[mick wolfe]

I've got to agree with Tyson. The Forte can be placed fairly close to the front wall and can certainly "play" a large room. Also, with a tile floor a large area rug is certainly going to be a must with any speaker you choose. Been there, done that. ( tile floors)

[dB Cooper]

Another option is looking for a pair of Allison CD-9 speakers. 

Have a friend that had to have the speakers on the front wall and these worked extremely well in his setup.

Good luck with your search.

I had the same thought, having owned Allisons. When placed according to manufacturer recommendations, they deliver virtually identical sound anywhere in the room. Notably, one of the 'ingredients' of the Allison approach was extremely wide dispersion, 'forward omnidirectional' according to Allison. Even room correction software cannot equal this with most speakers; often making things better in one location makes things worse somewhere else. In other words, you and your buddy you invited over to hear your system cannot hear the same thing, the same way, at the same time.

Allisons would probably be a good choice in some ways, but  you'sd still have to solve for the effects of all the hard surfaces. Also, while great, they're now 'vintage' and may need woofers refoamed; plus the proprietary midranges and/or tweets are made of unobtainium. The only modern speakers I'm aware of that share design goals (but different design approaches) with the Allisons are Larsen speakers. At least you'd have a warranty and a recourse if there were problems or questions. Like the Allisons, part of the Larsen 'formula' is placement close to the wall.

Ever hear someone described as "having a great face for radio"? To second what JLM said, this sounds like it might be a great room for headphones. Don't spend big on equipment for it unless you also intend to address the acoustics issues. Thick rugs/drapes, GIK etc... there are solutions, but as the Allison literature said, "speakers and room are one system", so you will need to look at it 'holistically'.

BTW, all speakers interact with the room, even 'controlled directivity' types. If anything, narrow dispersion approaches worsen the "good here, bad there' problem I mentioned earlier. Allisons and Larsens are designed to minimize this but no speakers are completely immune.

[Mike-48]

Another choice for controlled directivity is the Janszen Carmelita (stand-mount, aka zA1.1) or Valentina (floor-standing, aka zA2.1). These have gotten great reviews, and because of the directivity, they interact less with the room than most speakers.

As with any controlled-directivity speaker, there is a definite sweet spot, with the sound very good but less focused outside it.

[Phil_S]

I think before discussing speakers, the room and speaker placement would be paramount.  I would think the objective is to tame the liveliness of the room as much as possible.  An area rug, plush furniture, sound absorbing materials in ceilings & walls where possible.  Anything to absorb or break up the reflected sound.  Outside of the source material and speakers, the room itself has more to do with sound quality than any reasonably competent amp & preamp.  A more detailed description of the room would help.  How are the other 3 walls, is there a large opening, how tall the ceiling?  What volume of space? 

I am a current owner of Ohm 100M3.  They are about 10 years old.  They are the most flexible speakers I have had.  They do not have a pinpoint sound stage, it's much more diverse so that as long you are in front of the speakers and a few feet away you always get a sense that the music is coming from in front of and between the speakers.  They can work well if they are a foot from the back wall as long as they have a few feet side to side so they can breathe. 

Ohm's need power.  Check out their website for requirements/speaker size/room dimensions, etc.

Give them a call, they have a 90 day money back no questions asked guarantee.  The speakers do take a awhile to break in.  Mine didn't bloom until I had more than 100 hours on them.  They continued to improve through 250 hours.  However they sounded fantastic right out of the box.  To me they are one of the best bargains in audio. 

Good luck with the hunt!

[lokie]

Near-field and horns.

[Rusty Jefferson]

Seems like the OP has a pretty good handle on the issues. I'd assume he's not trying for a top notch dedicated room here because of the numerous set up issues, just decent sound in the room.

