Big speakers, are they really the best way to get great sound?

I’d like to present 2 examples of the extremes in room/enviroment that we were involved with.

First, back in the disco era we provided music systems for highly energetic young people at the peak of their physical attractiveness and athletic dexterity, not afraid to put both out there on display. One such system was designed for outdoor use with bass bins large enough to sit in. (One participant actually did). I also recall a tweeter array with 16 piezo-electric tweeters. Hey, these were good enough for Jon Dalquist, so why not outdoor venues? (I think the design goals and application might have been slightlly different). I’m pretty confident these would quality as "big speakers" designed to play very loud, full bandwidth sound in a 1 billion cubic foot "room."

One the other end of the spectrum, we decided to build a project where we installed a full 7.1 surround system in a 30" x 30" replica of a British phone booth. We removed the front baffles of B&W mini-monitors (3 1/2" 2-ways), hand built a fascia, and made custom enclosures for a pair of JL audio thin-profile 10" subs mounted in the floor. The system was powered by a high quality 100x7 AV receiver, with outboard mono amp running the subs. Our quick math determined that it was the equilivant of large speakers driven by 4k of power in "average" listening room. Yes, it got loud. And raised eyebrows (and skirts) when the bass hit.

Moral of the story: Related to speaker size: the room matters.

Back when I started in this wacky world of ours, I had a set of Bozak A’s, then B’s. When I played the 1812 Overture, you could feel it!  Now, with the way speakers have improved and subwoofers have improved, you don’t necessarily need big speakers to get the same effect.

I am pretty sure that a lot us us who at retirement age simply cannot tolerate extremely loud rooms [tinnitus related].  So anything at high decibels blurs SQ.  The louder it gets, the more problems the room will face. And the less I appreciate it.

There is no issues or relationship between room size and speaker size. 

When you fix and adjust those issues:

Generally, the speakers were right on edge of overloading the room, depending on music, the dreaded bass boom could be heard.

Fix and adjust is just like Erik saying:

get measurements and professional room treatments, and consider EQ when and where possible.

But it is correct that small speakers don't go that low and not that loud at those low frequencies and therfore someone can easily get away with not setting up a "good" listening space by skipping those two things!

Bigger speakers usually has bigger drivers that are able to pressurizeing lower frequencies and louder at those frequencies. 

And standard consumers they get to the conclusion oh those big speakers "is overloading the room" or "the room is to small or vise versa". 

Yes, that might seam to be the "logical" conclusion when there is a rather big knowledge gap and the general listeners don't know and don't have the experience of what a treated room and what issues that are able to solve. And the same goes for modern PEQ (DSP). 

To be brutal honest there is the majority that JUST plop a speaker of any size into room of any size. Without doing any room treatment or PEQ whatsoever..

And then it is the "fault" of the speaker or the room! (think again) 🤔

So do you know how, where and what to do as sound treatment. And know how to measure, use a computer and upload PEQ to your DSP (fix also issues with "dedepending on music" with different presets,) . 

Then room or speaker SIZE is no issue or relationship in my opinion. 

It is just simple relationship in physics as bigger speaker need more adjustment when it is working in a range there smaller once don't and that is independent of room size. 

It is as simple as that. 🤫💖

(A tip for getting the "best" sound and better than the sound that OP listened to, cost no object. Is to learn and master those two aspects. Then you can get whatever sound quality that your hart desires.

The other road is if you don't learn and evolve you are stuck in buying of the shelf speakers all your life in hope of that maybe one day. You will get something that is super on some tracks and less good on other tracks just like the OP describe. In the long run it will pay off.) 

I've noticed recently that "Bookshelf" speakers seem to be getting larger and larger...trying to give us a sound that's closer to Towers.....hmmmm....