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New house room size opinions please........

Hi All,

Looking into new house and so far we have 7 "contenders" wich means a room of my own, most houses have rooms in the 13X21 to 24ft range, all in basements. I ran into a house today wich looks great, has alot of other features we would like but a room that is only 14X18 and I wonder if this can still be an ideal room for my use, the room my gear is in now is 13X17 and am pretty happy even though it is our living room so a large cabinet and TV are in between speakers wich kills any performance other then average.
I was hoping to be in a room where I had more room from back wall but if we picked this house should I expect enough improvement by gaining the center image to ignore the fact I will be maybe 2-3 feet from back wall?
Speakers are VMPS FF3SRE and are large but tunable with woofer tuning and active outboard crossover and I never once felt they over-loaded my current room. One thing to consider is in the new room I will listen roughly 10ft from speakers, my couch in current room is against back wall and could be closer but living room WAF issues stand in the way, if in that new room I went 3-4 ft from back wall, sat 10-11 feet away I would have 3 feet behind me, speakers would be 7 ft apart and almost 3 feet from side walls, all in all what do you guys think? Thanks a bunch for your time.....Chad
chadnliz
pryso
1,928 posts
 
Chad, have you raised your question with Brian at VMPS? He should know better than anyone what both the minimal and optimal room dimensions would be for your speakers.

Of course there is the danger that you may not keep the FF3SREs the rest of your life (or at least as long as you remain in your future home) but I would guess it is not likely you would replace them with something radically different that could not be adapted to the same room.
chadnliz OP
3,736 posts
 
Great points from all and thanks,

Wich ever house it is they all have a room for my man cave so every option that could be picked is still better then where I am now, this is only one of the homes and most are about 13X21 to 24 ft in length but something tells me this is going to be here fav, she will see them tomorrow. I know that picking a house that the other half isnt totally on board with is going to be a mess, it happened with me and my ex 10 yrs ago.....lesson learned.
Beavis, you are 100% right about not having any idea about how it will sound but opinions are fun to read and share all the same.
Fjn, my dad has Wood Quatro's and in 2 weeks we are going to give a long listen to the 5A as his 1 year upgrade time limit will close soon, I bet he gets the 5A...awesome speaker, and you are a lucky man.
To add the Kurt's thoughts, my parents are buying the house for me so part of feels like I should get the largest vote (after parents approval ofcourse) but I do want her to be happy, she will probably live much longer then I will anyway.
Pryso makes a great point on speakers maybe changing in time but I dunno, on Social Security the cash to buy anything close to a hi-end speaker looks weak at best so they may be with me for a long, long time. As always thanks a bunch for your time, I really appreciate it!
rlwainwright
1,904 posts
 
I'm with Kurt_Tank on this one. Any man who would cede complete control of the purchase of the house is less than a man in my eyes. BOTH of you will be living in the house, BOTH of you should have an equal say on the house purchase.

Having said that, look for the biggest room you can find in a house that your wife finds acceptable. Then, set it up the way that YOU want it. She can have the kitchen, living room, etc. Just make it understood that the audio room is YOUR room.

In the long run, this will make you both happy with the purchase...

-RW-
timrhu
2,779 posts
 
RW, after reading you comments I did some soul searching (not manly I know) and decided to change my wimpy ways. Just got done slapping the wife and kicking the dog around. I feel much better now.
Can I enter your world of manly men now?
gammajo's avatar
gammajo
844 posts
 
Chandliz - through the controversy generated about communication and compromise, be assured that we are very happy for you being able to start fresh with a new space that you can call your own - An exciting challenge that will have you listening carefully to the music for years to come. With intelligent accoustic treatments and varying listening positions, I think almost any room can form a suitable man cave for the pleasure of music.
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