Those Phil's need room to breathe. My living room is about 14 feet wide and opens into the kitchen. They should be a couple feet away from the front wall for the bass to develop. My sitting position is only about 10 feet from front wall, so probably similar to the room you're working with. Phil Slims or even Philharmonitors would be better for smaller rooms. I wish I went with Slims in my room, but got such a good deal on the 3's.

Patrick, you're more than welcomed to come over and check them out. I'm also going to put my Maggie 1.6's up for sale for like $500 if you haven't checked them off your list yet.

General question about speakers... I love big, 3D sound. Is it possible to get that with standmount monitor, or is that something I'll need a floorstanding speaker for?

Yes, big dynamic sound is possible with monitors on stands + sub with proper room treatment / layout, especially if you have a small room.

I should play you back some LFF remastered orchestral pieces on my humble Fostex drivers (the new ones I got) + sub and I think you would be surprised. I got around the 6" driver problem by very slowly rolling off the bass at ~150Hz and the subs at 60Hz. Having measurement equipment available and taking unconventional approaches (bi-amped tube for mains with active x-over on solid-state to subs) certainly helps.

You are welcome to my place if you can make it down to the August Mega-Meet 10 minutes from where I now live. In fact, all the pyrates are welcome for an after meet party. My home layout actually lends itself to meets.

You can also hear the OB speakers - which sound BIG and spacious. But those speakers are big, i.e. 15" woofers and 2' baffles and will not work in a small room.

Are you talking about the effect where you pass off the bass to the bigger driver and it gives the mid +5 detail/articulation/control?....Because I've noticed the same thing in a big way while playing with my own system. Kind of uncanny how that works.

Yup. The better mids is the result of them not being infected with distortion products from the bass. Overall just sounds cleaner without the blur and the mud. As I've said many times, small drivers have no business reproducing bass. The laws of physics are against it. I'm sure Arnaud could chime in here and give us an explanation of the what and why this phenomenon.

This is why I think the SINGLE SMALL driver "full-range" (Lowther, Fostex) purists are nuts. It's fine if all you are playing is flamenco or little girl + guitar audiophile music. Put on some Daft Punk or J-Pop, and you are fucked. But I understand where they are coming from. A 'lytic cap in the path between the amp and the driver, and things do get less resolving and sometimes grainy. There are techniques to get around these issues to a large extent, namely expensive caps or bypassing with small good ones.

One example of bad small driver implementation I heard was the Ayon speakers: They used x3 of those $$$$$ Accuton 5" ceramic drivers; and it sounded like sh1t. I assume they used x3 of them because they thought they could get clean bass by splitting the job with multiple drivers. The problem is that bass quality / volume becomes exponentially worse the smaller you go. With typical music at moderate volume, I saw such massive massive cone excursion with those drivers (probably unloaded below port Fs) on the Ayon that I rolled over and started laughing. What a fricking waste of $$$$$ exotic material drivers.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ayon+speaker&tbm=isch&ei=HnPHU4qRFMvsoATRrwI#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=Y4Gg1R2epn15tM%253A%3BFqn120a2R_fjMM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.stereomojo.com%252FRMAF%2525202010%252Fimages%252Fayon.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.stereomojo.com%252FRMAF%2525202010%252FRockyMountainAudioFest2010pt2.htm%3B600%3B402

For me, I discovered quite late in my speaker building journey that big spacious sound requires big drivers without distortion. I blame this on the 80s and 90s (and even now) when speaker companies decided that narrow speakers were necessary for aesthetic and WAF reasons.

In correspondence with Dennis, he actually thought the Phil Slim Jrs were a good fit for me in a 600 square foot room that opens into a kitchen and additional areas of the house, especially since I'll have it paired with a modest subwoofer. If you go with Philharmonic Audio, I'd email Dennis directly and ask for his opinion.

I'm not surprised, the Phil 3's bass cabinet definitely looks designed for large spaces.