How to make small room sound bigger

Small rooms can sound fantastic. The real trick is to scale your speakers and treat your room. You probably want thick wall to wall carpeting, absorption in front and behind your seating… also absorption at side wall reflections and tube traps in front corners.. and corner absorbers. All, are not required at once. You can see my system, how I treated my room (myID). I would slowly choose primary components (after carpeting)… then position, and start treatments.

 

One of the most incredible systems I have heard was in a 8’ x 10’ room. It was all tube, with appropriate sized speakers with treatments… including some flat pieces of plywood (covered on a decorative material) at an acute angle to the horizontal to move the images higher. It was mesmerizing.

Take your time.

 

All those speakers are choices?… and a budget NAD integrated… more info please. You are going to want to match your equipment… electronics with speakers and room size.

Lots of sound absorbing material.

An 11 X 14 room can sound great.

@ghdprentice you hit it right with the room treatments. You can look at the OP system on his VS page, no treatments at all. Even and area rug would help and a window treatments.

Nice systems.

 

nearfield listening helps greatly too

The question is, do I need to maximize absorption vs diffusion ? I’d rather not do near field listening. 

Listen with headphones!

Dude, like half of my threads on Audiogon are about this. :D

I’d go to GIK, and use the room designer to ask them for help, but here are the gneeral principles:

• Use the best bass traps you can afford/fit floor to ceiling and floor to floor. This is either corner traps or soffit trap up the walls, and mondo traps on the floor between them.
• Use 244 absorbers in first reflection points.
• Use combination absorber diffusion between the speakers and behind the listening location. Don’t forget the ceiling at first reflection area.
• Directly to the sides of the speakers is a great place for diffusion. It can really help fill in the stereo image.
• The smaller the room the thicker the panels you’ll want to use to compensate for lack of locations to put them in.
• First reflection points matter, but only in combination with a full room treatment.  If all you do is place at these spots you will barely notice a difference.

All above plus you may want to try some of the Synergistic HFT. While my room  is larger, I've found using these behind listening position on side walls helps to further scale up size of room. This has been added to room treated mostly with diffusion, preferable to absorption for me.

A lot of absorption can make any size room sound lousy.  A sterile, dead sounding room will not sound bigger.

If you are serious about trying to get a room to sound larger, you will need to use additional channels of speakers and a processor that can send delayed signals to the speakers.   

What's with the list of speakers and amps ? Ones on hand or ones under consideration?  To make the room seem larger you don't want a lot of absorption. 

Combination of absorption and diffusion. Room acoustics vary from room to room. And some is personal preference. I would experiment with several different placement options. But yes, too much absorption will kill the room energy. 

Good luck and have fun! I've always found experimenting with room acoustics quite fun and interesting.

You cannot make the room sound bigger.  If you do a comprehensive acoustic treatment along the likes of what erik-squires suggests, you will get smoother frequency response, better dynamics and better soundstage/imaging.  A larger sound image in the same size room is the best you can achieve.  It will involve both absorption and diffusion along with a good deal of trail and error experimentation.

@ei001h 

I have that exact room size but with carpet over concrete. I did what @erik_squires  suggested, called GIK and worked with them to treat the room properly. I ended up with 12 of their 242 panels (4 on the front and back walls and a pair per side wall) which made a significant positive change to the sound of my system. Now, I can and may go further with GIKs suggestions but at the time it worked with my budget.

My system: Anthem STR Stack> Aurum Cantus V7F & Pair of SVS 3000 micro subs

Good topic  OP. I keep toying with the idea of turning my office into the listening room. It's 14 x 13 w 8 ft ceilings so very similar. Thanks @erik_squires  for the GIk recommendation. That looks like a good source for a DIYer

 

Yes, by all means consult with either GIK or ASC or both (or another acoustics company). If you are charged anything for their work, it will be refunded if you order, and it will be worth the price if you don't. There is some knowledge to be gained by seeing what more than one company recommends.

