[ernest787]

Hey guys.  This is my first go round with adding any type of acoustical treatments to my room.  I'm totally new to this and have done some research and think I have a very basic understanding of this stuff, so I could use some direction from you guys on what would benefit me the most and what the best application of any room treatments would be.

Gear
Salk HT3
Rega RP1 Turntable
ARC SP14
Crown XLS 2500

I would like to upgrade my Turntable and my Power AMP (hopefully next year), but I still think I can get more out of the current set up.  My room is far from perfect.  In fact, it may be a lost cause but I figured you guys may be able to offer some advice or if nothing else let me know it's a lost cause so I don't spend money I don't need to.

Room








Crappy iPhone pictures, but hopefully it gives a general idea of the room. 1st picture is taken from where the speakers are located looking towards the listening position.  2nd picture is from the hallway where the box is sitting looking in towards the speakers. 3rd picture is from the room opening that is sits next to the record player.

As you can see the room is completely open in all directions and I have a sliding glass door on one side of the room with curtains over it.  They are fairly heavy but obviously not ideal.  The speakers are literally in the only place they can sit in the room.  They are currently about 7' apart from one another.  Slightly towed in towards the listening position.  You can see one speakers is sort of back in the corner while the other speaker is in a more open position.  Both fire back into the "bar" area.  One of the pictures makes it look like the right speaker is angled so that it's not "against" the wall.  There is approximately a foot and a half to 2 feet of space between the back wall and the speakers.  They are pulled as far into the room as they can go.   The listening position is approximately 10-11' from the speakers.

Data

I have no idea what is needed on this end but I used  Studio Six on the iPhone along with a IMM-6 mic and have the following graphs.






Both are taken from the listening position and the IMM-6 was calibrated per the included instructions.  I think the graphs confirmed what I was hearing in that I don't feel like I'm getting enough of the upper frequencies.  The bass sounds deep and tight, but everything is very mid-range heavy. 

I can post more info or take further measurements as needed, I'm just not sure what else to include.

Conclusion

Sorry for the long post, but I was hoping giving an idea of the room layout and some initial info might help get better responses.  Any ideas of what time of treatments I should look into and placement of said treatments would be greatly appreciated.

[jimdgoulding]

No need to apologize for your post.  We should thank you for your trust.  I would pull my speaks out from the bar another couple feet and push my sofa back one.  The width between your speaks shouldn't exceed this distance from your speaks to your seat, so bring them nearer together if needed.  The gist here is to get them away from boundaries and preserve a triangle deeper than it is wide and see what happens.  Spread out your chairs so they are not in the soundfield when listening.  Table, too.  Put it at the end of your sofa.  A bigger rug with a pad should cut down the reflection from your floor.  Adjust your triangle so the left speaker is further from the wall to its side even if your right speaker must then be moved more into the passageway to your kitchen and see what you think.

Hopefully you will gain a bit better imagery, a flatter frequency response where you sit and listen and greater dimensionality.

[ernest787]

I can maybe move the speakers from the wall a little more.  Maybe a foot if I'm lucky, but I think 1/2 a foot is more likely.  I cannot move the sofa back any further.  It is about a foot from being against the wall and bookcase as it is.  I typically sit on the sofa's right side (the Cro-Mags painting is above the normal listening position). 

To clarify though, you are saying if my speakers are 7' apart then I shouldn't be sitting more than 7' from them, correct? 

[*Scotty*]

Ernest, your couch is basically sitting in a standing wave zone, that from your measurements appears to be centered at a frequency of about 50Hz. If you move your couch out away from the wall behind it you be able to reach a position where the amount of bass below 200 Hz is diminished to the point that your overall response is flatter and the bass is in proportion to the rest of the frequency spectrum. You may or may not be seated 7ft. away from your speakers when this occurs. I would expect that the imaging would also show some improvement when the response curve at the listening position is flatter.
Scotty

[ernest787]

Ok. So the wife is out right now so I took it upon myself to do some rearranging.  I'm sure she's going to be thrilled when she gets home 

I moved the left speaker out of the corner.  It's now sitting out past the media rack.  Both speakers were moved into the room approximately a foot or foot and a half.  I also moved the couch forward approximately 2 feet.  It is now basically sitting even with the front of the fireplace.  The rug was also pulled out from under the couch so it sits more into the room. 

