volume vs presence

I know exactly what you're talking about.., to feel involved with the music you have to crank it up.

I live in a Condo, and I had the same problem when I switched from a floor-standing speaker (Alon IV) with deep bass to stand-mounted monitors (Sonus Faber) and Sub (Rel Storm). I had to blast the monitors to allow it to sound great, and then my neighboor started complaining that it was too loud and I would have to agree that she was right. I now have larger floor standing speakers (Kharma) without a sub, and I can enjoy the music at normal levels and it even sounds great at low levels at night, and my neighboor hasn't ever complained again.

I would have to agree with Mulveling, that you need larger floor-standing speakers to better fill the room with a wall of sound. I would recommend something that at least goes down to 30-35Hz.

Rich

Jaffa777,

I forgot to ask you.., How large is your room?

Rich

wow, just got up and so many post already.

My room is about 5x6 meters.

I do have a sub, an mj acoustics ref 100 mk11. It sounds nice.

I will switch to floorstanders eventually I guess. I think most people here are right, I might be trying to get a big sound out of small speakers. My dream floostanders to get at the moment are the new PMC Pb1i. Pricey though.

I was thinking bigger speakers would need to driven louder to fill a room, or could be too big for a room. But maybe the opisite is true?

Shadorne, thanks for the link. I am required to have my hearing tested yearly where I'm employed, but the results given are not very informative. The results of this test really shows where the losses are. My loss started right at 500hz, with a gradual increase up to -12dB at 30 hz. What suprised me the most was how it stayed level when I increased the frequencies until I got to 6khz, which only went up one level, then again at 12khz one level. But at 16khz, I had to jump up to -6dB. !!! Great test!

I'm 52.

Hi Jaffa,

That is a decent size room that you have. I would have to believe that a speaker that goes down to about 28-30hz, will suffice.

You could certainly get "too big" and that won't be good either. The goal should be to get the right sized speaker for your room.

You mentioned that you want a more percussive attack. This is usually in the Bass region 60Hz-250Hz, not the Sub-Bass region 20Hz-60Hz. I feel that your Monitor and Subwoofer won't solve this problem, because your monitor isn't producing enough punch in the bass region and your subwoofer can't reach high enough into the bass region either. I actually prefer the sound of a Floor-Standing speaker with a Subwoofer, than a Monitor with a Subwoofer.

I believe that you need a Floor-Standing Speaker with at least 3 drivers (Woofer, Midrange, and Tweeter). This way the woofer can handle the bass region and the midrange can handle it's region without being pushed harder to perform in the bass region. A Floor-Stander with 4 drivers would also work.., but then you may have two smaller, faster woofers, one midrange, and one tweeter. Since you like a fast percussive sound, I would think that 2 smaller 170mm woofers, instead of one larger 250mm woofer, may be more to your liking.

Although, I have never listened to the PMC PB1i, I did check them out online and I think you're on the right track with that type of speaker design. The rest is up to you my friend...

Good Luck,
Rich