Re room acoustic's - my room is 13.5x19.5x9. I have Silverline Boleros. I'm not familiar with your speakers but I've certainly encountered your issues in setting up my speakers. I did something based on what many professionals do when setting up (smaller)demo room's. I set up my speakers 6ft out into the room, 2ft from side walls, and crossed the axis of the speakers well in front of my listening chair (I have and equilateral triangle set up). This minimized the effect of sidewall reflections (without panels) and changed the ceiling reflections. I lost a bit of room induced soundstage width, but on balance I got a far better (more integrated) sound. I adjusted my set up over a long period of time, mostly reducing toe in, but the end result is excellent. I did find taming the (upper) bass was mostly in finding the best distance from the side wall. Try it. Only takes a few minutes and its free.
Swapped long wall to short wall and now I am having some big issues
I have a 14.5 x 27 ft x 8' room (it is narrower at 12 ft (the last 6 ft on the end where I have the speakers)
I had my system aligned on the long wall with the rack in between the speakers.
The speakers were 9' offset from listening position and the side wall were so far away (and had two record cabinets) that they were out of the equation. I had real traps mondo bass traps in the corners and GIK art panels to handle slap echo.
The sound was excellent - great tonality, dynamics, imaging. The only issues I had were a limited listening area and not back enough for full speaker driver integration.
After listening to a friends system in a 12x23 room - old home with wood construction I was a gasp. His system was short wall and there was great integration with easily 2 rows of 3 people could sit and listen. It was a very relaxing and engaging experience.
Fast forward. I made the move. knocked out a closet in the corner. Removed one of 2 floor to ceiling record racks, a Wurlitzer jukebox, and Victrola. I placed the equipment racks on the opposite side wall. The speakers were set up 2 feet from the walls in front of the two corner bass traps. The sound was dreadful. The once luscious mids were thin and highs (1.2-3khz) were bright and cymbals were brittle, hard strumming acoustic guitars and brass sounded terrible as well. If the music got dynamic - it sounded terrible.
The vinyl was bad - cd atrocious.
I went ahead and took all the acoustic panels out except the GIK art panels.
I did some research and bought some GIK Impression 2' 2" panels for first reflection and GIK Impression 1' 4" diffuser/bass panels for the front corners allowing absorption from the back. This was much better but still way off. I moved the speakers out from the wall and then the instrument subtle details snapped into place - at 6 ft this was most apparent however it developed a very bloated mid bass.
I am looking for ways to tame the high end and mid bass but bring out the mid range, I do not want to over treat.
This in incredibly frustrating as I had my sound very refined and the short wall setup should theoretically produced better results. I would be interested in your comments and suggestions.
Thank You
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- 37 posts total
- 37 posts total