Sound quality vs. volume

If you want to listen loud in a smaller room without specific treatments you need to control the bass. I'm quite certain your Dynaudios overload the room at higher levels. And makes a very boring listening. Change speakers or start using DSP like DSpeaker Anti-Mode 2.0 or similar. You will still have a lot of reflections. Also listen to good recordings. Most recordings can't be played really loud because of distortion, overemphasized mids, voices or anything. The latest Steve Miller remastered ultmate hits is a recommendation.

Got the same problem yesterday with a used pair Harbeth P3ESR SE I took delivery of. For desk top use. No loud levels here though. But still very muddy in the bass and no treble at all. After som DSP, Arc 2 in this case, taken down the bass and flatten the freq curve to 4000 Hz, they started to sing rather nice with fine dynamics (crossed att 100 Hz to a couple of JBL 310 subs). 

“It’s what I choose to believe.” - Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, science officer, Prometheus

It didn’t work out too well for her, did it? Mistakes in judgment oft stem from not knowing all of the facts or denial of reality.

”You may think you know what’s going on, Mr. Gittes, but believe me, you don’t.” - Noah Cross to Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) in Chinatown.

Excellent recommendations, thank you!

I’ll start with room treatment.  I figured as much but wanted some validation.  WAF is a very real concern so I will have to see what can be done.  The egg-crate look is definitely in the no-fly zone.   If anyone has recommendations on half-reasonably priced, GOOD looking room acoustics drop a recommendation here.  

I did try every variation of the foam plugs that came with the Contours.  Ended up with the bottom port plugged completely and half of the top port sealed. While I like a good solid low-end, these speakers have a full-fat sound.  What I didn’t expect was the imaging and mid-highs to suffer so much but it might all be in my head :-). 

As for the headroom comment, anything is possible but I experienced this with the Maggies years back.  Too little power so I overcompensated with the Nova500.  While I know I could have gone fancy with Naim or Moon, I figured the Nova would hold me over (and the WAF is just off the charts) with enough power.  If anyone seriously thinks my problem lies in the Nova500 I could grab my friends Diablo 300 and give it a try.  Might do that anyway just for fun :-)

If I can’t get the room to cooperate I’ll try a DSP or other gizmo.  In my limited past experience with digital room correction, the results were somewhat boring - making the music a bit sterile if that makes sense.  I’m sure technology has moved along since then.  

If all else fails, I’ll pull out a good pair of cans and call it a day.  

Thanks again, 
Steve 

Nice looking speakers. I think your rear ports primarily, and speaker placement perhaps, combine to create your problem.

Ports are simply to get some extended bass out of a smaller enclosure, not a lot, just a bit more audible extension. Let's the manufacturers publish lower bass response. Demo rooms produce too much bass, but, a brief listen is impressive.

Ports are very room reactive, potential for problems should be considered larger than any potential improvement.

My speakers are very large, internal volume 6 cubic feet, with horns and 15" woofers, very efficient, need very little power to rattle the neighborhood.

Mucho bass, but when younger, I just had to try to port the 15" woofers to get more than anyone else had ever heard from them. Been there, done that, learned from it. I have my rear ports closed now in this room. I used them open in the prior location. Never needed to begin with, but satisfied the itch.

Ports open, closed, knowing what I know now, especially now that good subs exist, I would not buy a ported speaker. Get the best imaging out of the primaries, and if you must, add a sub, play with it's placement. I have a sub in my home theater, and a sub in my office. I get just a little bit, now really aware until you turn them off, that's the way it is supposed to be, same with surround speakers, not too obvious, but, off, the sound 'collapses' into the front.

What I would try:

They need to be away from the corners, but, not equally, say 3 feet from rear wall, only 2, or 4 (not 3) feet from rear wall. An asymmetric corner behind them,

Start farther apart, then toe them in more than you think. left speaker directly facing center listening chair, thus angled quite away from side walls. which is why you can start closer to the side wall than now. same for right. This will give you a very nice wide center effect, as left of center faces right speaker more directly, but is physically closer to left speaker, (opposite side similar) like the DBX do for home theater wide center. 3 people wide can get very nice imaging using this technique. Center is perfect of course, best depth.

Next, you need to angle them up some, so that the bass is not exiting 'flat' to the floor ceiling, and the rear wall. This usually aims the tweeter up, often directed at seated ear height which is best.

Now bass is not too close to rear wall, and angled away from the side walls, and approaches the floor and ceiling differently approaching you, and the floor, ceiling, rear wall will all interact differently.

Cost: Zero. Room Decor: wife stays happy.

A final attempt would be to stuff one or both ports. You could stuff both on left speaker only, move around, learn something, keep messing about. You could close all 4 ports, happily listen, if not enough bass after a period of time, start the search for a sub, and don't try to get too much out of it.

good luck, let us know if any of this works please,

Elliott

oh yeah, I put 3 wheels under mine, and push them into the corners for more space in the rooom when not listening, roll them out some for listening, and roll them out to ideal location for extended focused listening. If it is not easy to re-position speakers, unless a dedicated space, you are stuck with a compromise location usually.