Small Room Issues
stewart kiritz -- Thu, 08/05/2010 - 20:21
Hello everyone,
Alas, we sold our big house a few years ago. I had a huge interesting room for audio. Now I am trying to make do in a small living room. However, there is one room in the house that I could dedicate entirely to audio. Unfortunately, it is 11 X 11 with an 8 foot ceiling. My question for you out there: Can this room be made to work for my audiophile interests? I have two Thiel 1.6 speakers and a subwoofer I am using now. It just seems like a very small space, but I am willing to try to work with it if it is at all possible to create a fine sounding listening room
Any help would be most appreciated.
Stewart
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Incidentally, I am hoping to upgrade to the Thiel 2.4. If anyone knows of some used ones available, this would be helpful. I see they just raised the price on these speakers. The new price would be pushing things for me in retirement.
Sorry all! I thought I was posting this to a different site, not one I already posted to! As I look at people's responses, it would seem that it is doable to have a small room. I have a few more questions though. Reference is made to near field listening. I would think that any listening in a room this size would be, by definition, near field. Am I missing something? Or does near field mean you are 4 feet away from the speakers? Mention was made of not using too large a speaker. Would the Thiels be considered large? They seem medium to me.
Thanks for everyone's help.
Stewart
The historical response to this question would be "you cannot have a square room for sound". This fact has been completely uprooted, through the latest research of how sound behaves in a room.
Audio writers have always blamed the room - saying that it has a "profound impact" on the sound. We now know the reverse is true. With 360-degree radiation for the highs and mids (via an "omni-polar" speaker) and - count 'em up - four subs placed in each corner, you get perfect soundwave behavior in a square room.
These findings are recent..and people like Robert Harley won't want to hear it, but it's true:
The room has NO effect on the sound - it was the speaker's radiation that was the problem !!!
On the contrary, I would be eager to learn of research that concludes that a room has no effect on the reproduced sound. Perhaps you can point me to the studies. Thanks.
I'd try Floyd Toole's research on room modes and the loading of bass waves. He talks about these new discoveries on his UltimateAVmag interview with Scott Wilkinson, not too long ago. But his NRC papers are worth hunting down.
I should note that when I say "subs in the corner" I mean bass-only from the corner - no bass coming from the main speakers. This is just what you experienced with Tact's corner-bass system, as a supplement of REG's review.
As for the mids and highs, the best research is probably Sigfried Linkwitz. HIs website is loaded with data confirming omni (and dipolar) radiation. There isn't much research on soundwave propagation into a room. So we have to read what little there is, then try and listen with our own ears.
I have already done this with omni-mids/corner-subs. It worked as advertised, even in a small square room !!
The room, as it turns out, has NO effect on the sound. It was how we *loaded* sound into a room !!
You wrote:
"The room, as it turns out, has NO effect on the sound. It was how we *loaded* sound into a room !!"
No.
You have heard of standing waves? How about resonances based on room dimensions?
To say a room has no effect is so wrong that it hard to figure out where to start for refutation short of a good book on acoustics...
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
How could something passive be a problem ? Rooms just sit there..and wait for whatever we throw at them.
Standing waves are caused. If we adjust the wavelaunch, we solve the problem.
If by adjusting the wavelaunch you mean attempt to control the dispersion and power conversion characteristics of a speaker to minimize room interactions, I agree completely.
But rooms do have problem points based on their geometry and construction, which are intrinsic to each particular room which we can only address through careful placement of both the transducer and listener. Some speakers will energize a room's problem nodes less than another, but all will induce some amount of room-generated distortion.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
This is completely false...and I highly recommend that you read Floyd Toole's research concerning low frequencies in a room. There are no "problem points" in a room.
It never made sense to blame something that was totally passive. But that didn't stop many audio writers - lead by Harley - to proclaim the opposite........
I should also note that we have the "DSPeaker" anti-node unit raved by REG and PFO (online). A most effective way of dealing with the problems of bass frequencies.
And more proof that it was the loading pattern and *not* the room.......
What eq mfr do you work for?
I don't work for any. I just gave the name of one product that I know works. You can use *any* DSP device as long as it works with the bass.
This is unlike what Robert Greene raved about years ago - DSP units that changed the tonality of the loudspeaker. The wrong (and ineffective) way of doing it. That said, I'm sure some speakers and listening positions were so bad that they helped some people....
The best EQ, is NO EQ!
Exactly - hence the reasoning for proper in-room radiation. With this, there is no need for DSP......
Hi guys. For what its worth, I have a small 12'x12' square room and was worried about sound too. But, I actually stuffed a Krell 200FPB amp, Krell pre-amp and Krell cd player on one rack, and a VPI turntable, phono stage and Monster power conditioner outlets in a second rack next to it. These feed Martin Logan Aerius i speakers and two Martin Logan Dynamo sub woofers outboard of them. Yes, my listening position is necessarily about four inches from the back wall and there is about 7 feet of space between the speakers and my listening chair. I also have absorbent panels on the wall in back of the speakers, corner traps on the corners and diffusion on the wall behind my listening seat. Because the Krell pre-amp allows small changes in volume and I keep it on the low side, I still get great sound. The subs are run off the pre-amp out. They are dialed in to the 90 degrees of phase and keep the volume level down. These supplement the lows, add punch and expand the soundstage without damaging the mid-range. The keys are to have a pre-amp that sounds good at lower volume levels and can be adjusted such; position the speakers carefully; keep the subwoofers dialed in and the level down. You CAN get excellent sound in a small room if you take these considerations in mind. -Bob.
Oh, I forgot to mention something about the subwoofers. I had them with the drivers facing out, or towards my listening position. Last night, I turned them around and had the drivers facing the traps on the corners of the room. Big improvement! The bass actually became faster and better integrated with the rest of the frequency spectrum and sounded more "of a piece" instead of a separate line of music. Also the definition improved. So, try this too! Im happy with it. -Bob.
Can someone tell me why I keep getting updates on the very same response to my post numerous times every day? This seems to be something new. I.e., Aliso's comment about subwoofers --I get an email about it every few hours!
This forum software is a mess!
Ya think? :)
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
My "understatement of the year!"