Here is the response I pulled.











There is a noticeable improvement with those minor changes.  Definitely feels like the bass and mids are more in sync now, and I think the data supports that.

Any other suggestions?  Starting to measure may have been a bad idea, b/c now I want more improvement 

[MaxCast]

I don't know if I would trust that measurement set up.  I doubt your dropping 30dB on the high side.
" The speakers are literally in the only place they can sit in the room." may be a problem.
Is the bar staying?  Does not look usable with current set up.  Can you flip the room (speakers where couch is, etc)?  What are it's dimensions?
I'd like to see a shot from the sliders towards the opening.

[ernest787]

There are 3 more photos of the room.  The first is from the sliding glass doors into the room. The second shows the speaker placement in relation to the wall, and the third the position of the couch in relation to the back wall. 

The speakers were moved to the right and then out since the original post, and the couch was moved further into the room. 

To you questions.  The bar is staying.  You can kind of see it in the first picture, but the bar separates the kitchen from the living room.  There is no way to remove or move it.

I also cannot flip the room.  The fire place is in the corner and right next to it is the bookshelf (which is actually a door that opens to a closet, so it needs room to swing open).

I realize the room is FAR from ideal and there are plenty of compromises that I'm having to make.  Just moving the couch forward and the speakers a small amount have already helped.  So if that's the only difference, I'll be happy, but I'm hoping maybe there is something else I can do to get even more out of this current system. 

Oh.  Dimensions.  I don't have the exact honestly and can't find my tape measurer right now, but from the back wall into the kitchen is about 27' and its about 23-25' wide.  From the back wall to the bar wall I'd guesstimate it's about 20-22' feet. 

[mresseguie]

Hi, Ernest.

I think you're doing a pretty darned good job of describing/documenting your room. 

I, too, suffer a challenging room (all because I'm not allowed to locate my main system in the best place in the entire house!!) Yeah. I'm married, but I love her more than my audio equipment, so I suffer quietly.

 What do you think of placing a couple acoustic panels behind the speakers along the wall of the bar? This approach has helped in my HT system. My wife even got used to them after a very short time.

I made them myself using Roxul rock wool and homemade frames. It's far cheaper than buying them from an acoustic panel company.

Good luck!

Michael

[ernest787]

Thank you!  I figured the more pictures, etc I can post to give the best description of the room would help. 

I've discussed placing some type of acoustical treatment on the bar wall & the wife is not opposed to it. She just said they have to look "nice."  Before doing anything though, I wanted to come here and get some opinions and see what the best options would be.  I don't want to just buy/make panels and put them up without really understanding what I'm doing and if I'm even placing them in the right place.

[mresseguie]

BTW how do you like the Crown XLS2500? (There's been a very lively discussion with a tremendous number of views discussing the various XLS amps.) I'll wager they'd love to hear your impressions if you haven't already posted there.

Sometimes I'm sure I don't know what I'm doing, but it's always worth a try to see how this or that affects the sound. I just discovered placing a 4' x 2' acoustic panel directly below my center channel zaps a lot of the resonance I was experiencing. The TV/HT gear stand was never intended to be quiet. It just wants to sing. Lol!

Michael

[mjosef]

A symmetrical placement will not work in your situation, unless you can damp the hell out of the left corner .
Try placing the right speaker as far out from the bar as possible/practical toed towards the center of the couch, then move the left speaker as far from the left wall as allowable...then experiment with toe in, starting at the left end of the couch, panning across toward the right end.
Use a mono recording to obtain tight/narrow center image. The ending position may not look pretty or symmetrical.

Edit: You got the XLS...you can cut the left (corner) speaker gain by 1 click to reduce the gain of the corner

[ernest787]

Michael - I really enjoy the sound the Crown XLS series.  I actually have a XLS 2000 powering my Songtowers in the TV room as well.  They are cheap alternatives to a lot of the higher price amps and I think they do a great job of holding their own.  That said, I am planning to purchase a AVA amp.  I'm torn between upgrading my TT or Power amp next, but am leaning towards the TT b/c I don't really have any real complaints with the  Crown.

