What makes speaker's sound big?

i find that scale to music comes from the speakers being properly matched to the room so the music can breathe. the music needs to be able to properly open up and become coherent. then the speakers and amps also need to be properly matched. and to add authority and ease to the scale your amps need to have headroom, and your power grid needs plenty of headroom too.

some good mid bass is also helpful; again the speaker driver surface in the mid bass needs to be matched to the volume of the room so it can propagate. the whole room needs to be energized.

sitting in the near field can also bring a larger scale presentation; more enveloping. but to do that typically requires a highly tuned room or the proximity to the drivers will be too harsh.

my sweet spot is in the nearfield in a very large room. and i am immersed in the music.

i did not read every post, so apologies if someone already posted this.

my experience is with owning multiple speakers systems in multiple rooms, and then visiting numerous audio shows. going to audio shows where you visit 20-40 rooms a day; if you listen for this aspect of the music it is easy to connect the dots.

i moved from my previous home, and built my room in my barn, to mostly accomplish this issue. not have the room limit the power or scale of the music. and it does not.

Thanks everybody. My conclusion is also that driver area is very important and a nice big room.
I have been thinking of smaller speakers and a pair of subs. So I will have the freedom to experiment with different placement of speakers and subs.
Have also been thinking about dipoles. Have heard that the bass should be easier to integrated in the room. Less boomy bass

To me, there’s really no substitute for size in producing a grand scale and room-filling sound, the best of which by far IME are tall, line-array designs (Pipedreams, Nola, etc) and larger planar or electrostats.  Sure smaller speakers with better dispersion characteristics and some other things can help, but they can’t match the true scale and impact of the larger designs IMHO.  Given what you’re looking for, if I’m you I’d look at dipole, bipolar, or omni-polar speakers.  The only ones off the top of my head in your price range would be the Ohm MicroWalsh Short or the Magnepan LRS or 0.7, but there are probably some others I’m missing.  If you have more of a budget there are smaller models from Boenicke and Nola that are excellent.  Anyway, hope this helps, and best of luck in your quest. 

Audiogon, where the science of audio goes to die ....

For a point source with an unencumbered spherical radiation, SPL reduces by 1/R, or it is 1/2 at double the distance (-20log(0.5) = -6db. Sound intensity (power) reduces by R squared. Human's are sensitive to sound pressure (SPL).   For a perfect line source, SPL reduces by 1/sqrt(R), or 1/squrt(2) at double the distance of -3db.


However, no line source is a perfect line source, and walls, floors, and ceilings contain the spherical distribution so the equations above are guides, and the reality is somewhere in the middle.

And "full" is still a factor of SPL at your listening location, over an extended frequency range, no matter how you achieve it, and what gets to you is a combination of direct and reflected.  Larger room, and the reflected is reduced. Damped room and the reflected is reduced. Line source and there is less direct loss with distance, but less reflected energy to contribute to the arriving SPL.  Larger drivers provide the ability to achieve higher SPL with less cone movement at low frequencies. Multiple small drivers can achieve the same thing.  You still need to move the same amount of air, area*excursion, to achieve a similar pressure wave.

MA,
Wow pull something useful out these comments will require use of a divining rod.
-"Buy a Raven amp. pair with the DIs and die a happy man"!
-"Buy a Maggie"
-"Ohm Walsh!"


Singblues says you can trade 4 ea 15" woofers in for 2 ea 5" Harbeths and with enough placement experimenting achieve
a nirvana similar to his FSMs. 

My experience- Similar room size as yours. I use the Tannoy FSMs now and have tried the Joseph Audio Pulsars to see
how it compared. 
After a few days of "adjusting to Pulsars" you may forget what
you liked about the big boys. i.e. they move a lot of air and you feel it in your chest. 
I let the Pulsars go to another friend and am happy with the Tannoys.

The answer to your question only brings up more questions.
Good luck!!