@ei001h - there is a benefit of a smaller room that aught to be mentioned, that is cabin gain. If you take care of flutter echo, low frequency absorption and room nodes and the usual suspects, there is less energies required to pressurize a smaller room.
Here is where the benefits of a stand mount speaker with smaller baffle, smaller cabinet sizes (potentially less cabinet resonances) come into it's own, and the cabin gain loads up the room on lower frequencies.
A small room can sound very good too, done right.
How to make small room sound bigger
Is It possible to make a relatively small room sound larger ? I have a 14 x 11ft with 8 ft ceiling. The room is completely empty, with vinyl floors with cement floor under. Looking into vicoustic sound treatments.
What would be the best approach with absorption vs diffusion and placement to attain a bigger sound space if at all possible ?
I wrote to vicoustics, but did not hear back.
speakers : SF Elipsa, Diapason adamantes, Focal utopia micro
amps: mastersound 845, mcintosh mc452, NAD M10
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The small room requires room treatments to sound good, which has been mentioned above. In a small room, listening in the near-field is basically a requirement. This will allow for the room to be less of a factor. Also, IME no small room can actually portray ’scale’ like a larger room/larger speaker. Small room also requires, again IME, small speakers...generally stand mount to sound best. A sub woofer, so long as it is a smaller sub woofer, can be made to really boost the lower frequencies. BTW, I don’t consider a room with 14’ on one wall that small....to me walls that are 8-10’ apart are more typical of small rooms, albeit rooms with low ceilings are more challenging. Therefore, I also think the volume of the room has a lot to do with potential SQ, not just the distance between walls. As others have stated, a small room can sound great, but it needs a little thought and preferably it needs to be dedicated to the system. |
The right amount of balance between reflection which is necessaary at some spot in small room and between absorption and the importance of diffusion and the right balance in the right spot... Diffusers are completely underestimated indeed like said Rick and Lavigne... I use mainly tubes with a filtering cloth for diffusion ....And anyway there is a variable content on my wall with irregularities, like a library in 2 of my walls with many various reflective and diffusive content and geometry... And in a small room the goal is not big nor small imaging sound filling room but disapearance of the speakers and of the walls geometrical inconvenience...Because you could have imaging and reflections problems with distortions all over the place also...:Like clearthinker say above... In my room a square of 13 feet with 8 feet high, one of the speakers is a few inches in a wall corner , enscounced in it? is it not completely bad? Yes it is.... Then why did i feel no acoustical negative behaviour with this very bad location of one of the speakers? Right treatment balance will not do the job here...Nor plenty of diffusers...It takes me Helmholtz resonators and my tubular Helmholtz diffusers to make the wall corner where my speakers is captive to disapear....Modification of the pressure zones distribution in my room...
i succeed...
By the way my last discovery was the useof a twofold pliable screen behind my regular listening location... With difusive and reflective devices and the right amount of absorbtion also... This was extraordinary idea for me because it give me the last acoustical cue i was longing for to beat my 7 headphones : intimacy like with headphone without loosing any soundstage , imaging, natural timbre experience and listener envelopment... My last device is this twofold screen acoustic tool which also support 10 Helmholtz resonators and diffusers of various size but near 6 feet.... Intimacy is an acoustic quality rarely associated with speakers listening....I read about it nowhere why? But it is one of the greatest to enjoy....For me....
Also i use 3 type of ionization devices at low cost... ( save one which is useful for other medical utilization and cost me 100 bucks) Also i always enjoy my Schumann chinese low cost resonators grid at very low cost.. All these too numerous devices, all of them play their role in the acoustic results... The most important impactful one are the Helmholtz devices resonators and diffusers though...
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Excellent point. The objective is to improve SQ AND avoid near field listening. I enjoy classical music, large scale symphonic works and such. I would like to feel the scale as much as possible to simulate a concert hall. While I know it's highly unlikely to perfect, I am looking for a way to maximize this, if at all possible in 11x14 room. I plan on using SF Elipsa SE and/or Focal Micro utopia, using SET Mastersound. I've experimented with this and the amp drives my speakers without any difficultly. |
@mahgister - I am aware of Helmholtz resonators, I have read of their effectiveness but to be honest, I’d have a very steep learning curve on those. They certainly seem to be a lot more work than what I’ve done so far. Congratulations on your patience, because learning how to do it, before even implementation - wow. Q˜=p˜m/Zint
or, since p˜m=p˜b1−Q˜Za,rad, (7.53b)Q˜=p˜b1/(Zint+Za,rad)
where p˜b1 is the complex amplitude of the blocked pressure, Zint is the acoustic impedance of the resonator presented at the mouth, which comprises the sum of the impedances of the air in the neck and in the cavity, and Za,rad is the acoustic radiation impedance of the mouth. For a circular mouth of radius a it is given to a close approximation by the radiation impedance of a rigid circular piston with ka ≪ 1. (7.54)Za,rad=(ρ0c/πa2)[(ka)2/2+j(8/3π)ka]
which shows that the reactive (nearfield) component dominates where ka ≪ 1. The mean sound power absorbed by the resonator is given by (7.55)Wabs=12|Q˜|2Re{Zint}=[12|p˜b1|2/|Zint+Za,rad|2]Re{Zint}
This attains a maximum value at the resonance frequency when |Zint + Za,rad| = |Rint + Ra,rad|. This maximum may be maximized by equalizing the internal resistance and radiation resistance of the resonator, to give (7.56)Wabs=12|p˜b1|2/4Ra,rad=[πa2/4ρ0c(ka)2]|p˜b1|2
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