Everyone has run into successes with room treatment and a few things done wrong. My error in the latter, many years ago, was adding too much pure absorption to my audio room. That created an artificially dead feeling. The error can be avoided by using combination absorber-diffuser products (as already recommended) predominantly. Examples are GIK's Alpha series, the RPG BAD products, and most products from ASC.

PS - You can use the room mode calculator here to see where your problems are going to be:

 

https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc?l=14&w=11&h=8&ft=true&r60=0.6

 

The first 3 modes are excellent candidates for bass traps in the corners. The 70 Hz mode is now floor to ceiling and using narrow mondo traps horizontall at the floor and ceiling behind the speakers and listener help here. At 90 Hz and above you’ll want to have wall panels spread out but these are a lot easier to deal with (i.e. smaller traps) than the first modes.

Further, try to keep your subs out of the pressure zones of the modes below 80Hz.  Not possible for every mode, but if you can avoid 3 out of 4, it's a win.

I own a square room 13 feet by 13 and 8 feet ceiling...

Not an ideal one allegedly because a square one...

😁😊

My sound quality is so good that my 7 headphones are in a closet drawing for ever...

Passive material treatment is mandatory but it will not be enough to reach heaven...Only enough to improve the room ...To adapt the room response for the speakers it takes more than passive treatment...Especially in very small room...In fact i think now that the best room are small one, because we can use the time and timing aspect, and the reverberation factor to be positive from a psycho-acoustic standpoint...My room is like an intimate headphone sound, out of my head though, with sound filling the room... Speakers and walls disapear...

 

If you own a dedicated audio room not a living room, buy cheap discarded plumbers

tubes of various size and attach to them various straws of diffferent size diameter for adjustable neck in lenght and diameter and experiment with your EARS to tune the room....

If they are completely closed on one side they are "bottle" resonators.... Add to some tubes at one end some piece of fabric cloth which will act like some filter but keeping the mouth opened...Then you have diffusers....it is what i called mechanical control of the room...

All these tubes open on the two ends with one end filtered  or closed at one end with a neck are Helmholtz bottles resonators or diffusers in the firstcase .... NOTHING in passive treatment will replace this new distribution of pressure zones now synergetically tunable mechanically for your specific ears and specific speakers... Read the basic about Helmholtz resonators first...

Experiment and have fun...Dont be afraid, dont buy anything costly, EXPERIMENT....

Audiophile experience may cost peanuts, i know it by experience and experiments...Not by reading audio magazine... 😁😊

Mechanical control of the gear, electrical noise floor control of the house and especially acoustical control and not only walls passive treatment are the keys...

Price tag is meaningless in acoustic experience...Consumerism conditioning expanse is not musical experience, acoustic is...

 

 

 

The only trick to make room acoustically bigger is to open the door & the windows, and that allows longer wavelengths to form, and pushes the Schroeder frequency lower.

«Back in 1954, Schroeder referred to the frequency at which rooms go from being resonators to being reflectors/diffusors as the “crossover frequency.” We now call it the Schroeder frequency.»

It is the reason why using a grid of tuned Helmholtz resonators and diffusers, i smooth out any disruptive modes, i have around 100 of them from the diameter in millimeters to few inches with various lenght from 8 feet to 6 inches, i dont need a subwoofer with my 7 inches speakers box, and i enjoy all acoustical cues optimally for my room : dynamic, timbre,imaging, soundstage, listener envelopment, intimacy ETC...

Dont buy anything experiment and have fun...

Study basic acoustic WITHOUT any tool save your ears... Train them...

Acoustic phenomenon are not mainly linear mathematical phenomenon.... They are  mostly non linear ....You ears are the best tool IN YOUR ROOM....

