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Best Speaker Choice for my very "non-audio-friendly" Living Room

New to A-Gon, and looking for advise on purchasing a set of speakers.
My room is about as sound stage unfriendly as you can imagine (Hard to describe) as the center of the room is a huge fireplace with speaker placement options limited to about 25' apart from each other on each side of the fireplace. The room is approx 30' by 14' so my listening distance from each speaker is 15' & 16' from my center chair.
With that said, I have always (maybe wrongly) been inclined to buy big powerful speakers in an attempt to fill the room with good sound.
Up til now I have been running an Anthem 540 Amp, and running my fronts through a Peachtree 500 from the Pre-Outs on the Anthem to a set of Cerwin Vega Twin 15's. I actually liked the sound of this setup, but the twin 15s were just huge and honestly obnoxious on the living room (my wife had a stronger opinion on that than I did lol) 
So, I have moved the big Vega's down to the shop / pool room  and thats where they will live with a modest emotiva amp/pre amp combo that works well. 
I like the option of a Klipsch Cornwall (old school look, but much shorter and more esthetically appealing than the Vega's or maybe a set of Focal 948's which I listened to at the local shop. Both of these options are in my price range, and I "think" would give me the sound / performance I loved with my Old Vega's but look much better in the room. 
Any advice from the experts on this forum would be greatly appreciated. 
 
carzmaguy88
ghdprentice
6,358 posts
 
Wow. You are not kidding on a challenging environment. The photos are worth a thousand words.

i would try small monitors on stands on the granite shelf. Put them just high enough not to get heated by direct radiation from the fireplace. This would allow cutting down the distance apart. Looks like you already have a subwoofer there… that would continue to work.
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lonemountain
415 posts
 
A wide dispersion LCR mounted right to the stone fireplace would work well.  From my ATC world, a SCM 12i which has a steel plate to mount to in the back and Adaptive Technology stuff to use as the "arm" to the bracket.  This is how studios and post houses do it.  You'll need a serious hammer drill to lag bolt into the stone. You need a bracket that can be tilted downward to keep energy off the glass. 

Wide dispersion for sure horizontal, but narrow vertically.     
vinylvalet
836 posts
 
I saw the Tannoy Canterbury mentioned. A friend sold his expensively modified ($10k in new outboard crossovers) Tannoy Canterbury speakers when he heard the Fyne F703, which will have no trouble filling your room with great sound quality.

Larsen makes unique speakers made to be placed right against the front wall, so you can avoid the tedious trouble of setting your speaker/listening positions precisely. Both the 8.2 or 9 will fill your room with high quality sound.

I've heard both the Larsen 8.2 and Fyne F703. I haven't heard the Larsen 9 but can extrapolate from the 8.2. I know another fellow that sold his SoundLab electrostatics after hearing the Larsen 9 in his home.
boomerbillone
328 posts
 
Taller and slimmer will probably suit the Mrs. better.
sandstone
358 posts
 
As they are in your price range,
You should consider the Paradigm Personas as well - for great built-in room calibration, high efficiency,  imaging in spades, and an unusually broad sweet spot.  A wide speaker separation is actually displayed in many of the posted Persona system images. 
With beautiful design/construction and a relatively small footprint, the WAF is also very high.
Good luck!

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