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

Interesting discussion. It makes sense that a music listener who enjoys non amplified acoustic recordings is looking for a different set of attributes in their speakers than those who enjoy hearing performances on amplified instruments.

Having been on stage watching Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeshi’s road crew set up I found it fascinating that there is significant effort put into having the musicians hear each other’s performances as “point sources” rather than depending entirely on stage mixed monitor sound. Even though much of the music came from Fender Twin Reverbs and B-3 Leslie type speakers, their stadium volume performance had wide dynamic range…during their show, hanging on stage rail outdoors at DelFest I remember being impressed how they could play so loud softly at times :)

A properly designed large loudspeaker will not cause perspective distortion i.e. a string quartet will sound smaller than a full orchestra.

However, if the frame of reference is habitual nearfield listening in a small room then there will be quite an adjustment if listening to a large speaker in a large room.

However, also, in the case of the OP's experience there may well be the bombast factor involved, where the demonstrator plays everything too loud - which is guaranteed to make one want to run out of the room!

@phusis 

Darn, I like your philosophy. I also like your system. Please explain what you mean by, "actively configured"?  The only thing I do not like is running the 15" woofer up to 600 Hz. I assume this is because of the horn's low frequency cut off. I would use a very high order cross. Minimizing room interaction by limiting dispersion is a very important concept. Omni Directionality is a problematic attribute as it maximizes room interaction. You "hear" the room which destroys the impression that you are in a large space. It is also much harder to achieve controlled directionality and not overdo it and limit reasonable listening positions. Horns are really good at limiting dispersion without overdoing it.

You have a full frequency, limited dispersion point source system. I have a full frequency, limited dispersion line source system. I also configure everything "actively", by which I mean all crossovers and processing are done digitally and each driver or transformer has its own amplifier. I would love to be able to compare the two systems. 

Sometimes more is just More!

Big speaker small room.

Big speaker small room Part Deux.

* Klipsch Jubilee