😁😊

If you're a DIY kinda person there's a whole series of U tube videos from a German acoustic engineer by the name Jesco. They are excellent. The videos on GIK are also informative. If you're not interested in learning how to fix the acoustic short coming in your room and build treatments yourself, there's a whole world of companies that will be glad to help at a cost, but hey it's part of the hobby for me. Good luck, it can be a rabbit hole if you get into it.

sure modify your components  begin with power supply capacitors, install better resistors like Audio Note non-magnetic silver, add filter chokes to the AC and inputs, etc.  

 

Happy Listening.

Use small speakers on low stands like Isoacoustics with upward tilt to effectively make the room sound larger.

I have a similar sized but carpeted room. To make the room play bigger I always keep the room door open. I also had a closet in this bedroom, I removed the closet doors and got about 4 feet of more depth. Now that can cause other sonic issues, so I have some acoustic absorption panels in the closet. I worked with GIK Acoustics to fix other sound issues with acoustic panels. Cost me $700 for the ugly panels.

I have a floor stander speaker in this small room, and I think I am getting about 90% of the best abilities on the speaker. Still not good as a big room but the sound is fatigue free and rather good. My virtual system of the ’Office’ has some photos.

Office System | Virtual Listening Room (audiogon.com)

 

You could also work in some DSP using someone like

https://accuratesound.ca 

to put any sized speaker into your room. I used Convolution files (DSP), loaded into ROON Core, that was created by Accurate Sound. That worked great. However, I was able to physically remove reflections by adding an additional acoustic panel and also moving some things away from the speakers. The taming of these reflections made me realize I no longer needed the DSP. Not everyone can do that, so DSP is a good choice to tame a room.

 

Quite a number of posts here are not answering OP's question, which I must say I find a strange one.

How to make a small room sound bigger.

Why?  My objective would be to improve the SQ.  As some have posted, making the room sound better will not necessarily do that.  In a concrete shell the sound will sound like it's in a big room because of the multiple reflections with extended overhand period.  Agreed it certainly won't sound good, but it will sound big.

Room treatments such as those sensibly advocated above will certainly improve the SQ but they won't make the room sound bigger.

OP, perhaps you will explain your objective more fully?

Having a small room myself, one has to accept that there are limitations to how "big" the room can sound. And as has been observed above, lots of reflections will make the room sound bigger but not better.

Really, as with any room, a judicious use of absorption and diffusion is what's needed. I would start with the back wall because, properly treated, it will allow you to get further away from the speakers, which in turn gives a bit more flexibility in terms of placing the speakers vis a vis the front wall.

Sidewall treatment is helpful but can be difficult in a small room as more likely than not one of those walls probably has a door which may be placed at a reflection point. Treatable - but with a serious compromise in regard to aesthetics.

Keeping the speakers a reasonable distance away from the sidewalls also helps.

Perhaps the most difficult challenge in a small room is the tradeoffs between bass extension and soundstaging. It's difficult to get maximise both in a small room. The amplifier/speaker interface is important in the former regard.

Funnily enough, quadratic diffusion for me anyway, seemed to open up my room sonically.
So I’ve read, in a small room where the boundaries will not allow for quadratic diffusion angles to fully develop, binary amplitude diffusion (BAD) with absorption is a winner. On quadratic diffusion there is a minimum distance where the diffusion angles have opened up the different frequencies, there’s charts and graphs and such available.

GIK for example have diffusion / absorption panels, acting in a similar manner to BAD panels, which can be totally DIY with plans available online (BAD plans online, not GIK plans).
This may be the way I go with my ceiling at first reflection point, and I have also seen a BAD with a curve in it, adding further more diffusion, but also in a reasonably predictable way. A 2D pattern is created using primary numbers for the holes in a BAD.

It may not necessarily make the room sound significantly or exactly like a larger room, but it can make it react not like the small room it is by removing flutter echo and the likes. In a larger room reflections bounce across the room and interact with the sound energies, this is artificially achieved through quadratic diffusion, the frequencies are cut up and fanned out, developing in a smaller space that which a larger room does. It’s the lower frequencies where this simply cannot happen with diffusion, there’s no getting around this, that I know of? But then, aren't lower frequencies considered non directional? However the long waveforms (low frequency) simply don't fully develop in a small room, there's not enough distance.