I agree with his idea of using a ribbon tweeter instead of a dome.  Many ribbons have very limited vertical dispersion, which in your case would be a good thing, reducing reflections from the floor/ceiling.  I'd probably look for a tower with a midrange between the ribbon and woofers so the critical 1khz-3khz is being handled by a cone. I believe you'd have less perceived "edge".  If available, a speaker with a high frequency attenuation switch would be desirable. Possibly consider a preamp or integrated with tone controls.

The Quad S series and Z series meet all but the attenuation suggestion.  No affiliation.

http://www.quad-hifi.co.uk/s-4/

https://www.quad-hifi.co.uk/z-3/

[JLM]

This thread points to a major audio elephant in the room issue - matching speakers to the given space.  Most audiophiles are gear heads and want trophies to show off visually impressive (big, flashy, expensive looking) pieces.  They neglect the importance of the room in feeding their gear lust.  The sad truth is most of us are stuck with whatever room the circumstances dictate.  So many setups are exercises in frustration: compromised rooms (too small, poorly shaped, horrible finishes); just plain bad speaker locations (too close to walls, not symmetrical, gear/obstacles between speakers); speakers too big for the given space; etc. 

Most of the above responses reflect the confusion that's out there, from not understanding acoustics to misdirected suggestions.  Recommend reading Floyd Toole's "Sound Reproduction" 3rd edition to gain a basic knowledge of room acoustics.  Toole worked for the Canadian Research Council for decades (a huge non-commercial organization that conducted various acoustical studies relating to residential sound reproduction) before moving to Harmon International (that has significant research facilities) to continue his work.  His decades of research centers on the measurable, not pet theories, that so many follow.

Part of the confusion lays in how the space interacts with a given speaker.  A good speaker should sound good in the right setting (one that the designer had in mind).  But in a difficult setting, like the Original Poster (OP) has, the performance of most of those good speakers would be seriously compromised.  His situation unfortunately is not uncommon.  What he needs is real world solution for real world limitations.  A to-scale diagram of the room/setup from the OP would be helpful.  From the description we have he's on the right track, to minimize room interaction, which would be a speaker with a narrow presentation (controlled dispersion). 

[RonN5]

@Dogfish

It is important for any of us making recommendations or comparisons to know more of the dimensions of your room...height, width, depth and then know what are all of your limitations for speaker placement.  Also, what types of music do you listen to?  How loud?  What are the sounds that particularly bother you (sibilance, too much bass, too little bass, etc.).

I have a big room with 10' ceilings, more than 6' of space on the sides of each speaker with both walls, but 30" out from the rear walls; tile floors, lots of glass...in other words a room that is challenging in some respects but very good in others.

For my musical tastes, with my equipment in this room, I prefer the sound of wider dispersion loudspeakers...but when I had lower ceilings and only a foot off to each side it was a different story.

Some speakers such as the Ohms seem to be happy with only 1' behind them...but they are pretty wide dispersion....so, the more detail you can provide, the more other forum members can compare more closely to their own situations and hopefully give you a little more insight to your own situation.

[dB Cooper]

I agree with his idea of using a ribbon tweeter instead of a dome.  Many ribbons have very limited vertical dispersion, which in your case would be a good thing, reducing reflections from the floor/ceiling. 

This may have been part of the reason for recommending Ohms, which have wide dispersion laterally but limited dispersion vertically.

[RonN5]

In support of JLM's comments...It would seem that over the past 20 years, science has taught us a lot about what types of distortion and what speaker dispersion can be pleasing to people.  Then it is up to designers to use this information in the products they design in order to achieve the sales figures they are targeting.  As for the buyer, this information can help them in narrow the field of choice. 

In the real world, when it comes to audio, there is no perfect or one size fits all.  Just like automobiles...all the measurement standards might suggest that Lexus is the only car to buy...but there are lots of reasons why this doesn't happen.  Audio is the same way, we have different rooms, different tastes, etc.

Below are two very interesting links...they tend to me more focused on the science aspects of audio....

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-speakers/3038828-how-choose-loudspeaker-what-science-shows.html

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php