[aterphasma]

So, I'm resurrecting this thread. Winter is on the way out, days are getting longer, and I'm feeling like doing something constructive with my hands.


Thing is, now I have questions (that I should have considered before, but whatever).

Is there a minimum recommended room size or seating position distance below which the X-MTM will not work very well? (Unsure if this is even a reasonable or useful question...)

I've got a couple places that I'll be able to use until I can build out my listening room, but even that won't be as big as I'd hoped.

I wonder whether I'll need to adjust anything or not to continue with these towers, or if maybe the smaller, sealed box of an X-CS style (oriented vertically?) would work better. I like to listen at 50~80 dB (depending on mood & etc.) and background-ish levels most of the rest of the time.

I've got a couple spaces I could use. One is 8'x15' (long room), the other is 12'x18' (living room). Both hardwood floors, paintings on the walls, a couple tall bookshelves, desk, chair, table, couch, windows with blinds and/or light curtains... typical house room, nothin special. Acoustic textured ceiling in the living room, flat ceiling in the long room. Can't really treat them because the paintings can't go. Neither room has enough space to pull the speakers more than ~1' away from the walls. I'm sure the rooms are pretty horrible, but here I am.

So... given the rooms... is the X-MTM gonna work alright? X-CS, maybe? Neither, build the pair and try to sell them and get a new/different kit that would work better for me, like the X-LS?

[mlundy57]

So, I'm resurrecting this thread. Winter is on the way out, days are getting longer, and I'm feeling like doing something constructive with my hands.


Thing is, now I have questions (that I should have considered before, but whatever).

Is there a minimum recommended room size or seating position distance below which the X-MTM will not work very well? (Unsure if this is even a reasonable or useful question...)

I've got a couple places that I'll be able to use until I can build out my listening room, but even that won't be as big as I'd hoped.

I wonder whether I'll need to adjust anything or not to continue with these towers, or if maybe the smaller, sealed box of an X-CS style (oriented vertically?) would work better. I like to listen at 50~80 dB (depending on mood & etc.) and background-ish levels most of the rest of the time.

I've got a couple spaces I could use. One is 8'x15' (long room), the other is 12'x18' (living room). Both hardwood floors, paintings on the walls, a couple tall bookshelves, desk, chair, table, couch, windows with blinds and/or light curtains... typical house room, nothin special. Acoustic textured ceiling in the living room, flat ceiling in the long room. Can't really treat them because the paintings can't go. Neither room has enough space to pull the speakers more than ~1' away from the walls. I'm sure the rooms are pretty horrible, but here I am.

So... given the rooms... is the X-MTM gonna work alright? X-CS, maybe? Neither, build the pair and try to sell them and get a new/different kit that would work better for me, like the X-LS?

The X-MTMs take up the same amount of space as the X-CS on speaker stands. The difference is in bass extension. The MTMs being in a larger ported cabinet will play down lower (40Hz vs 70Hz for the X-CS). For music you can get away without a sub with the MTMs but will need one with the CS. The MTMs can still benefit from crossing to a sub at 40Hz but it's not absolutely necessary. As long as the rear of the MTMs are about 18" or more away from the wall the ports will be fine. If you were to have bass issues, you could plug one or both of the ports.

The 12' x 18' room would likely work better but either speaker can work in either room.

[corndog71]

I’m a big fan of using a pair of X-CS on stands.  They might start rolling off at 70Hz but it’s a very gradual roll off.  I ran a pair without subs for a couple of years and really enjoyed them. 

Not to knock the X-MTMs but there are trade offs either way.  With the towers, yes you will get deeper bass but you also get a very large ported cabinet.  The X-CS are still big speakers but much easier to manage and because they’re sealed they are less bothered by close wall placement.

Check out my rig from many years ago.
https://youtu.be/yi-lmFVA2l4

[Tyson]

I agree with corndog, if you have to place the speaker very close to the wall, sealed speakers are better.

[aterphasma]

Cool cool, thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, the proximity to the wall is the main reason I started looking askance at the tower design, even with changing to front ports (which a recent thread demonstrated with a gloss black cabinet -- I liked it!)

Looks like it's probably going to make my life easiest if I do smaller sealed boxes for these, a la X-CS. And then some day, if I magically get a lot more space to play with, I can reuse the components to make towers (thanks for that idea, Hobbs!). I ran my old speakers without a subwoofer for many, many years. It worked out just fine. I do plan to build a subwoofer in the future, for sure.

More questions, though (which I found answers to, maybe):

When we say "distance from the wall", what's the other endpoint of the measurement? The edge of the front baffle? Nearest corner/edge of the speaker cabinet?
With speakers that are 1.5' deep, that's like half the distance recommended to space out from the front wall, right? Does that mean they actually extend 4.5' into the room? -- Well, with a rear port, that's probably not a bad idea...

I guess it should be measured from the virtual center of where the sound is originating in the speaker itself, so on these MTM arrangements, the tweeter.
Makes sense to me, but I don't know if it's reasonable or correct.

[Tyson]

Usually box speakers are measured from the back of the speaker when it comes to pulling them away from the wall.

[aterphasma]

Huh... okay, that's interesting. And not quite what I expected.

This is getting more academic, now, but do front ported speakers behave differently than rear ported, in that regard? Or does the same recommendation hold? I know it's important to keep rear ports far enough from the wall that they're unrestricted, but is that for sound wave development or to prevent airflow restriction?

I realize I can Google a lot of things, but... Google is getting worse and worse, and it's getting harder to find good information over there. I learn better through discussion, anyway.

[mlundy57]

Huh... okay, that's interesting. And not quite what I expected.

This is getting more academic, now, but do front ported speakers behave differently than rear ported, in that regard? Or does the same recommendation hold? I know it's important to keep rear ports far enough from the wall that they're unrestricted, but is that for sound wave development or to prevent airflow restriction?

I realize I can Google a lot of things, but... Google is getting worse and worse, and it's getting harder to find good information over there. I learn better through discussion, anyway.

Front ported can be placed closer to the wall than rear ported. However, they will not get the bass reinforcement from the wall that rear ported would which could affect bass extension. Also, the closer any speaker is to the wall, the smaller and shallower the sound stage will be compared to when that speaker is further from the wall.

[Tyson]

Front ported you can measure from the front of the speaker.  A lot of it has to do with giving the port proper 'breathing room'.  Putting it on the front obviously gives it a lot more breathing room.

[Tyson]

Front ported can be placed closer to the wall than rear ported. However, they will not get the bass reinforcement from the wall that rear ported would which could affect bass extension. Also, the closer any speaker is to the wall, the smaller and shallower the sound stage will be compared to when that speaker is further from the wall.

And listen to Mike, he knows what he's talking about

[aterphasma]

And listen to Mike, he knows what he's talking about

Oh yeah, I'm gonna listen to all y'all here. I don't really know that much, but all this is really fun to learn about. Looks like I'll try to keep it rear ported if/when I get around to making the towers, since I do like some nice bass when I can get it.

And thanks for helping answer my silly questions.

Now I gotta go plan and lay out a cut sheet for some X-CS boxes.