitors are:
JBL, Ocean Way, Augspurger, Kinoshita, Meyer, Westlake, Genelec, Amphion, Reflexion Arts, Neumann, and Dutch & Dutch.
My point being, among an intensely demanding group with extremely good ears, who isn’t handicapped by prejudice but only cares about performance, whose very livelihood depends on having accurate loudspeakers, horns and waveguides are very competitive.
In addition to the low coloration and good SPL capabilities that a GOOD horn or waveguide speaker brings to the table, they can also be a good match for gryphonite’s somewhat kinetic listening style:
“I mostly listen around my living area rather than in a dedicated listening position.”
Briefly, the right kind of horn/waveguide speaker, set up properly, can give not only good tonal balance pretty much throughout the room, but also still recreate an enjoyable soundstage for listening positions that are well outside the traditional apex-of-the-triangle “sweet spot”. This is somewhat counter-intuitive so I can explain it if anyone is interested, but I think this post is already plenty long enough.
Duke
dealer/manufacturer/yup I do horns & waveguides, including custom studio main monitors