MJ - The problem is I cannot really move the right speaker out any further or I will lose the WAF.  She would not be happy about it sitting in the walk away to the kitchen.  If I'm understanding your post correctly though, I may be able to cut the gain on the left speaker and obtain a similar result?

to summarize, would the following help?

1. Dampening the left corner (bass trap?)
2. Placing Acoustic Panels behind each of the speakers
3. Dropping the gain on the left side

Other suggestions?

[JLM]

Sorry but this is a typical setup with more invested in gear than the room justifies.

Near-field setup is your friend (such as a 5 ft equilateral speaker/listener triangle, away from all walls) takes mid/high frequency room effects out of the equation.  Bass (frequencies below about 140 Hz, room dependent) behave as waves.  In-room bass acts like waves in a shallow bath tub, they move back and forth, crashing or synchronizing (+/- 20 dB) that changes with location/frequency.  The solution is multiple bass generators (swarm) spread around the room.  The only other partial solution is a "black hole active absorber":

http://www.spatialcomputer.com/page9/page10/page10.html

Read Floyd E. Toole's "Sound Reproduction" or search for "swarm" (why spend thousands first?).  Toole worked for the CNC, then Harmon International.  You can only EQ to a single location.  Treatments are for band-aids for flawed setups. 

You'd be better off with small mains like Gallo Micro's that would allow for more domestically acceptable positioning and adding a swarm of subwoofers (see Duke LeJuene's site here at Audio Circle).

[jimdgoulding]

Agree that it is not necessary to try and maintain a 7' triangle.  In your case it may even be a detriment ( JLM).  More important is that the triangle not be so large that your speakers have to be so close to the bar and the left corner.  And, yes, moving your rug nearer to your speakers should help cut early reflection off your floor especially if you can save the bucks or hit a garage sale and get a larger real wool one.  I don't have much experience with the use of acoustic damping panels so I'll leave that to those who do.  Keep on truckin and telling us of your progress. 

"To clarify though, you are saying if my speakers are 7' apart then I shouldn't be sitting more than 7' from them, correct?"  No, adjust for what will fit and give you a believable soundstage.  The legs of my triangle from speaker to seat are typically 10" greater in length than the width of my speakers and that is subject to change either way depending on the recording.  Cheers.






 

[ernest787]

Thank you again for all the suggestions and information.  JLM you are probably right about the equipment for the room, but unfortunately I don't have the luxury of having a dedicated listening room.  I could have gone with smaller mains, but that wasn't really what I wanted and knew that ultimately I'd always want the HT3s.  So I went ahead and purchased them knowing that I'd be making trade offs.  While I won't ever get the perfect sound set up with my arrangement, I'd like to see if I can get more out of it.

That said, I talked to the wife this morning and thankfully she is very understanding of my hobby and green lit some furniture rearrangement.  She won't OK moving the right speaker into the walkway but I could probably move it a little more if I need to.  In the mean time I lowered the gain on the left channel a little.  That seemed to help quite a bit.  I then rotated the room.  The couch is now parallel to the fireplace (so it's diagonal). The red chair is setting in the old listening position and the other chair is out of the sound field now. 

I have moved the red chair up so that I'm basically sitting in the middle of the room when listening.  That was a big change.  The wife won't allow me to leave the chair there but I can definitely move it up when listening. 




There is the new plot.

[jimtranr]

As someone who also listens in a far-from-perfect room plagued by asymmetrical placement, reflection, and speaker boundary interference response issues--and since your wife seems amenable--I'd answer "yes" and "yes" to your questions #1 and #2. Far from being "band aids" in my setup, treatments have corrected a channel imbalance problem and significantly improved perceived frequency balance, bass detail, imaging, and transient response, all without having to adjust either channel's gain.

If you consider going that route, you might want to submit photos and a diagram of your room to one or more acoustic treatment manufacturers to get their recommendations on treatment selection and placement. I found that invaluable in dealing with my situation.

Jim