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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

128x128audiotomb
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
@audiotomb

Hi Tom,

Sorry to hear you are having this very frustrating experience. We have the same speakers (Daedalus Ulysses), as you may recall. My room is 13 x 22 x 8. I have the speakers set up on the short wall, about 4 feet out from the front wall (which is mostly a large picture window, with wood blinds in front of it), as measured to the front of the speakers. The speakers are about 7 feet apart, center-to-center. My listening distance is about 12 feet. The central third of the rear wall opens to another room, and the part of the side wall that is near the left channel speaker opens to another area. The walls are wood paneled.

I have no particular suggestions to offer at this point regarding speaker positioning or acoustic treatments. However the sonics you have described are so vastly different than anything I have ever heard from my Ulysses, as well as being vastly different from what you had with the previous setup, that I’m wondering if some misfortune unrelated to speaker positioning and room acoustics might have been inflicted on the system during the move. For example, perhaps a tube-based component was jarred and the performance of one of its tubes was affected by the physical shock. Perhaps something is amiss with a connection somewhere, perhaps internal to a component if not externally.

Those kinds of possibilities are about all I can think of at this point. As I said, it’s hard for me to envision Daedalus speakers sounding as you’ve described, with a seemingly reasonable setup in a reasonably sized room.

Best of luck as you proceed,
-- Al

twoleftears's avatar
twoleftears
5,318 posts
 
Can you try at some kind of an angle?  I.e. not square to either the long or the short wall.  It's one of the things that Johnny Rutan recommends trying.
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
you can either build a new room or you can accept that you will never get perfect sound in a bad room. 


mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
OK, on the long wall you had delayed primary reflections on the side walls and they occurred at lower volumes because they were farther away, a situation that would probably favor that speaker which has one design flaw, it has two tweeters which are too far apart to reproduce the highest frequencies in balance with the rest of the speaker. They will have a tendency to be too bright and harsh. The farther away you are from them the brighter they will get. Sit in your listening chair and have someone move a mirror along the side wall and mark the point you can see the speaker from your listening position in the mirror. The mirror should stay flat against the wall. Stick acoustic foam tile, I would say a 2 X 4 foot area centered on that point for both side walls. Do the same for the front wall. This will diminish reflections from 250 Hz up and smooth things out. The bass performance is going to change based on the speakers distance from the front wall so if you are unhappy with it you have to move the speakers back and forth until you get the balance you like. Do this before you find the spots on the side walls to dampen. Frequently the bass will sound its best with the speaker right up against the wall which unfortunately will not give you the best upper frequency performance. Life is full of compromises. 
audiotomb's avatar
audiotomb OP
1,112 posts
 
Thanks for the suggestions and I will work on extremes on the speaker position

i have gik products for the first refections,
I do have the opportunity to offset the speakers to the room slightly and the center of the tweeters are only separated by 4".

Daedalus are known for their accurate tonality and non fatiguing sound.

i didn't see a way to attach my long and short wall diagrams 

i am also using REW measurements

I will set up a pair of paridygns as well

thanks
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