Looking for a good full range floor stander

When I was in high school, I had a job in a tobacco shop. One day, the owners asked me.. “what is the best cigar?”. I rattled off the names of some high end makes. Cohiba. Montecristo. he shook his head. After I had named about a dozen and he’s still shaking his head, i got annoyed. “OK. what IS the best cigar then???”

He smiled and said “The one you like...”

At first, I thought he was being a smartass, but he was trying to teach me something. We had people who would come in to buy $20 cigars and people who liked $2 cigars. In the end, the only thing that matters is that people found something they liked.

One of the things I despise about the audiophile community is their willingness to dismiss anything that is not esoteric or expensive AF as patently inferior. Many expensive hobbies do the same thing, but music is so subjective and sound is so personal...that it has to boil down to what makes you smile.

The joy of listening to and being moved by music is really the goal. The hardware is merely a means to an end. When the vehicle becomes more important than the destination, everything goes to hell.

My only advice to the OP is this. Experts are fine, but their ears won’t be listening to your system, you will. Trust your ears and try to find someone who is willing to float the idea that the “best” thing for you might be something different than the “best” thing for them.

Dtrandall, you are missing the point we believe in what you believe and we have the OP’s best interests at heart.

The issue is that the OP doesn’t have a standard sized audio room, he has a big volume of air to fill and that requires different thinking.

Your Cigar store analogy is a good one, but here the customer is saying I need a cigar I can smoke for 20 mins and the client is looking at a giant cigar which will burn for 1 hour, unless the customer wants to smoke for 20 mins and then smoke the rest later, which won’t taste very good, the large cigar isn’t the right selection.

The shop owner can do 1 of 2 things, either recommend a smaller equally tasty cigar or allow the customer to purchase the larger cigar and learn the hard way that what he wanted ultimately wasn’t the best choice for his requirements.

Mr. Randall, you totally miss the point, the reason why we post on threads like this is to assist people with the knowledge obtained over many years of doing this work as a profession.

As stated the likelyhood that the OP is even on the same part of the US or the World is rather remote, so we really don’t have anything financial to gain from this it is not a matter of "what is best for us" vs what is best for the OP."

We have seen too many people with blown speakers because the salesguy wanted to make a sale and didn’t look at what was right for the customer or the customer came to us and had us repair his speakers because he blew them out and the speakers were not purchased from us.

We have repaired Genesis 2.2 speakers and tweeters in a pair of Rockport Arrakis because the client liked to play very loud and had massive power and the issue with the Genesis is that the BG ribbon is now longer being made he has one spare and if he blows that one he has a giant set of boat anchors.

The OP has a unique  set of circumstances and for that reason, it is unlikely that he can and will be able to just go to a store or even a show and hear a set of speakers that will meet all of those criteria.

If the OP had a room 1/3 or 1/2 the size it would be an easy task to hear many different products that would sound great.

Mr. Randall you really don’t understand what we are about at all.

With clarification from the OP as to wether subwoofers are a viable choice it is hard to go further here are the full questions:

Speaker Selection:

1: Does a set of large subwoofer work for you visually?
2: Can you get them to integrate do you have any experience or trepidation going with separate subwoofers?
3: Can you preamp handle subs?
4: Do you care that the subwoofers may not look the same as the main speakers?
5: Would you prefer a single large main speakers?
6: Do you have any constraints with the look of the main speakers?
7: Tonal palete does the OP prefer a warmer or clear sounding speaker?


Room:

1: We know the dimensions is the room sealed or open to any other rooms?
2: Is the room very live?
3: Is there an area rug or wall to wall carpeting?
4: Does the room have a lot of slap echo?
5: If the room does have a lot of slap echo is he open to adding some room panels?


Usage:

1: What kinds of music will be played?
2: How loud?
3: How long would the system be played?
4: Does he ever want to have a party and have the system play to fill up the space?


Speaker Buying:

1: Is new or used desirable?
2: Would an appropriate older or used model be an issue?
3: How oes the OP want to get service and support?
4: Would he travel to audition?
5: If a speaker is big and heavy does he have someone to assist him with the setup of the speakers?


Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor

As I noted, my space is similar to that of the OP: 45x24x16 - and it is very live with no carpets or other soft surfaces, but it does have various partitions that break up the waves - such as a free standing fireplace. If one of the OP's goals is to fill the space with music, the only option is trial and error. I auditioned several speakers that I really liked in a dealer's store or at a show, but that died in my home. It found that it easier to fill one end of the space with good sound than to fill the entire volume. I also did not want a huge monolith that would visually dominate the space. In general, I found that more sensitive speakers seemed to be a better fit. 

Thank you for your observatiions GSM, if  you note, they mirror our suggestions and observations.

We recommended a compact floor stander with prodigious bass and high efficiency and high power handling, with the opption of room correction which  was what we were recommending, not that these were the only speakers nor that these are the "best" loudspeakers in the world it was just that their designer likes to build speakers that will fill large rooms and play loud without fear of blowing up. 

It was for this very reason we brought in the iine in the first place.

We also gave examples of a few other systems that might work as well that were from other companies.

We have found even if you are somewhat close to a speaker in a large room it helps but doesnt take away the feeling that the sound is not filling the room.

We mentioned that at both the Cap and Axpona shows the huge systems by Vac and Von Schweikert were in a titantically large room probably 80 feet wide and 40 foot deep, big high ceiling and even those mammouth loudspeakrs failed to sound really big enough to sound convincing in that space, if the room was half the size, the sound would have been extraordinary. 

In a big room you have a multitude of problems, which do not occur in a much smaller room.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

" We have found even if you are somewhat close to a speaker in a large room it helps but doesnt take away the feeling that the sound is not filling the room."

Agreed. And cranking up the volume does not alleviate the issue entirely.