Recommendations for speakers for use in a poorly configured room

keyboredplayer55@yahoo.com -- Sun, 04/24/2011 - 09:25

I recently moved into a new home and unfortunately, due to the homes architectural design, there is really no great room for setting up my system. The space we have settled on is approximately 13' x 18'. Sounds OK to start with except, due to the open floor plan design of the home, the wall that the equipment and speakers will be placed is only ten feet long. To the right of this wall is a three foot hallway, to the left is a 5.5 foot hallway. The kitchen and dining area is on the left of this space comprising one large open area. Also, due to the fact that you need to walk through this space to get to the hallway on the right, where there is a bathroom and bedroom, the front of the speakers can not be more than 2'4" from the back wall or you would walk right into them. That means that depending on the depth of the speakers chosen they may be less than 12" from the back wall. The ceilings are 9' tall. I would be sitting approx. 10' from the speakers.
No, moving is not an option! What I need is recommendations for type of speaker, stand mount or floor standing as well as what brand and model. I'd like opinions on products you have actually heard or own would be better. Budget, no more than $8500. The speakers will be powered by my BAT Integrated.
It would be great also if folks who have had similar predicaments with home design chime in.

Thanks for your anticipated advice.

art noxon -- Mon, 05/02/2011 - 17:14

Floor plans are always necessary. A picture is worth 1000 words and some. Just draw the floor plan, take a photo and submit it with the question.

Recommendation: given what you’ve said, I recommend headphones… No? Then go to nearfield 60 degree angle listening, but double check your speakers. Nearfield listening requires complete waveform convergence within about 4’.

OK, joking aside…The problem is that your speakers illuminate these short hallways to the outside rear and sound awful. You want to find a way to not illuminate the hallways. Put a door on the hallway and the close the door? OK, you can’t do that either…

I’d use Martin Logans with a Backbox. BackBox absorb back wave without loading the diaphragm. Why? Forward wavefront is pie shaped and won’t stimulate hallways or the kitchen or the high ceilings. Don’t have a custom Backbox? then get tall sound panels and form a V behind each ML to absorb the back wave. Try the wide boy, the old CLS or the new version of that speaker. The skinner MLs need a woofer on the floor to get the bass out and that is a point source below the crossover. We are trying to avoid point sources here. Remember ML does not play not loud, but its very musical

Let’s say you can’t do that either. Then do the same thing with your regular speakers. Form an open V with 4x5’ sound panels and speaker set inside each V. The side and back sound panel walls will load the bass and keep it from wrapping down those hallways. If this type of nearfield loading of speakers was good enough for Avalon Osiris unveiling at CES in Chicago many years ago, it should be good enough for anyone in this predicament.

The goal is to put the parts of the room you can’t tolerate into a shadow zone. But, do so without defeating the ambient feed into your room and without changing the voice of your speaker. You might not need a V panel, as in ML but just one diagonal panel, angling between the pack wall and the outside back corner of the speaker, blocking illumination of the hallways. I sketched it out and looks like a general purpose 2” fiberglass sound panel 2’ by 4’ is big enough to cast a big shadow across those hallways.

You don’t have a speaker problem to solve, you have an acoustic problem to solve. Try the panel thing, if for no other reason, but to hear the upgrade. And don’t forget to listen to your setup using the MATT signal, Stereophile Test CD 2, Track 19 or go to
http://www.acousticsciences.com/matt.htm

Let me know how it sounds with your wedgie in place.

Art Noxon
Invented TubeTraps, President Acoustic Sciences Corp
www.acousticsciences.com

ilxman99 -- Thu, 04/28/2011 - 09:42

You should check out Von Schweikert VR-33s. See review here: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue51/vr33.htm . They're specifically designed for situations where the speakers must be kept close to/against front wall.

art noxon -- Thu, 04/28/2011 - 15:39

If Albert developed the VR-33s for playing off a flat wall, there is no doubt that it's a reasonable sytem.

