Speakers with "Room-filling sound"?

No room treatments would fix the acoustics in that room ...

 

My Cornwalls fill up my room with great sound no matter what amp I use.

 

I'm not sure if it's a few cm or a little more, but if I move my head a bit from the "sweet spot" of a stereo recording (played with two speakers) where an element is mixed center, that element is no longer right in the center, but off a bit left or right.

 

It isn't that simple. Maybe if you are listening to music with vocals or bass you could hear that. Maybe if the recording engineer mixed the sound that way... but what if neither of these are true? In my case, they aren't. Neither the OP or I seem to have your critical listening skills/tastes that we require a perfect listening sweet spot. Perhaps if we did, we would strive to sit rigidly in the perfect spot to hear a perfect stereo reproduction.

 

Are people really suggesting Bose???? Have the 901s improved at some point. They where horrible when I heard them back in 2000. Like some of the worst speakers I've ever heard.

 

When we are sitting "rigidly in the sweet spot", its all a compromise anyway. You would be equal distance from each wall to maintain your stereo symmetry, which puts you right in the middle of a filthy bass null,for example. So, its all a compromise. Pretty good compromise though if you get it right.

 

Well you can hit the mono switch and your image should be right between the speakers if they're set up well.

Yes, I admit I'm kind of anal about this stuff. I've been doing critical listening from the sweet spot for over 40 years now, starting about the same time I started my career in pro audio.

It's surely not essential to listen the way I do. I need to hear that way because once I discovered that locked in image I felt like I discovered a secret that not many people know about. Now I hear it all the time and somewhat take it for granted, but it's an illusive concept that many don't get to experience.

Regardless, it's just one facet of how we enjoy listening to music. Each of us are different in that regard. My pro background gave me a lot of insight and once you discover something it generally stays with you. I've had so many of those aha moments in my career that I've gotten to a pretty cool place.

This may sound a bit egotistical, but I feel I can appreciate listening to music better than most just because most never get to experience some of the things I do. OTOH, many can appreciate things that I can't because they have issues that really bother me and often others don't even notice them.

So to each their own. That's the beauty of this hobby. The only real goal is to have our system generate smiles.

 

Many suggestions have been made that have the output to fill an 18 x 24 room easily, but the OP wants even coverage over the entire room, not a sweet spot. I don't know of any directional design that can do this. Omni's can do it, quasi-omni's, such as Bose 901's can do it and dipoles and bipoles will do a better job than conventional, directional speakers. Another option is to use four directional speakers located in close proximity to room corners.

 

The JBL Studio 590s have a huge room filling sound.Excellent horn loaded speakers and an absolute bargain.

 

These are pretty awesome and as usual fly well under the radar. Corner loaded speakers do tend to fill the room better and because you're further away even if you stand up they tend to have improved vertical dispersion. I'd suggest MBL but they're $19,000 and up I think. So depends what the OP plans to spend.

 

Again, coming from my D.J. background and as a previous owner of BOSE 901's years ago, I agree that the old 901's had to be placed in just the right room for them to give a good playback, but I've heard far worse. For the D.J. world, BOSE made speakers (802 Series III), that really filled a room and honestly had very nice sound and I'm actually trying to sell a pair of them right now. The ONLY reason that I'm selling them and have moved on to the QSC K12's (that I mentioned earlier in this thread), is because I used to have to lug around two separate amps, one for the highs and mids and a separate amp for the BOSE subwoofer and now with the QSC's, they come with a 1,000 watt amp built right in them each and they are only 42 pounds a piece, which is great for this "not so young" mobile D.J.!

BOSE does make a lot of crap geared to the masses, but the professional line of D.J. speakers in their 802 Series III, were NOT one of them!

(NOTE: Not my video!)

 

I don't have much experience with their PA gear, but the few times I've heard them they were not bad for what they were.

Their noise cancelling headphones sure work well if you don't mind a bit of mush in your sound.

 

OP here...Thanks for all the input and the great discussion! For my budget (around US$2000), I'm getting interested in the Ohm speakers and maybe a used Klipsch Heritage series speaker. Anyone here have experience with the Decware ERRx Radial Omnis? They're on my short list, and would work with the amplification I have.

 

Never heard Decware speakers but ive heard 2 amps and a preamp from them and all three were fantastic. The sound and build quality of their gear is tremendous.

I know lots of people will object to this statement but I really think you can't go wrong with vintage Klipsch. They sound great stock and there's plenty of after market support and mods to tune the speakers to your liking. They are also easy to sell if you decide to and you can get great deals on them. Plus their efficiency opens up a huge world of tube amps and intergrateds.

 

Can't agree with that.The vintage Klipsch speakers are nasty sounding things .Very uneven frequency response and a lot of cabinet and plastic horn colourations.

 

Nasty to you maybe, but everyone has different tastes. According to your profile info, who knows what your taste is.

 

If you have the room and a strong back, a clean used pair of Altec Model 19's may be worth considering.

 

These seemingly tiny differences in timing are exactly how we perceive the direction from which a sound originates––and we're talking the timing difference between two ears attached to the same head!

 

A few of us love the sound of LaScalas paired with a nice tube amp. Renegades, non-conformists. I picked these up for a song, repaired the tweets, rewired and upgraded the networks. They are extremely revealing so you have to send them a clean, analog-sounding signal, but the tone and timbre, separation, sound stage are amazing. And, yea they fill the room with 3 watts. I chuckle when I hear people talking hundreds of watts or tens of thousands of dollars.

 

Klipsch have my vote when you only have 30 watts and want room filling sound. The thing about vintage klipsch, their cross overs can easily be redone with stunning results see

http://www.critesspeakers.com/

 

I wouldn't expect any horn type of speakers to have as wide a dispersion as some here are looking for. They're generally quite beamy. There are sectoral horns and lenses to try smooth and spread out the response a bit, but still, many other speakers can have wider dispersion patterns.

It's kind of hard for me to fathom what the OP is actually looking for by reading some of the responses. I think they're looking for something that is close to having an omnidirectional pattern, sort of like the Ohm speakers.

 

That's exactly what I'm looking for... Something along the lines of an Ohm or Mirage or Decware ERRx. I get where some of the responses are coming from - a big speaker can load a room, all right. But it's really omnidirectionality at any volume I'm looking for.

 

Maybe some of the open baffle design would work, but I always hate to see drivers firing directly into the side of a sofa. Seems like vertical dispersion is key, which makes me wonder about in-wall designs as well.

 

Dr. House approves these Duevel's

 

There is one speaker that will give you an extremely large, room filling sound, yet will still convey pinpoint imaging. It's not impossible, and that's what makes these speakers so extraordinary:

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/art...erence-strada-2-monitors-and-tr-3d-subwoofer/

As Chris Martens said, "looks small, plays large."