I have just built six folded well diffusers, and I have to temporarily install them to be able to tell what they’re going to do in my room. As space is a real issue for many of us, the shallow depth of the folded well diffuser, combined with the shorter working distance of the devices made it an easy choice for trial in my room.

At four inches deep, with a fully developed working distance of 5 1/2 feet, this could work behind the speakers on the front wall without taking up too much real estate.
And without compromising a suitable listening position, there is a reasonably broad frequency range (mine are 40mm = 307 - 7503Hz) they work at.
Plans: https://dngmns.home.xs4all.nl/fwd_uk.html

These are all straight cuts, all DIY, and I’m not handyman genius I assure you, anyone in here can make these.

I’ve decided to get diffusion done first, measurements, then absorption based upon measurements. After Mike Levigne’s music session, I was sold on diffusion, which is all he has - it’s incredible, really.

With my limited room, I’m running cables under the big 17" deep QRD17 diffusers, but on the sides laid up against the wall, those are the folded well diffusers finished.

If you’re on a budget, and have any (I do mean any) handy man skills these are pretty damned easy to build, there’s Youtube videos as well. However, again I will say in a small listening room the back wall, representing the most first reflection energies coming off speakers, I’d certainly suggest BAD diffusion with absorption built in.

For free information:

 

@ei001h - there is a benefit of a smaller room that aught to be mentioned, that is cabin gain. If you take care of flutter echo, low frequency absorption and room nodes and the usual suspects, there is less energies required to pressurize a smaller room.
Here is where the benefits of a stand mount speaker with smaller baffle, smaller cabinet sizes (potentially less cabinet resonances) come into it's own, and the cabin gain loads up the room on lower frequencies.
A small room can sound very good too, done right.

The small room requires room treatments to sound good, which has been mentioned above. In a small room, listening in the near-field is basically a requirement. This will allow for the room to be less of a factor. Also, IME no small room can actually portray ’scale’ like a larger room/larger speaker. Small room also requires, again IME, small speakers...generally stand mount to sound best. A sub woofer, so long as it is a smaller sub woofer, can be made to really boost the lower frequencies. BTW, I don’t consider a room with 14’ on one wall that small....to me walls that are 8-10’ apart are more typical of small rooms, albeit rooms with low ceilings are more challenging. Therefore, I also think the volume of the room has a lot to do with potential SQ, not just the distance between walls.  As others have stated, a small room can sound great, but it needs a little thought and preferably it needs to be dedicated to the system.

The right amount of balance between reflection which is necessaary at some spot in small room and between absorption and the importance of diffusion and the right balance in the right spot...

Diffusers are completely underestimated indeed like said Rick and Lavigne...

I use mainly tubes with a filtering cloth for diffusion ....And anyway there is a variable content on my wall with irregularities, like a library in 2 of my walls with many various reflective and diffusive content and geometry...

And in a small room the goal is not big nor small imaging sound filling room but disapearance of the speakers and of the walls geometrical inconvenience...Because you could have imaging and reflections problems with distortions all over the place also...:Like clearthinker say above...

In my room a square of 13 feet with 8 feet high, one of the speakers is a few inches in a wall corner , enscounced in it?

is it not completely bad?

Yes it is....

Then why did i feel no acoustical negative behaviour with this very bad location of one of the speakers?

Right treatment balance will not do the job here...Nor plenty of diffusers...It takes me Helmholtz resonators and my tubular Helmholtz diffusers to make the wall corner where my speakers is captive to disapear....Modification of the pressure zones distribution in my room...

 

i succeed...

