Room size and speaker type

[Yagharek]

Audio tech newb here.

I am looking to set up my first hi-fi setup to my apartment living room for music and TV. Floor 22 m2, ceiling height ~290 cm.

At first I was thinking about shelf speakers (e.g. Klipsch rp-600m, Polk r100/r200, Triangle Borea BR03, Elac 5.2/6.2) to pair up with Denon PMA-600ne or DRA-800H.
After a brief consultation with an audio shop manager, he conveyed that shelf speakers generally are too weak for this size of a room and I should rather look for floorstanding speakers.

After some research I possibly came upon KEF Q550 and Triangle Borea BR08 (probably to couple with the above mentioned receivers).

However, I am still a bit confused about the term "weak". So what exactly does "weak" mean in space context? Does that mean that the volume will be too weak? Or that if I had a pair of shelf speakers and a pair of floor speakers playing at the same volume, then the shelf speaker sound would just feel more flat, less detailed?
Would it even things out with floor speakers If I had a subwoofer with the shelf speakers?

Now, I am not planning to terrorize my neighbors and listen to them overly loud - mostly usual TV listening sound level or a bit higher. Should I still aim at floor speakers in that case for a 22 m2 room?

In terms of total budget, I guess floorstanding speakers + receiver would end up costing a similar amount if I were to buy shelf speakers + receiver + subwoofer + possibly a central speaker.

Anything else to keep in mind regarding my planned room setup?

 

[AnalogSteph]

After a brief consultation with an audio shop manager, he conveyed that shelf speakers generally are too weak for this size of a room and I should rather look for floorstanding speakers.

He's not wrong. Asking for room-filling sound from 5" bookshelves at a listening distance of ~3 m does seem a bit of a stretch. The 6.5" class should cope better but that's about the minimum. Don't expect any miracles in terms of bass.

BTW, with your setup as shown you can expect the following problems:
1. The stereo triangle is too narrow. The best listening position would be right above the "22,1 m²" text.
2. The strong asymmetry between left and right is really going to mess with imaging. I guess that's a large window front on the left? Expect major reflections there.
3. The wall behind the couch is going to contribute strong detrimental early reflections.
4. The rule of thumb is that you want an 8" class speaker at 2.5 m, and at ~3 m you'd be well outside that. A speaker suited for such distances is not going to be small. (You won't need a 4K TV either, even if you happened to be a pilot.)

The funny thing is, I have a very similar setup in a very similarly-sized room... a bunch of hand-me-down components that have found their way to me over the years. OK for watching TV very occasionally, but I wouldn't want to do any real critical listening on there. I'm using a nearfield setup at my PC instead.

I do think that moving the listening position and some nice thick drapes plus perhaps some dedicated acoustic panels for the left corner wall should be enough to make the setup decent. That would leave you with a sub-2 m listening distance, within reach of the 6.5" class.

It may seem odd to have the couch literally in the middle of the room but I do think it could be made to work if you shuffle around the dinner table.

 

[Yagharek]

Thanks for replying @AnalogSteph!

Just did some measuring and since mu couch is quite big then that leaves my listening distance from speakers to about 2.5-2.7m.

Luckily I already have two rows of thick drapes on the left hand side throughout the wall.

If I understand you right, then KEF Q950 (https://international.kef.com/products/q950-floorstanding-speaker) with 8'' units should definitely be my preference over smaller Q550 and Q750.

 

[Talisman]

In reality the size of the room is not the whole story. If for furnishing purposes the room is very bare and very reflective, having large floor speakers could be counterproductive due to the ability to excite the room modes and the bass reinforcement due to the proximity to the walls.
Unless you intend to integrate an room equalization system (and I don't think so) it might be better to use smaller speakers