By the way, he and I worked together at HiFi 96 in Waldorf Astoria ballroom where he introduced VR-10, good to 10 Hz. I developed Bastoni wall panels and bass traps for the occasion. We built so many we filled up a 24' Ryder truck and then drove it clear across the country from Eugene to NYC. The panels stood in the open arches between the ballroom and the side hallways. We needed to convert side hall reverb into lateral diffusion. We also made huge complimentary bass traps, unbelievably powerful, which set on the floor around the speakers to keep them from coupling strongly to the 20 foot ceiling vertical room modes, starting at 30 Hz. The Bastoni looks like a curved wood panel inet with black shelves. They curved wood enhances lateral ambience while the sound panel shelves attenuate vertical ambience. Alan Goodwin bought most of the acoustics after the show. We came home with an empty truck. The audio business was fun in those days because there was enough sales and profit that we could afford to spend the time and money it takes to create fantastic products, and manufacturers worked together to do giant projects. This was probably the biggest show we ever put on. Here's a photo from that event, you can't see the huge bass trap modules on the floor but you certainly can see some of the 8' and12' Bastoni free-standing panels ....................Art Noxon/ASC TubeTraps

art noxon -- Thu, 04/28/2011 - 15:45

Oh, forgot, if both speakers are close to the front wall and the back wall is 11' away, the room easily goes into resonance at 1128/22 = 51 Hz, when round trip distance is one full wavelength. Note that the speakers go into a self cancel mode at 25.5 Hz when round trip distance is 1/2 wavelength. Serious bass traps are called for at the back of the room. Also, add sound panels or better yet broad band absorption in the front two corners. We want to dampen the side to side sloshing of air in the front of the room and definately kill the side to side flutter echo in the plane of the speakers.................Art Noxon ASC/TubeTraps

gb -- Sat, 04/30/2011 - 21:57

Art:
It's good to see you commenting - finally -- on the site. It is always helpful for acoustics manufacturers to make suggestions, given how few do (except Ethan of Real Traps, whose products I also have).
I've had Tube Traps since J. Gordon Holt wrote about them back in 1988. I remember buying about 10K of them from a San Francisco dealer who had a room near me.
One thing you should be pointing out to people is that there is no perfect spot for the Tube Traps, except by listening. I remember Moncrieff's article on them, which I used as a guideline, and that's great for larger rooms. For smaller rooms, moving the traps fractions of an inch up and down the wall affects the sound, as you know, as well as moving the seamed edge around to find the greatest balance. I've been in showrooms where I adjusted the traps after the salesperson left the room, because I looked at where the seam was pointed and thought, "Well, that's totally wrong." I would tell them after I left the room that I'd adjusted them a bit, but I made sure it had a clearer sound, especially through the lower midrange/upper bass and the upper midrange/lower highs.
I saw that Alton Everest, in his book, The Master Handbook of Acoustics, suggested the traps have the seams pointed into the juncture of side/back walls. Moncrieff's diagram is exactly the opposite. I've never liked the sound with the seam pointing into the corner. Can you comment on this? When should the seam be faced towards the wall juncture -- if ever?

art noxon -- Mon, 05/02/2011 - 18:35

Hello Glen,

I'm glad to see someone else besides me loves TubeTraps. They are so versatile when it comes to voicing rooms. For setup recommendations including reflector positions go to: http://www.tubetrap.com/tube-trap-layouts.htm

Generally all corners, both end walls and side wall behind speakers have reflectors pointing into the room, seams (center of treble dead side) toward wall or corner and chrome dot (center of treble diffusion side) pointing away. Traps close to speakers have seams, absorbing side facing the speaker. Traps along side walls in front of speaker also have seams facing speakers. Peter Moncrieth took maybe a year to figure out and dial in that first room. Of course, he was a pioneer at that time. Once you get used to your basic setup, then tweak it.

But, here my focus is not TubeTraps. I'm trying to help setup a square room. The first thing to do when considering how to set up a room is to realize that it does matter how we play a room. Play it backwards that there is no end to the problems. Play it forwards and it goes just great. And so I asked questions and now we know that it's more than a square room, it has a door and closet. Now we have a feeling for where the back of the room might be. That's a step forward. We also have the 29% and 42% speaker setup grid that is based on mode free injection points. We have the room playing square or on the diagonal.

How do we look at a room and see the possibilities? What might be the front end of a room and how do we recognize what the back end of the room is like? That's what I am trying to help illustrate here.

Art Noxon