Questions about room size and speaker choice

You will find it a real challenge to wring the best sound out of a square room. It probably won't matter much if you can limit bass to about 50 Hz and above and not try for anything lower, or if you are playing music at low listening levels only.

From my own experience, treating a square room will only get you so far. What are you willing to accept in terms of a compromise?

A couple of ideas: if the room design permits you might try locating the speakers in the diagonal position; that is, with a corner in between the speakers aimed at the opposite corner. Makes the room effectively larger and supposedly reduces some of the nasty nodes. Personally I have not had success with this method but others have reporthed that it has worked well. A near field listening position might also be helpful.

Also, you might try placing your speakers in the corners. There are speakers specifically designed for this - Audio Note Ks might work well but they are a little pricy. I suggest that you find a pair of good condition used Snell Ks or K IIs (NOT IIIs) and try them first. They are the speaker that the AN Ks are based on, and they will get you to about 80% of what the AN speakers will do for under $200 or so. There are other speakers that might work well in this scenario but I have not perspnally tried them: Linn Kans or Dynaudio 42W or 52W. I would advise that you stay away from horns in a room of your size. I'm sure that others can recommend more.

How long will you 2 be living there?
When's the wedding?
I was just thinking that if you are only going to be there for a few months, some accommodations can be made.

You should get it straight right now, where the stereo goes AFTER the wedding, when it will simply be TOO LATE to negotiate.

When I got married, we lived in about 600ft/sq apt with lunatics on all sides. I pretty much had to back-burner my Magnepans until we found a house.

Stay on good terms with the cats. They'll take out there revenge on the speakers. MY cats, on the other hand, never looked TWICE at my panels.

You will no doubt get a bigger abode in a few years. Why spend money with limited results. Get a really good headphone and headphone amp if you need it, and get cutting edge sound for the here and now. When you get your bigger place you can go the route that makes music.

Thanks for all of your responses.
The system is already there so holding off on buying new equipment, or getting a set of headphones is really not an option, with the exception of speakers, but a pair of Harbeths or De Vore Gibbon Super 8s, for example, could still work and be a great long term upgrade I believe. I will be in the apt for at least 2 years (unless we hit the lottery), which is a chunk of time so I'd like to get the best out of the room.

The room is not really square since it has extensions on sides and in one of the corners. The listening space is however, pretty much (the speaker placement in terms of effective space, if that makes sense). I placed a queen size mattress topper foam on the wall behind the speakers and behind the listening chair to minimize reflections and deaden the room a little. I'm also hoping this will help with vibrations reaching the neighbors to some extent.

The speakers are currently 7 feet apart and I placed the listening chair about the same distance form the speakers. That leaves about 2 feet to the wall behind the chair. Any other suggestions?

I have worked with small and large rooms because I have moved a few times.

The good:

All in all a small room is not total death to a system and it can still sound good. What most people seem to not fully understand is room boundaries are the issue not volume of the room. The shortest distance will make the biggest issues. These are of course side and front wall. But here is the kicker... people forget the ceiling!

Many large rooms (say 15X25+) are in the basement and have still have bass issues because of the low ceiling. If you have a 8 foot or less ceiling you will almost always have some bass boom some where below 100hz.

So my point is don't take negative comment to heart to much and use your own ears (and a db meter).


The bad:
The sad truth is your system will never sound as good as it could in a larger room, no if ands or buts.

Suggestions:
Use a good bit of toe in and buy speakers where the drivers are close together and mesh well. Near-field can be great but you need the right speakers to pull it off. One of the best near-field speakers I have heard are Magnepan 1.7s. I would try putting your seat so your head is 10" off the rear wall and move your speakers off the front wall more. The difference from your head being 10" and two feet off the back wall will be very small. But the advantages of having you speakers off the front wall will really help bass boom and sound stage. This will put your speakers (measured from the front baffle) two feet of the front wall and your ears 8ft from the speakers.

All in all it is your room and people on the internet can not tell you how it sounds. I have shoe-horned large speakers into small rooms and put monitors in BIG rooms... it was all a leaning experiance some better some worse but always fun. I have found the most important factor for any room is understanding how your speakers disperse their sound and adjusting the speaker and seating location accordingly.