Is my room doomed? Pic

Enzo,

This is crazy, having people draw conclusions based upon a single photo of your room. It is a beautiful space, by the way. Do not despair.

I am having a very hard time appreciating the actual distances based upon that photo. Could you put some more pictures on your systems page? If the speakers are too far apart, the image may be thin. Too much toe-in with speakers too far apart can make it even more thin. You just need to start moving them around to know what is right.

Equipment break-in is very real, especially with full-range speakers. It can take several months of continuous play before the bass is appropriate. Without the break-in, the speaker can be very disappointing regardless of room and equipment.

Lastly, have you tried any other amps? I know many people like Gryphon, but the amplifier-speaker synergy is really key. I also know that many will advocate for the Rockport-Gryphon connection. However, I believe what the designer uses and shows with his speakers should be the start and not the end of your amplifier search.

Why are people recommending omni type speakers? If anything, assuming different speakers are even needed, I would think a controlled directivity design would be a better option. Just curious.

yes..doomed, but enjoy.

"why omnis?"

See my first post above. Omnis will project the sound more evenly and naturally throughout the room. They require fewer room treatments in general in larger more difficult rooms than more directional designs. That's why I have landed on them in my difficult L shaped room where box designs and planars just could not cut it.

You can make a tough room work for you rather than trying to fight a losing battle taming the room to accommodate the speakers.

Omnis like OHMs will also enable serious listening from mostly any listening location in the room equally, even including outside of the speaker locations if needed. They also tend to produce a deep sound stage (with good amplification) mostly behind the speakers that extends past the rear wall which will help create a deeper perceived room depth.

I'd try to get things clicking with what you have first, or switch to different speakers that the dealer might offer if the Rockports cannot cut it in that room. If all that fails, OHM, as an example, does offer an extensive in-hone trial on their speakers that eliminates most all the risk (save shipping) if their speakers do not work out. The audition period is long enough to allow proper break-in as well.

Thanks for all your wonderful suggestions. Over the next few days/weeks I will try them all.

Cmalsk: FYI the dealer is being helpful. He's been here to try and tune the system and I will have him back you can be sure of that.

Richard Stacey - Cables are almost the same (Transparent on the preamp/amp/speaker except I used Reference line and he has MusicWave Ultra, and Argento on the digital front end) while I don't have any power conditioning and he does.

As far as DRC, that could help quite a lot and I will try that later if all else fails.

Rob/RTN1 - hey it's Isaac BTW (changed emails so changed login). I will take some more photos and put them up no problem. What I know for sure right now is I'm very far away from the Rockports I heard in 2 different rooms (one at the dealer, one at the distributor) running Gryphons/Transparent. I highly doubt it's the Gryphon's just because I listened extensively to them in both these rooms on the same speakers and they were fantastic (very transparent, liquid, detailed, dynamic, great soundstage, etc etc).

I will play around more with speaker positioning, listening position, switching the speaker L to R so the side firing woofers face either, and also borrow some acoustic panels/traps. I'm still skeptical as to how much all this can help if I'm not 70-80% there already. Stay tuned!

Again, thanks for all your guys's help.