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Scaling up to a much bigger room

Lliure

pfm Member
Hello,

We're going to be emigrating in a couple of months. I'm going to be bringing my current main system with me - Bluesound Node 2i feeding into a Creek Destiny 2 amp and PMC DB1i speakers, which I'm extremely happy with. But our new place has a much bigger open-plan living area/kitchen (approx 12m x 6m and an L-shaped bit 6m x 6m vs the 5mx4m living room we currently have) and I'm starting to consider buying both a new amp and speakers to suit (and keep the existing system for my office). The challenge I have is that where we are moving to doesn't have much of a market in 2nd-hand hifi market, and new kit is dear, so I'm looking to buy here in the UK before leaving . Obviously matching the system to the room and being able to audition/swap bits out when we're there would be ideal, but I don't see that as being that easy due to cost/availability. So I'm trying to pre-empt and bring bits with me with the hope of having a base system that's likely to work, at least initially.

Any suggestions/tips for scaling up the system? In particular speakers that are likely to work in that size room and still preserve what I like about my current setup (namely a very tight bass and clear resolution albeit with some slight warmth)? I'm looking potentially at some larger PMC floorstanders e.g. GB1i as a first guess but I have no experience with a room that size so am in the dark as to how this might work. Total budget is £1500-2000 to cover both an amp and speakers.

Thanks for any input!
 
Don't know your kit, so I can't say much there. But:

After having moved several times. The new room often sounds worse to begin with until one get used to it's 'sound', but that seem to settle with time. So, beware and don't get desperate at first.

Can't you mail order from the new place?
 
Experience tells me that the best speakers for your new room almost certainly won't be the ones you have now.

However, I wouldn't buy any until you've settled on how the rest of the space will be used - this will tell you how much latitude you have to pull the speakers out into the room or if you will have to leave them in corners and where you like to spend most of your time listening.

I'd be minded to sort the speakers first and change the amp if you think it's needed.
 
Don't know your kit, so I can't say much there. But:

After having moved several times. The new room often sounds worse to begin with until one get used to it's 'sound', but that seem to settle with time. So, beware and don't get desperate at first.

Can't you mail order from the new place?

Thanks and useful! First major move in a number of years but while previous moves were mostly one type of typical UK brick victorian house to another, with similar dimensions, this is quite a different place to live!

Mail order, yes, and no doubt will do this, but if I can save some pennies and buy in advance, the savings on shipping/customs etc will be meaningful.
 
Experience tells me that the best speakers for your new room almost certainly won't be the ones you have now.

However, I wouldn't buy any until you've settled on how the rest of the space will be used - this will tell you how much latitude you have to pull the speakers out into the room or if you will have to leave them in corners and where you like to spend most of your time listening.

I'd be minded to sort the speakers first and change the amp if you think it's needed.

Useful. The new place is semi-furnished so scope to change layout is not that great but, yes, the usage of the space is something you don't know till you're there. I'll "need" (!) a second amp/set of speakers in any case - it's the room dimensions that are rather spinning me out!
 
My own journey to accomplish a similar thing was dominated by trial and error, and the system I ended up with wasn't anything I'd have dreamt up beforehand.

Short version: I expected to end up with Shahinians driven by a big amp, throwing large quantities of sound everywhere. I ended up with active standmounts situated and tuned to take advantage of the available room acoustics. Finesse over brute force, in a way. This gave me the best compromise for a system that filled the cavernous space enjoyably, but that was also something I liked sitting directly in front of.

Part of the trial and error involved tone controls. Those stayed, but I admit I rarely feel the need to use them, and then only to compensate for source material differences, not the room.
 
My own journey to accomplish a similar thing was dominated by trial and error, and the system I ended up with wasn't anything I'd have dreamt up beforehand.

Short version: I expected to end up with Shahinians driven by a big amp, throwing large quantities of sound everywhere. I ended up with active standmounts situated and tuned to take advantage of the available room acoustics. Finesse over brute force, in a way. This gave me the best compromise for a system that filled the cavernous space enjoyably, but that was also something I liked sitting directly in front of.

Part of the trial and error involved tone controls. Those stayed, but I admit I rarely feel the need to use them, and then only to compensate for source material differences, not the room.

I can dig that. The only small speakers I've used that can fill a large room well are an old pair of Mk II Meridian M30's on their original stands.
 


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