Small-ish speakers for a very large room?


Hello,

I recently moved into a new condo which has a really large living room. The room itself is probably 35' x 17' with 12' ceillings; but the room is actually a partial loft - the wall opposite the stereo only goes up 7' leading into a 14' x 14' bedroom.

Needless to say, the room sounds pretty cavernous.

I have always built my stereo built around listening - I have a full Lineaum home theater (the Lineaum-brand 2-way tower speakers with the LX-5's as surrounds, and their "matching" center channel). Unfortunately, since I moved, everything just sounds anemic.

It's probably time for a change anyway - so I'm looking into a few different options. Unfortunately, I'm also on a tight budget.

How do people think that the Magnepan MMG's would do in a room this large? What other reasonably priced speakers would do well in a room so volumous?

I have no qualms with going with used speakers - I just want to spend less than $1000 for the pair and less than $500 for the matching center. I'm also not opposed to bookshelf speakers or speakers that would necessitate a sub for home theater.

Thanks in advance for everyone's advice.
hudsonhawk
Those are points well taken, Tobias, in fact they illustrate my main concern - that I won't be able to fill up the room with sound on my budget without taking a step back in terms of musicality.

PSB is a brand I plan on looking at; they have a dealer near me who has a nice b-stock sale going on right now. I have some hope that I might be able to find something good there. I have a pair of their bookshelves that I use for my studio monitors and like them well enough.

I realize there's no magic bullet, I just wasn't sure what else to look at that would actually be musical. How about NHT and Canton?
Best thing to do would be to purchase 2 subs..(or one good one like HSU) and use speakers like Anthony Gallo's A'divas... or Infinity Primus 160 etc...which are amazing speakers for the price... use a good home theater receiver and use the bass management to cut off low frequencies around 120.... they will play plenty loud to fill your room.