 

By the way my last discovery was the useof a twofold pliable screen behind my regular listening location... With difusive and reflective devices and the right amount of absorbtion also... This was extraordinary idea for me because it give me the last acoustical cue i was longing for to beat my 7 headphones : intimacy like with headphone without loosing any soundstage , imaging, natural timbre experience and listener envelopment...

My last device is this twofold screen acoustic tool which also support 10 Helmholtz resonators and diffusers of various size but near 6 feet....

Intimacy is an acoustic quality rarely associated with speakers listening....I read about it nowhere why?

But it is one of the greatest to enjoy....For me....

 

 

 

Also i use 3 type of ionization devices at low cost... ( save one which is useful for other medical utilization and cost me 100 bucks)

Also i always enjoy my Schumann chinese low cost resonators grid at very low cost..

All these too numerous devices, all of them play their role in the acoustic results...

The most important impactful one are the Helmholtz devices resonators and diffusers though...

 

@clearthinker 

Excellent point. The objective is to improve SQ AND avoid near field listening. I enjoy classical music, large scale symphonic works and such. I would like to feel the scale as much as possible to simulate a concert hall. While I know it's highly unlikely to perfect, I am looking for a way to maximize this, if at all possible in 11x14 room. 

I plan on using SF Elipsa SE  and/or Focal Micro utopia, using SET Mastersound. I've experimented with this and the amp drives my speakers without any difficultly. 

@mahgister - I am aware of Helmholtz resonators, I have read of their effectiveness but to be honest, I’d have a very steep learning curve on those. They certainly seem to be a lot more work than what I’ve done so far. Congratulations on your patience, because learning how to do it, before even implementation - wow.

Anyone in here thinking I am overstating, just look at the math:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/helmholtz-resonator

Helmholtz diffusers are also powerful not only the very well known resonators which also diffuse some frequencies anyway...

It is a tube with a filtering end mouth with no neck and an open end... I used tube of different diameter and length...

By the way dont be afraid by the mathematical DESCRIPTION with equations...

Your ears/brain COMPUTE everything without using any numbers...

Just EXPERIMENT.... And LISTEN.....Most people are afraid of mathematic...learn the physical meaning of these devices , throw the equations on the garbage bin and experiment and listen with your own ears... Simple... It is FUN.... and it work... Especially if you use many devices that compensate each other... I created my device and tuned them by ears not by resolving a set of equations.... 😁😊

Is it perfect?

No...

Is it astounding in S.Q. improvement?

 

Yes, i laugh at the idea of any costly gear upgrade...

I listen music not sound now...

 

@mahgister - I am aware of Helmholtz resonators, I have read of their effectiveness but to be honest, I’d have a very steep learning curve on those. They certainly seem to be a lot more work than what I’ve done so far. Congratulations on your patience, because learning how to do it, before even implementation - wow.

While I know it's highly unlikely to perfect, I am looking for a way to maximize this, if at all possible in 11x14 room. 

This may sound nuts (oh heck, I've just chambered a bullet, someone's going to flame me over this no doubt).

I listen to orchestral music quite a lot, and I really love movie score. Try using your long wall as the front wall, try diffusion entirely on the front (long wall) with deep use of absorption in the front corners for lower frequencies. Absorption if possible on the top and bottom edges of your now long front wall.

Absorption on the back wall, however, if you're going to play with diffusion do not use quadratic (it's not going to give you benefit at all, certainly not here, it takes distance to develop an effect, which you do not have). You can get binary amplitude diffusion to work at extreme short distances, with absorption. If you do trial BAD with the holes, use 1/2" holes it helps with lower frequencies.

Set your speakers off the front wall, through trial and error and keep them in from the left and right boundaries ( I would start with 7 foot apart), this is why I am suggesting using the room the wrong way round. You could also try using absorption on first reflection points on the sides as well to open up for the larger sound you're trying to portray. The sides of the room, those reflections are a dead give away sonically on room size.

