is too large a room no good?

Large rooms are great in general. Gives the speakers more room to breath and express themselves.

A big room can deliver a big sound as well, but it will generally cost more to do it than a small room. Larger speakers will be needed and more power to drive them, in general.

The ideal situation would be to have a small listening room with a small tube amp and small high end efficient speakers for an intimate music setting- jazz, blues, vocals and a large room with large speakers for Rock, big band and classical.

I think I just came up with a new project- and another couple of years being poor...

Tonywinsc,

I agree. Its nice to have a large and small room to provide different diametrically opposed listening experiences, if possible.

Room size is a componenet of your system, no less important that any other piece of equipment. Even the best stereo will sound awful in the wrong room. this topic is almost always ignored in discussion threads on "what is better, this speaker or that" etc. I suggest you research the archives on "listening room", or "golden ratio". It explains the relationship quite well. If you're serious about "balancing the room" you will want to add some form of treatments in and around the immediate "critical listening position". I have a very comfortable living room, about 26' x 17' x 9', but the size is all wrong. Hence I added large portable (calapsable) absorbers behind my chair which essentially cut the room in half. Put a thick rug in front of the speakers and greatly improved the sound. Cara makes a free software program that analyzes your room properties and tells you how to fix. not sure of the web address right now, but I'm sure a google search will find it for you. Best of luck.

Hey emalist, this is a site that can give you a little technical edge.

http://www.hunecke.de/en/calculators/room-acoustics.html
jb