Newcomer advice

That's a big room for small speakers.  Stand mounts are floorstanders with less "box" 

Ideally a demo would be good; even a home demo.  Most of the B&W range with their "Dalek" looks are hideous IMHO. 

What would you recommend? 

As to demo... will audio shops bring speakers to your house?

Assuming you are buying new I'd really recommend going to a dealer.  I recently went with one pair of speakers in mind and came away with a different pair

 You could end up with something that you dislike or simply doesn't work in your room. Speakers are the hardest kit to move on if you don't like them.

In that space I'd want floorstanders all day long.

JamesJ posted:

As to demo... will audio shops bring speakers to your house?

For small speakers you can take them home yourself.

You may want to get this thread moved to Hi-FI Corner too.  Ask Richard Dane to help.

If you want/need to use small speakers, there is a simple answer for larger rooms - use a sub as well.

Welcome James.  I've moved your thread to the Hifi Corner where it will hopefully garner some worthwhile advice.

I will second the advice to go and chat with your Naim dealer.  They may well already have a good little shortlist of recommendations for you, taking into consideration your Atom, your needs for them to be aesthetically acceptable and not too overbearing, and your budget.  Why not then plan to go with your wife to the dealer for a speaker audition.  In my experience, a decision made together is always for the best.

I won't recommend loudspeakers. But ...

I have 2 pairs of B&W, they are perfect for every day use and the looks tend to be liked by a quite wide spectrum of human beings including my wife and myself.

The disadvantage of them is that they will not be able to communicate too much details. They can sound a bit congested. Since you are planning to use them in a large livingroom, details might be lost anyhow - at least that's what happens in my 45m2 living with my B&W CM5S2's.

Dealers will tell you that the new series of B&W are much better - almost up to the 800 level they say, but I've spoken to a few dealers about it (not listened) and they all repeat more or less the same phrase so there must be marketing behind.

Richard Dane posted:

 Why not then plan to go with your wife to the dealer for a speaker audition.  In my experience, a decision made together is always for the best.

This is very true.  My missus came with me despite having just got over flu to make sure I didn't come back with anything not good enough!
  

I would like to second Richard's advice. Take your wife along to the Naim dealer. When I started buying HiFi and going round the dealers my wife at first came begrudgingly, once she realised what a huge difference there was in equipment she started to be alot more appreciative of music and as a consequence started too enjoy listening to it more. In fact she even started to make some compromises because the sound was so much better.

My living room is Approx 5x4mtrs and about 3m high.

I use Q Acoustic 3020 on QA Wall brackets. These are used with a ........Linn Sneaky DSM...I have had Unitiqute and 172/200 combo, with stand and floor mount speakers.

I would really like floor standers but the LR is on the first floor in a modern house and I felt small wall mounted speakers would be better for others in the house and neighbours. It was a good move.

I have no problem with filling that size space with the limited ouput of the Sneaky. The speakers belie their size. I've previously owned Neat Iota with Monitor Audio sub, in a much bigger room, once again with no problem sound wise.

As others have said try and demo speakers with the Atom, although dealers can only demo what they sell, so you may have to track down one that sells those you want to demo or visit one or more dealers....but dont be afraid to do that. Also do take your partner, I've often ended up with better kit because my wife has not like the sound on offer from what I had originally chose to listen to. 

When I got the Sneaky I did audition the Atom, its a fine piece of kit and I would have gone for it, but just felt that combo would be too much for my space, it's a rich full bodied beast. 

Enjoy the experience.

It may be worth trying to tease out why floorstanders are considered unacceptable, when the footprint, height, and indeed overall volume, if not occupied volume, of some floorstanders is less than that of some standmounts! Meanwhile, as a generalisation, the floorstanders tend to be able to do better bass.

Of course, there are a few excellent standmounts that are hard to beat all round - maybe your wife would accept the PMC MB2SE as it is a standmount? If not it might help clarify what exactly are the limiting criteria. On the subject of PMC, the Fact 12 is visually very diminutive when viewed from in front (though very deep). I’m guessing both of these may be way outside your budget, and the Atom may be less than ideal to drive them, just given as examples. It may be helpful to indicate your maximum budget - while if relatively limited I would advocate buying secondhand or at least ex-dem., to maximise buying power.

