Speakers for small listening room

My own speakers are placed on a line drawn at an angle across one corner of the room. That is, the right one is about five feet out from the corner, along the long wall and about two feet away from it ; the left speaker is about eight feet out from the same corner along the short wall and about three feet away from that wall.

Yes, this means my listening couch is at an angle and the speakers are toed towards it.

Long wall placement is out of the question for me. This corner setup is a placement recommended by UHF magazine ( uhfmag.com ) in one of their books ; they say it is often found to excite annoying room resonances less than others. I found it necessary to keep the speakers well out of the corners, and many minor adjustments finally got things exactly right.

My speakers are Meadowlark Shearwater Hot Rods. The amp is a SimAudio Celeste W-4070Se, the source is a Linn LP12 Lingo. My room is 12 feet by 22 feet by 10 feet high.

Hi Pete,
unlike many others here I would suggest that you first spend plenty of time experimenting with position of the speakers and only buy new speakers if this really doesn't help. My listening room is only 10x12 and I use a Cardas speaker placement (approximately) and a near field listening position. See http://www.cardas.com/insights/roomsetup.html
I use floorstanders (spica angelus) which are lean in the bass, and a REL strata sub ... and it works great even in my tiny room.

I'd strongly suggest you use the cardas method (or close to it, as it requires the speakers to be well away from the walls). Also Audio Physic have an excellent web page on speaker placement ..
http://www.audiophysic.de/produkte/aufstellung/aufstellung_e2.html

This blows away some of the old myths (that you must be further from the speakers than the distance of the speakers, that toe-in restricts the soundstage).

If you read both web pages and experiment I'm sure you can be very happy with the sound in your new room without spending a penny. It's worth a try at any rate.

FYI my speakers are 2.5 feet from the rear wall, 2 feet from the side wall, substantially toed in, and spaced about 5 feet apart. I sit about 5 feet from the speaker cones (equilateral triangle). The sub is next to my right foot. It looks wierd, but I have never heard my system sound anywhere near as good, even in much bigger rooms.

For a small room a monitor that has a front port or is sealed is easier to place, as speakers with rear ports are difficult to place next to the wall. For monitor speakers look at the Taylor Reference monitor, which I own and sounds quite nice with the Rogue 88 amp. Dynamic with plenty of bass. Both frequently come up used on Audiogon, the Taylo for about $1200 and the amp about $900. The Osiris speaker stands are for sale now at $240. Preamp--Rogue 66 magnum for sale at $900. Add some Homegrown Silver Lace interconnects and Analysis Plus cables.

Do people consider 11 x 18 a small room? Seems mid-size to me and certainly big enough to handle a floostander. (I've heard rumors to the effect that HP's pirmary listening rooms are no bigger than this, and he puts godzilla-sized speakers in them all the time.)

Sean and the others are right. Definitely play with placement before you even bother with other speakers. I'd try a long wall placement ASAP. A friend had a room about the size of yours. Two hours of moving things around made far more improvement than swapping in about $10,000 of electronics.