Overkill for small room

I would also suggest going tube preamp and ss amp. Tube amps can sound amazing, but they do require more in ongoing maintenance and cost ( usually).and they typically run hotter ( this is something to consider...heat is not your friend in a small room). Whereas, I think you get about 90% + of the way there with a tube preamp and good ss amp. The Dynaudio’s work well with both a medium powered tube amp and a medium to high powered ss amp. So long as flea powered ( single ended typically) tube amps are not in the mix, all should be good.

My room is 11x15 speakers are Canton 9k stand mounted and two SVS SB1000pro subs driven by Technics SUG 700 integrated. The Cantons sound very good by themselves with their approx.7 woofers", that is until I added the two subs. 

The subs took the sound to another level, imagine, dynamics, soundstage, inner detail all improved by adding subs. I was not expecting this level of enhancement. Keep in mind you have a volume control, yea if I go nuts, I can shake the house, its a small cape cod after all. But woo the benefit of TWO subs in my room!  I bet they will make significant improvement to your sound in your room, so at some point check out subs.  

Putting a speaker into a small room is not easy. The issues of amp and other gear are minor compared to the speaker and room interactions. I learned this the hard way.

 

carlsbad2

1,222 posts

03-18-2024 at 10:31pm 

@audphile1 Was that code for "they sound like crap unless you play really loud"?
 

I plead the fifth

One thing to think about is that smaller monitors with some subs may be more flexible in a smaller room. You can put the monitors where they image best and have the best overall tone. Put the subs where they interact best with the room. Since they’re two very different domains in terms of what’s happening in the room, there is some solid logic to breaking the speakers into more pieces rather than monolithic full frequency towers.

As long as you can EQ levels somehow, there’s no problem with adding speakers with too much bass capacity. At worst it’ll be wasted capacity. I’d be inclined to try to play that room sideways, assuming it’s ergonomically practical, which means some kind of treatment for the rear wall which won’t be far behind your head. I’ve got a 12’ x 20’ room and it’s much better played sideways. I like a wide and open sound stage and it’s hard to get that with only 12 feet. 14 feet is certainly better than 11. Of course if you can you should try it both ways. I’ll confess the bass was better when I played the setup on the 12’ wall. I was getting solid response down to 20 Hz. Now it falls off rapidly at 35 Hz before rising again for a while below 20 Hz. There’s real 5 Hz response, but what good is that with a hole between 20 and 35? It’s not too important to me, not as important as what’s happening up higher.