Ideal Room Dimensions for Maggie 1.7
Steven Simon -- Sun, 07/10/2011 - 09:41
Hi, I'm going to build a dedicated room for audio and was hoping to get advice from Robert H or others on what dimensions would work best with Maggie 1.7 speakers. The amplification is provided by a MacIntosh MA6900 integrated amplifier, which, if I remember correctly, generates 200 WPC into 8 Ohms. Sources include a Mac Mini - Pure Music - Benchmark combo and an old Meridian CD player. Thanks and best, S
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1999 - 2011 NextScreen. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
Congrats, I envy you -- a good room can make a huge difference. Maggies love breathing room. Three feet from the front wall (the one behind the speakers) is the bare minium, 5' better, the sense of depth actually increases until they're 15' from the front (speaker) wall and that's what I'd go for, if I could, which means your room is going to be pushing 30' long. You don't need this by any means but if you can do it, I'd go for broke.
They like to be unencumbered on the sides too, though side wall distance is less crucial since they radiate most sound from the front and rear. The minimum distance from speaker to side wall is nominally 2', but within reason, the more breathing room the merrier from the perspective of imaging. Figure you'll be sitting about 8' from the speakers, and that they usually end up with the tweeters on an equilateral triangle, or a ittle closer to one another, depending on the room and your personal preference.
OTOH, I wouldn't make the ceiling too high, line sources actually make use of the ceiling reflection so go for a normal room height. Avoid cathedral or sloped ceilings -- trouble -- non parallel walls -- unnecessary and problematic -- etc. A rectangle is fine. You don't need to use fancy ratios but they can't hurt and you do want to avoid even multiples, e.g., square or exactly twice as wide as the ceiling height. But ratios are less important with dipoles than they are with omnis, since they radiate more of the sound on axis.
You might construct a room using Bolt's formula: 1 x 1.4 x 1.9. That could translate into 9' high, around 13' wide, 17.5 in length. That should handle the 40 Hz lower level of the 1.7s. Of course, you could get a 10' high room, 15' wide (Bolt also encompasses a 1 x 1.5 x 1.9 ratio) and 19' long. HP's room, if ya want a biggie, is 9' high, 14 -15' wide and 25' long (unless he's changed it). His smaller room, if I recall aright, is 8 x 12 x 15 and he's used Maggie's in that room, too. You'd probably want plaster-type walls (they don't vibrate as much). Couldn't tell you about the floor. My room, which I had constructed, is 8' in the "old part" of the house x 13 and the new part is 10' high; 12.8' wide and 20' long. So the room "averages" out to 9' high, 12' 10" wide and 20' long. I used ASC's wall damps and constructed a resilient channel wall around the original (older) part of the room.
The "Master Handbook of Acoustics" is helpful as well. It indicates rooms as having "less than 1500 cubic feet are so prone to sound coloration that they are impractical." How much space can you allow for your room?