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room tuning 12ftx12ft room

hello, my first post. i have a very small room, 12ftx 12ft. i have the speakers where i think they sound pretty good except for some boomieness in some bass areas and even cut-out of bass or maybe room overload when i start to turn it up a bit. but anyway, i have 4 2"x4ftx2ft framed insulation panels behind the speakers, 1 on each side of the speakers (using the mirror trick) and 2 directly behind me, with maybe a 2" gap between them.

i've thought of covering the wall behind the speakers completely floor to ceiling and coming out on the side walls 4ft floor to ceiling. then just leaving the two panels directly behind me. does that seem like a good idea?

thanks
g19276
russ69's avatar
russ69
3,563 posts
 
I'm a small room expert. Sebrof has it right, pull the speakers out into the room to kill the booming bass, just like any room. A foot or two forward will kill the bass. Small rooms usually have problems with bass cancellation, too much bass is easier to deal with. If you are listening against the back wall you can move your chair out into the room a little more.
br3098
1,000 posts
 
Let's face it - if you are into full range music (and who isn't?), small rooms are tough. And frankly, square rooms just suck unless they are very large. Based testing and experimentation in my own lilliputian space, I will take (for example) a 12x9.5 room with good dimensions over a 12x12 room any day. I was never able treat a square room well enough so that I enjoyed listening in it. But that's just me.

My second point regarding wall proximal speaker placement - to each his (or her) own. In a 12x12 room, how far apart do you intend to seperate the speakers? Let's assume a modest 7'. So unless you are going to listen in the nearfield position (always an option) you are going to be approx. 1' off the back wall; probably a little more. If your room is multi-use and you are mostly watching TV that's OK. For critical listening, maybe not.

Try a variety of suggestions and see what works best for you.
rrog
1,958 posts
 
Obviously you guys are not familiar with Vandersteen speakers, their design and the amount of bass they are capable of. All of the room treatment in the world and moving speakers/listening position will not make up for the fact that his speakers are not matched for his room.
hornguys
180 posts
 
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The only successful technique that I've found in small square rooms is a 45 degree set-up.

This tricks the room into performing as if it has different dimensions.

All else, no matter how much you spend on room treatment, or move things around, cannot fix the problems with bass peaks and dips due to the room dimensions.

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clio09
3,362 posts
 
Rrog is most likely right about the speakers. Seems he's pretty familiar with them. On the other hand, Hornguys advice should be tried as a last ditch effort. Here is some information on why that set-up may work:

http://www.decware.com/paper14.htm

Read the entire article. I've used it before in a very small room with speakers that could be considered too big for the room. It worked quite well. At some of the audio show where rooms are somewhat small people like Roger Sanders and Kara Chaffe use this type of set up. Worth a try IMO.
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