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How to Liven up a room

I got an accoustics problem, and im looking for a possible simple solution

Im running a denon 3803, with KEF Q1 bookshelf speakers.

Upstairs, it sounds livly and energetic, however, there is not much room for it upstairs and i now have it all in the basement where im working on a theater. Im renting this house and looking to buy a new one, so i dont want to go overboard with accoustical tweaks.

the basement is very dead sounding. My denon and KEFs sound crisp, clear, but they just dont have the same livly feel to them. they sound like they lost something.

My listening room is L shaped, but basically, it is 11.5ft by 26ft, and it just sucks the livelyness from my music.

its a typical budget finished basement. Drywall all around, carpet, etc etc. Im renting so i cannot rip it all out and do it myself which i would preffer.

Does anybody have any inexpencive tweaks i might want to try?
Its not the speaker positioning, the stands are not very good but i dont think that is the problem. Im pretty sure the basement is just accoustically dead.

Im thinking i need to reflect the accoustics a little better. thoughts?
slappy
tsouthworth
59 posts
 
Probably suspended ceiling too, with the fiberboard type panels? Those are sound suckers...

Can you try listening to your speakers near-field, like 5-6' away from your listening chair, also away from the side walls?

Or how about forgetting to liven up the room and play some Bob Marley:
http://www.bobmarley.com/songs/songs.cgi?lively

Yeah, bad joke, but I'm not sorry!

Good luck - most of us have the opposite problem.
slappy OP
903 posts
 
ceiling is finished, and it totally sucks because one of the support beams(which is also covered in the drywall) dips down and forms a frame it extends about 6 inches below the ceiling level and it sticks out about 2 inches on the walls. It kinda forms a ring. That part totally sucks.

Its drywall, and it looks like ti extends about 6 inches from the cement.

No echo, no nothing down there.

As for the bookshelf, they seem to be plenty big enough, i used to have some deftech bp2004tl towers that has the same problem. Then again, they arent much more than bookshelf speakers stuck on top of subwoofers.

I have a lart 3ft x 6ft mirror on the side wall, i was hoping it would liven it up a little bit, but it did not seem to do much.

I will only be in this house (im renting) for about 8 months, then i will be buying a new house that i will be buying with a basement i will finish myself. So i cant do anything costly, but man, its annoying dead.

Maybe i will just use the ZONE 2 capabilities and run my KEF's upstairs where they sound better....
lak's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
lak
4,555 posts
 
Slappy,
Perhaps you need some wood panels to liven things up?
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,155 posts
 
Rather than try to liven up the room, methinks you might try to lively up yourself. It worked for BMW, aka Bob Marley & the Wailers.
theaudiotweak
2,780 posts
 
Those 90 degree angles need to be 47 degrees instead.You would have to make these out of drywall. These angles would give proper airflow across an 8ft ceiling.Tom
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