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Can speakers be too large for a room

The reason I ask this question is I recently moved from a 10 ft x 10 ft home office/listening room with a nearfield setup (B & W CM1 and a CM sub with a Bryston B100SST intergrated amp) Which sounded wonderful to a 11 ft x 18 ft office/soundproof listening room. So I purchased a pr. of Sofia's from audiogon. Although they sound very good. They seem to want more. It's hard to explain. I'm kinda new at the highend music. My new office is built for listening. I have lots of bass traps and reflection panel to help tame the small room. So accoustics are not a real problem. The sound seems to be a little restricted. The amp pushes 200 wpc @ 4 ohm. There is no way to turn the volume past halfway, but the speaker don't really start sounding there best until you turn up the volume. Which gets a little fatiguing after a while. I know these are not technical terms, but i don't know how to explain it.

My question is could the sofias be to much for the room.

If so what would be a good choice for a replacement. I mostly listen to jazz and blues with a little classic rock.

Price range 6k to 10k

Thx Matt
mwilliams

Showing 1 response by johnnyb53

johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
11x18 is on the small side for Sofias, but I think it should work. From your description, it sound like your room is pretty heavily damped, so that may be part of why you have to goose the volume for the Sofias to come alive. Maybe you need to pull out some damping and see if it energizes the room more at a lower volume level.

Here's another thing to consider: tube amps seem to have an easier time at resolving minute changes of amplitude and low level detail. I suspect your speakers would come alive more at lower volumes with a high quality, high powered tube amp, such as from VTL or Audio Research Corporation (ARC). The best setups I've ever heard were Wilsons powered by VTL or ARC.
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