Can speakers be both "big" and "accurate" ?

Obviously! The real question is quite the reverse: can small speakers be both "small" and "accurate".

My guess is that your problem is not the speakers, but the room. Maybe not too small, but not optimal acoustically. I'd suggest you start looking into room treatments to cut down the reflections. This will allow all the volume you want while maintaining the detail.

jd

Jdombrow has it, except that i would suggest that the room might in fact be too small - mine is slightly larger, fairly well damped, and i max out its accoustic capabilities in the mid 90's db wise (at listening position) much beyond that nothing much improves, just gets louder.

It may well be that what you are looking for does not exist. If your definition of accurate is nearfield listening at moderate SPLs or listening through worldclass headphones, all bets are off. First, nearfield or headphone listening essentially tries to eliminate the room from the equation as much as possible. Second, the behaviour of speakers does not typically scale linearly. Different drivers of a speakers may start to compress at different SPLs, for example, which will alter the sound depending on SPL, or an otherwise excellent amplifier may have trouble delivering the required amount of current fest enough to faithfully reproduce the dynamics of a musical event (and it may not even be amp that is at fault if it starving for power from the wall).

On the other hand, if you definition of accurate is reproduction of musical events with realistic SPLs, sound stage in three dimensions, emotional impact, "suspension of disbelief" for more than mere microseconds etc. there are systems capable of doing just that. Whether a symphonic orchestra at full crescendo can be reproduced accurately is another question. I deliberately used the word system, not speakers, in my above claim. Putting all the burden on the speakers is not fair. Obviously, you have to start with a set of speakers that is capable of producing what you are looking for but then you have to go all the way with proper room tuning, choice of electronics, cables, power, vibration control (which gains in relative importance the higher your SPLs) etc.

I am speaking from experience with the very speakers that I own (Avalon Eidolons). Depending on how they are fed, they are capable of producing accurate auditorium size portraits or simply be loud and unconvincing. I guess that the same will be true with many other speakers.

Try Gallo Reference speakers. They are no longer made, but there is a set on Audiogon for $1850.00. If you want to engulf your room with sound, these will do it! Bass output is more than you would expect out of two 6.5" drivers (26Hz). The speaker has no crossover. The woofers are weight damped to match the natural roll off of the tweeters. The round enclosures have no cabinet diffraction and inherently do not sound like boxes. The unique CDT tweeter emits sound 320 degrees and is very fast like an electro-stat. They throw an amazing soundstage and are very accurate and detailed. You will feel like you are “in” the jazz club, and with your amp they will go “stupid-loud” if you want.

Proper set up requires that they be out in the room and well spaced out to work. The best seat is typically on an equilateral triangle. Off axis listening is quite good, because there is no high frequency roll off from either speaker unless you walk behind them. I run mine with tube pre-amp and 35 watt solid state mono blocks. They should work nice with your set-up. Use the spare cash for a sub if you really want to go low. I set mine on the lowest cut off 35Hz and 24db per octave for the last bit of bass extension. Feel free to E-mail me for any additional information.

http://www.roundsound.com/cdtspecs.htm

Stewart