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Big systems - Little rooms

I enjoy browsing the Virtual Systems posted online here ( and have posted my own).  I am puzzled , however, by the too common practice of placing large ( and usually expensive) speakers into very tight confines, often less than a foot from the front wall and barely more from the side walls.  Presumably the sitting position is likely against the back wall.  Many of these systems also have significant power and expensive source components.  While I may be as susceptible as most to upgradeitis, I have tried to give some recognition to the size of my listening space in my equipment selection.  Have I overlooked some new approach to managing room acoustics, or are most speakers not as sensitive as some articles describe to position within the room.  It would otherwise seem that these systems might benefit from  a bit of downsizing to achieve superior sound imaging.
sjtm
audiokinesis
2,755 posts
 

In a fairly small room (say a spare bedroom), two main issues arise:

1. The bass response will typically have major peaks and dips largely due to the room modes being few and far apart (an inevitable consequence of the room being small); and

2. The reflections above the bass region will arrive after an unusually short time delay because the reflection paths are quite short, so the result is a lot of energy in early reflections. Early reflections are the ones most likely to be detrimental to timbre and imaging, so in a small room imo it is especially important to take them into account.

There are techniques for addressing these issues, but some of them are highly counter-intuitive. Multiple subwoofers intelligently distributed can ime significantly improve the bass region, and using speakers with good radiation pattern control over most of the rest of the spectrum can improve the room interaction up higher as well.

In this context, imo "good radiation pattern control" implies a radiation pattern narrow enough that it can be aimed to minimize early reflections, and uniform enough within its coverage pattern that the reflections are spectrally similar to the direct sound.

This is a bit different from the typical approach of using "small speakers for small rooms and big speakers for big rooms." It is more like, choosing the acoustic behavior of the speaker system to deliberately address the acoustic challenges presented by the room.

Duke

dealer/manufacturer

big_greg
6,710 posts
 
I'm on board with using multiple subs, but in a bedroom? I have one in my bedroom, but never really use it and don't have room for another (or two or three more).
audiokinesis
2,755 posts
 

"I'm on board with using multiple subs, but in a bedroom?"

I was thinking of a room that might otherwise have been a bedroom but was being used as a dedicated audio (or perhaps audio/video)room instead.   Sorry I wasn't clear!

Duke 

jtcf's avatar
jtcf
1,620 posts
 
I agree with Duke about choosing a speaker with the best acoustic behavior for the particular room.Some large speakers require a minimum amount of space to sound as they were designed to sound.No matter what is done to the room they will never sound right sitting just a few feet away.There's a reason that speaker manufacturers create different styles and sizes:)
soix
10,041 posts
 
@yyzsantabarbara and @sjtm -- why the hesitation on subs? I’d think especially in a small room you’d have a much easier time integrating the bass since you can move them to where the bass sounds best and either use some bass management (i.e. DSpeaker, etc.) or the sub’s own DSP (if it has it) or volume and phase controls to help better integrate it to your room. With big speakers you’re stuck with the woofers having to be in the same spot as the speaker, which may well not be optimal, especially in a smaller room. And, with subs you’ll likely get down to a true 20Hz, which likely will not happen with a standalone speaker. Oh, and buying monitors or smaller floorstanders with two good subs will likely be a lot cheaper than buying big, good speakers. Just sayin’.

Or, if you must buy large speakers I'd definitely use some kind of DSP.  This is just a square peg into round hole situation, and you'll have to go to great lengths and probably great expense to get it to sound decent with room treatments.  It will sound great with DSP and avoid you having to turn your room into something that looks like an adult romper room with all sorts of funny shapes all over the place.  The newer DSP devices (i.e. Lyngdorf, DSpeaker) are very good and not all that expensive. 
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