Large Speakers Small Rooms

Avoid large speakers with rear or side firing woofers in a small room. In addition, look for a speaker that has adjustments (switches) to contour the sound. Pay special attention to the radiation pattern. You may have to use a parametric eq to get them to work.

That said- I am using Snell XA-90's to great effect in my basement listening room. 10 wide, 7 high, 22 deep.

I once had a pair of b+w matrix 802 that also worked well.

I have a small listening room - 11X12X8. My previous speakers were B&W Matrix 803s on 7" stands. I now us smaller 2-way speakers - Taylor Ref monitors on 24" stands. No sub. The overall sound quality and ease of listening has improved. The bass is tighter. Overall greater resolution and imaging. You don't need to move alot of air in a small room. Consider smaller speakers with front ports. Also, smaller speakers are cheaper than bigger speakers - quality being equal. Joel

My Coincident Super Eclipses with their two 8" side-firing woofers (mirror imaged) per cabinet sound better in my current small room (12.5 x 17) than in their former room that was twice the sq footage.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Supers integrated with my smaller room. I have heard from some Coincident users that the even-bigger Total Eclipses sound even better in smaller rooms. Go figure.

I recently ran a pair of Wharfedale EVO-10 monitors for about a month in my small room. The small monitors had no advantages over the much larger Coincident 'Supers'--including imaging. And the bass; you just can't approximate real, tuneful, impactful bass. Of course, if you have "bass gone wild" in your room, you are better off just rolling it off (or taming it) with EQ or room treatments. In no way, do the Coincident Super Eclipses go wild with bass in my room---using the Cardas speaker placement formula. And damn if I don't get audible presence down to the upper 20's Hz range.

Not every truism about large speakers in small rooms bares up to experience.

When comparing the sound from a set of speakers in different size rooms it probably doesn't make sense to try to put the speakers at the same distance from the rear or side walls in both rooms because the ideal distances are a function of the room dimensions; so if the rooms are different sizes the ideal distances will be different.

I've been listening to hifi for a long time and I always thought I had a decent sense of where to put speakers in a room, but recently I tripped across the formula on the www.cardas.com site (you have to look around on the site to find it). I tried the exact distances (ratios) recommended and it was pretty impressive how the image and definition snapped into focus. The formula points out that there are some optimum room dimensions (ratios)- so some rooms are going to work better than others, and there is an optimum place to put speakers in a room. Go to the Cardas site, get your tape measure out, and get your spreadsheet or calculator running and input the ratios and then move your speakers to the recommended locations and you will be very pleasantly surprised. If your room has some irregularities you might have to use the ratios as a starting point and then test variations, but even so, the ratios will be helpful. Separately, I heard from one audiophile with very capable planar speakers that he spent a long time trying to get his locations dialed in only to find that he had been moving his speakers back and forth across the sweet spots and missing by just a an inch or two - so it can be a bit tricky. In any event, the formula recommended on the Cardas site is the least expensive (free) tweak you can add to your system that can really improve the sound. - Maybe give it a try and then report your findings on this Agon forum.

I have a 11 x 12 room. And Von Schweikert VR4jr. Not only is it small, but also almost square. I've been fighting with brightness for awhile now, but have finally arrived at a solution, I think. Oddly enough, the bass is actually tight and solid. I think my bookshelves break up some room modes.

I've had to put a comforter and blanket on the side walls. I have a bookshelf at first deflection points along side walls also which defuse very well. The back wall (behind listening seat) has various objects which defuse and the wall behind the speakers has auralex foam completely covering it.

I have eliminated the brightness and get solid soundstage and imaging. So obviously a medium or big room will give the best presentation, but I do get a decent sized soundstage that extends behind the backwall.

Rob