Your seating position would be not far off the back wall, giving you an equilateral triangle with your speakers, if you do the ceiling possibly try mixed absorption & diffusion.
If you have someone who can help you, a handy mirror to visually see the first off axis reflection points of both speakers (not just the closest one) on the side walls should be diffused or absorption treated.

It's absolutely a compromise, it's one that's worked for me and others, trying to get what you asked for.
 

@rixthetrick 

The maths is noted, but unfortunately only an approximation of the true equation so ,fortunately for me, not much help.

 

The problem with using a small room in 'landscape' orientation is that on the short dimension there isn't space behind the speakers and behind the listening position.  So if the speakers are moved forward to give them air from the front wall, as you say, the listener hears bad reflections from the rear wall just behind him.  It isn't easy to damp those.  It may well be better to accept some side wall reflections adjacent to the speakers.

Yes you have it - it's all a compromise.

@clearthinker - If he uses absorption, particularly deep or thick absorption behind and to the sides, it will help mask the back wall, or the lack of space from the back wall to some degree. In this or his case diffusion behind the listener is completely wasted I would imagine.

What I have suggested has worked in both a 26ft x 16ft room, and a 24ft x 15ft room with reasonable success. Both times this was used was because of entrance points and traffic into and out of the room, yes it’s a best fit compromise.
I wasn’t the clever person who came up with it, though after having actually heard it’s potential, implemented it for my own listening room. It has been working for me.

Now I am going to modify mine slightly as I do have an extra 4ft depth over the OP to try diffusion on my back wall, I’m going to need almost 6ft, the 4inches for the diffusers and 5.5ft for the effective working distance of the diffusers.

I listened again last night with a few albums, Daft Punk’s - Tron Legacy, The World of Hans Zimmer (live in concert) and the four disk set of Hans Zimmer movie scores (< that’s not the title sorry). It was not a room with the golden ratio and not perfect, but it was quite enjoyable with a decent sense of scale. I have been to venues with live orchestras and using that as a reference it truly wasn’t bad (I'm also not deluded, it will never be the same). I will say those big deep diffusers at the front work better than straight absorption ever could.

Being right up against the back wall, without diffusion there wasn’t much side reflections aimed at my ears, with speakers towed in a little, it wasn’t horrible.
The OP could move his seat all the way to the back wall and test this out for himself.

I have heard it, I do live with it, and it really can work with a bit of effort.
Failing having the room size, this has and can work the way I have suggested.

@ei001h - for goodness sakes get yourself a big thick and heavy (preferrably woolen) rug, maybe from an estate sale or used? The floor is really close to your speakers, that first reflection must be dealt with. Strictly absorption here, and not a little bit, a lot.

@rixthetrick, In this or his case diffusion behind the listener is completely wasted I would imagine. 

IMO absorption may be the preferred way to reduce the low range band levels and with direct radiated energy diffusion and absorption will be useful (needed). 

Low Freq will be the most difficult to treat and being the highest energy level the most important. As noted above placement is wide open for good results.

The Binary panels linked - look like a fine product and a quick glance at the Abfuser performance chart shows the effective range.

Congratulations on the QRD panels - well done!

 

 

 

 

@rego - Thank you. I went back to look again at the link on the abfuser, and I noticed they’d done this, very similar to what I am suggesting. However, keeping the speakers away from the side wall boundaries and placing absorption there is going to sound better, well it did for us.

@rixthetrick, lol - in the pic the L/R channels placement looks like 10-12 feet apart.

It's not easy (for me) to imagine what the sound field is like, but it does speak to the idea of the original post's inquiry of ' making room sound bigger ' which in fact treatment should do. 

What I would like to make clear is that the direct sound from the speaker is bounced off the back wall (if not effectively diffused), and then makes its way back to the diffusor behind the speakers.

 

Set your speakers off the front wall, through trial and error and keep them in from the left and right boundaries ( I would start with 7 foot apart)

I did suggest 7 foot apart.

 

yep