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speakers for a smaller listening room

I recently moved and managed to get a dedicated listening room (yay!), but its a little on the small side at 12 x11 feet. My current speakers are B&W CDM 9NT's, purchased when they were for a much larger room. Do i stand much chance of getting these to work well in a room this size? I currently have them 3 ft from the back wall, and about 2ft from the side walls, with the chair about 1ft from the back wall. The bass is pretty lumpy, and there's a lot of HF echo/clatter, i have some traps on the way to try and tame things, but are there any fundamental issues that would prevent a floor stander of that size working in such a small room? Any suggestions on position changes?

Thanks
Simon
zak42
timrhu
2,779 posts
 
My system has been in a similar sized room (11X13) for a few years now and I love the sound. It took some time working with proper treatment but it can be done. Absorption at first reflection points, corner traps and some treatment behind your listening chair are most important IMO.
While you can probably make it work with your B&Ws, smaller speakers would be more manageable. I have a pair of small floorstand speakers as well as a pair of monitors which I swap out every few months to keep things interesting. The small room can be overloaded if I push it but that's not what I enjoy anyway. Click on my system page for a look and good luck.
nolitan
865 posts
 
Those speakers as others mentioned are a bit too big for your room.
Suggest you look at the smaller BW if that is the sound you prefer or the smaller Harbeths HLp3esrs.
Or you can always acoustically treat your room.
unsound
7,329 posts
 
The dimensions of your room are probably more a problem than the size. I'd suggest a room correction device.
learsfool
1,215 posts
 
My brother has a very similar sized room to yours, and he uses an old pair of Sound Dynamics 300Ti's. They are stand mounted and sound pretty good in the space.
ablang
165 posts
 
One more setup idea. Try placing the speakers halfway into the room with your listening seat right against the wall behind you. This'll make it a near-field setup, and the bass might even out without the ports so close to the wall behind them. You also might try plugging the ports.
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