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

@daveyf,  without you describing your room treatment I searched through your many photos and only saw those 2 grey panels which I would like to point out represent broad-band absorbers and as such do not absorb down below the Schroeder frequency so have little to no effect where the bulk of room problems lie. Also bass build up happens in the corners of any room. So the vertical floor to ceiling corners or horizontally along the ceiling/wall corners or floor to wall corners, for example fabricating a bass trap to lie horizontally behind a couch This is where bass trapping will be most effective.  It takes up much more space than broad-band absorbers unfortunately but that's what it takes to deal with those long bass wavelengths.  A 40Hz wave is 28ft. long.

If those 2 grey panels form the entirety of your room treatment then I regret to inform you that more is needed if you wish to tame the acoustic character of the room. If you have not taken a measurement of your room then you do not know what you have to deal with and this then IMO should be your first line of defense. 

How did you set up the 2 subs you have so that they help with the room modes rather than make them worse?

@jim2, That is one of the best posts I've read on this, you summed it up beautifully.

There are some manufacturers of speakers who have a model or two just below their flagship full range speakers that use the identical mid range and tweeter drivers mated to a lesser performing bottom end in a smaller enclosure and at a substantially lower price. It is these that represent the best value and mated to an intelligent application of room treatment and proper installation of subs will at lower cost outperform the flagship model for the reasons you mention. Of course the dealer with an opportunity to move his overpriced 'white elephant' might suffer from selective amnesia.

Go big, or go home!

@lemonhaze   I have multiple room acoustic treatments in my room, many of which you can see in my system photos, but you have to be able to recognize them.... Including the Real Trap Mondo Traps that you do not recognize. The subs were dialed in by me, as I totally trust my ears (albeit at some considerable difficulty and time). No one who has visited my room has ever complained about the SQ. In fact the last visitor, a well known a'phile writer and reviewer, was highly complimentary on the SQ and could not locate the subs at all ( which to my ears is what you want). 

Oh, and you are right..I do have a bass trap behind my seating position. 

It seems you to like to jump to conclusions about other people's systems... which leads me to my question for you, why is your system not posted somewhere on this forum??

@lemonhaze wrote:

@jim2, That is one of the best posts I've read on this, you summed it up beautifully.

There are some manufacturers of speakers who have a model or two just below their flagship full range speakers that use the identical mid range and tweeter drivers mated to a lesser performing bottom end in a smaller enclosure and at a substantially lower price. It is these that represent the best value and mated to an intelligent application of room treatment and proper installation of subs will at lower cost outperform the flagship model for the reasons you mention. Of course the dealer with an opportunity to move his overpriced 'white elephant' might suffer from selective amnesia.

And it's also why I've spoken to a Wilson Audio dealer who was read the riot act by Wilson Audio for selling customers the Wilson Audio Duette and subs rather than one of their exponentially priced floorstanding speakers... But... people don't buy Wilson Audio floorstanding speakers for "value" anyway... so they don't mind being the sucker, as long as they look good / feel good.