Room size-how do I determine speaker size?

I recently went through a lot of back and forth auditioning to satisfy similar concerns in my 11' x 16' room. Ultimately it was the coherence or clarity of my favorite monitor that won out over the 3-way tower. The 3 way was well mannered, and the bass rich without being overwhelming. But the subtly more direct, clean sound of the monitor won me over. It seemed like all the music could open up at lower volumes. I found its bass quite sufficient for my own tastes, although certainly not as deep and full.

This question is easy...The size of a speaker allowed for any given room is decided by the tolerance of your wife or significant other.

I usually start big and work my way down until the yelling stops.

Michael

While I generally agree with the monitor-and-maybe-sub advice as a starting point, I'd recommend that you experiment with different types of speakers in your price range. Some tower speakers use small drivers and aren't really that large in volume, so they produce less bass than you might think (as well as less bass than the spec sheet says, but that's almost universally true).