Thanks for the advice. I've visited a few stores; I always get the feeling that I'm talking to a used-car salesman, so I'd prefer to at least have an idea before I go in. This is also important, as aesthetic is a potential "dealbreaker" and not all dealers carry all speakers. I matched the B&W's because they are listed as requiring: "30W - 120W into 8Ω on unclipped programme".

On the Atom product page, it's listed as providing an amplifier output of: "40W per channel into 8 ohms".

Is that generally how you match them up, as in anywhere within that range?

Guinnless posted:

Assuming you are buying new I'd really recommend going to a dealer.  I recently went with one pair of speakers in mind and came away with a different pair

 You could end up with something that you dislike or simply doesn't work in your room. Speakers are the hardest kit to move on if you don't like them.

In that space I'd want floorstanders all day long.

I did exactly the same also I find some floor standers look better and take less space than some stand mounts and vice versa.Well worth taking your time at a dealers mistakes can/will be expensive.

Have fun on your search.

For a "quite large" room you might want to consider a Nova vs. the Atom.  You simply may want and need more 'oomph' to drive speakers in a musical way to fill your room . . . also depending on how far from the speakers you'll be sitting.

I own the predecessor to the Atom - the Qute2.  It suits my small loft space well, with Dynaudio Excite bookshelf speakers, but I'd not think it the best choice for a large room.

I also have first hand experience using it in conjunction with my TV.  I use an optical cable to connect the TV sound output directly to the Qute.  Even with the speakers quite close to the tv screen, if the tv speaker is off, the experience is not entirely satisfying.  Our minds seem to want the dialog to emanate from close to the screen; using the tv's own speaker AND the Qute helped this a lot.

I've now moved to a Bose sound bar, which I find much more satisfying overall.  But if you cant want or use a sound bar, you probably will find using ONLY speakers not a pleasant tv watching experience.

Can the speakers not just go on the top of the sideboard? 

Bart posted.

I've now moved to a Bose sound bar, which I find much more satisfying overall.  But if you cant want or use a sound bar, you probably will find using ONLY speakers not a pleasant tv watching experience.

Likewise not that keen on using my main system when watching TV much prefer my Samsung sound bar.

Neat xls will give you everything you ii get from a floor stander.

JamesJ posted:

Can the speakers not just go on the top of the sideboard? 

James, the sideboard is rarely if ever a good place to place the speakers - despite the fact that small speakers are often called "bookshelf" speakers!  These days the term "bookshelf" has thankfully given way to "standmount".  Another alternative would be to choose some speakers suitable for wall mounting, like the much missed Naim n-Sats (which funnily enough would probably be a perfect recommendation here, albeit now only available ex dem or secondhand).  If you haven't done so already, take a look through the last few years of System Pics on here (search will bring up the applicable threads).  It may give you some inspiration.

I would first suggest a wife upgrade but I do not have the whole picture . You need high quality, high sensitivity speakers with good bass, like PMC 20.22.

JamesJ posted:

Can the speakers not just go on the top of the sideboard? 

I think I've just realised that 'no floorstanders' doesn't mean standmounts instead but small speakers placed on the sideboard.

Our Qb is on the sideboard.  Maybe a Muso may keep domestic bliss.

leni v posted:

Neat xls will give you everything you ii get from a floor stander.

Which one did you have in mind? (There are many that I think can give rather more.)

Richard Dane posted:

JamesJ posted:

Can the speakers not just go on the top of the sideboard? 

James, the sideboard is rarely if ever a good place to place the speakers - despite the fact that small speakers are often called "bookshelf" speakers!  These days the term "bookshelf" has thankfully given way to "standmount".  Another alternative would be to choose some speakers suitable for wall mounting, like the much missed Naim n-Sats (which funnily enough would probably be a perfect recommendation here, albeit now only available ex dem or secondhand).  If you haven't done so already, take a look through the last few years of System Pics on here (search will bring up the applicable threads).  It may give you some inspiration.

I can vouch for N-Sats, as buying an Atom gave me an excuse to get mine back out of the loft and into service. Wall brackets can be a little hard to find, though. 

Perhaps show wife the little Neat Iota Alpha's

The bookshelf Iota's are great too, just need to raise them a bit if placing on furnitures

Innocent Bystander posted:

leni v posted:

Neat xls will give you everything you ii get from a floor stander.

Which one did you have in mind? (There are many that I think can give rather more.)

   I ment the sense  of scale the xls can produse in a relatively large room  comparing to very many standmouts.