How small a room and still get high end audio sound?
stewart kiritz -- Fri, 07/30/2010 - 09:07
Greetings everyone,
Here's my problem: We sold a big house with a dedicated listening space and now live in a small house without one. Needless to say, my wife has the veto on turning our living room into a music listening room. We have three small bedrooms though, and one thought is to take on of these rooms and make it into my listening room. I mostly listen to classical music and jazz on Thiel speakers, feeding SACDs and other high resolution media into two channels. But I'd like to set up a surround system if possible.
The problem is that these bedrooms are 10 X 12 feet. Someone out there must know about the accoustic involved in this. I just don't know if I can create a great listening experience in this size space. I would be very grateful for any thoughts.
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I have a 12x14 room. I use Dynaudio Confidence C1 speakers. Speaker positioning became critical, especially in order to get even frequency response. Look for my post "40 Hz Problem." My room has floor to celing drapes on 3 walls (f/l/r). I find I can get a large soundstage where the room boundries melt away. And because of the room size, I get flat bass response down to 30 Hz with my speakers.
A big room doesn't guarantee good acoustics and neither does a small room equal poor sound. Having said that, 10 x 12 is nearly square and not a good starting point. Its hard to judge a room without seeing and hearing it, so I'll confine my comments to the equipment and setup and leave out room tuning.
I also primarily listen to classical music so I understand your predicament. If its me in this situation I'll go for a near field setup to minimize room interaction as much as possible, in this case the choice of the right speakers, proper positioning of the speakers, as suggested by JLeeMD, and optimizing your listening location are all critical in arriving at the desired results. Once this is done then you can start with room tuning and final system adjustments. Proper bass response is going to be your main challenge and not knowing your Thiels I can't say that they'll work in a near field setup. For this kind of situation I like to go with either a large pro speaker, designed to work near field or small two ways with separate bass cabinet for easier placement over larger audiophile speakers. I've had fantastic results in difficult spaces with this this approach and you can expect exceptional results with the right equipment and exact placement.
A surround movie system is actually easier to setup than a quality two channel system for music playback. Most decent (I don't mean expensive!) AV receivers today with their dsp chips give you enough flexibility and adjustments to easily setup your surround channels, you got nothing to worry about there...
Good luck!
I have some experience with small rooms. When my previous house was being built, I lived in a townhouse and used one of the bedrooms as a listening (and reviewing room). In addition, I've just finished an article on creating a high-quality theater system in a small (12' x16.5') that includes a detailed discussion of what I did to get great-sounding bass. That article should be posted here later this week or early next week. In fact, I wrote it just for readers like you. I put together the theater system and only later decided to write about the experience, the choices I made, the set-up, and what the result sounded like.
In short, use speakers that are not too big for the room (less chance of bass overload). Sit close to them for nearfield listening (which results in a greater ratio of direct to reflected sound). Tube Traps in the corners behind the speakers are very effective.
You might also consider a subwoofer and satellite speakers. This allows you to position the satellites for best soundstaging and the subwoofer for best bass integration. It also give you the option of using the $350 DSPeaker Anti-Mode 8033 DSP room-correction system on the woofer. This device operates on only the subwoofer signal (up to 140Hz) and flattens the frequency response. I would avoid full-bandwidth DSP room correction.
My pending article goes into all these topics in more depth.
I should add that I sold my house with a built-from-scratch listening room that had $33k worth of acoustic treatments, and WIlson Alexandria X-2s in the left and right positions in the theater system. The new house had a small loft area, forcing me to try to get as much performance as possible from the small room.
Robert:
How about telling us about the ARC REF 40?
The Audio Research Anniversary Reference preamp had a bad tube and went back to the factory. I wasn't able to get a good listen to it because of the tube, but will hear it again after the tube is replaced. ARC wanted to replace the tube themselves and check out the unit before it was reviewed.
Nice recommendation Robert
I was going to say you might consider a near field setup as this can be equally as fun and enjoyable. One of the best soundstaging systems i've ever heard came from a near field setup. I can remember it to this day, Sequerra met 7's driven by VTL 300 mono blocks, lol i know more power then they would ever need but hey its sounded incredible, the soundstage sounded like it was outside the back yard, was seriously cool.
I've always believed its critical to match the speaker to the room, you can tell if it loads the room properly. For the record I have got Watt Puppies to sound good in small rooms so it can be done. I have the same issue, as i will be putting together a system in a small bedroom as well, hopefully early next year and I'm a huge Soundlab fan so Im hoping to see If I can make them work. I know lol your thinking I must be joking but darn I have to have them lol. Thinking of giving the m-2px's a try.
Happy listening
Kevin
Kevin LaTour
35 years hi-end audio video enthusiast
How far apart and from the listener were the nearfields? Like you, I suffer from a small listening room, and I've considered NFM's as a result. But I've had little success at getting NFM's to produce a large image.
BTW, I read your other post and according to Sound Lab's site, anyway, you can listen to them in the near field. So if you get them 3' from the front wall and 2' off the sides, it may be doable. I imagine you'll have to reduce bass levels, though.
My listening room is about 175sq ft.- rectangular.
Stand mounted monitors (w/wout subwoofer ) can work very well. I've used Sonus Faber and KEF monitors with good results.
I've tried some relatively large floorstanders (such as SF Cremona and Concerto), but found the bass overwhelmed the room.
Presently use Devore Super Gibbon 8's (small floorstanders) and the results are very good. Even better than with the SF monitors in terms of soundstage, etc.
Hard for me to believe you could get good results in such a small space with any large speaker. In any case room treatments and/or room correction would probably be needed, even with monitors.
Granted it is nearly impossible to treat a rooms bass response with acousical treatment other then helmholtz radiators, I find bass traps have little to no effect. I have pretty much felt a rooms bass response is what it is by its dimensions. But speaker placement will dramatically effect bass response so you must play with speaker positioning. Certainly you can have speakers that just output to much bass energy for the size of the room, but its sometimes a little hard to tell until you try it. How many times have we seen Soundlabs in small rooms still sound fantastic. I would say there are a number of floor standing speakers you can get to work in a small room. Like i said before I've got Watt Puppies to work in a small room before so it can be done.
Kevin LaTour
35 years hi-end audio video enthusiast
Robert, just out of curiousity, what caused you to move from such a magnficent listening environment to your current house?
Mark L.
He wrote in a different blog....that due to family. I think he grew up in CA as well.
Two points.
One: don't give up. A good friend of mine has a nearfield setup with the speakers about four feet from the listener's head. Among other things he gets soundstage to die for. It can be done.
Two: you might consider going over to the pro side for speakers. Pro audio lives in small spaces; so, they have a lot of experience dealing with nearfield listening. Also, the speakers are ofter active, saving both space and cost.
Jonathan
It is possible and I think that using smaller speakers is going to make your life a lot easier. There are a lot of small speakers that are going to be easier to place and wont excite the room to the point that they are not listenable. I have used a few really affordable speakers with quality amp and source and gotten excellent results.
Examples: Nola Boxer, 3a MM De Capo.