[FullRangeMan]

Looking funny?? No good be part of this ''club'' though.
I had made several posts under this title in another forum, as my room is small, only 12m² and can be more colleagues who have small room, Iam posting this topic here too.
This is a permanent problem and really unpleasant to hear music, but unfortunately is the situation of most audiophiles and music lovers in the modern world. Of course, if you have ample funds or properties as family asset, you can afford the luxury of having a good size room to listen to your favorite music!

As I like to solve problems empirically, w/tailor made solutions, without use manufactured products, standardized corrective or profit oriented companies, I prompt to create this ''club'' to help each other solve the problems of acoustics, furniture, racks, platforms, etc for small rooms, or if this is not possible just storytelling and swearing the builders of these financed cages.

I was able to buy this current apto, just out of a rent, but as usual it has a small room, the former apto I rented had one bedroom and a much greater living room because it was old. This is the first tip, apto with large room are the old ones, old wiring may be changed, your living room no!
Useful tips for buying audiophile apartment:
Thinking about everyone who can go out of this club(I even want to go), I thought about some useful tips for those going change home and want a better room than the previous.
1) Apartment with large living room is old, old wiring may be changed, not your living room!

2) Apto wellmade and with thick walls, is old one, before 1970s years, but may need renew it.

3) Good acoustics room is the Golden Rule (Golden Ratio = 1.00 Height x Width 1.618 x Length 2.618) also known as a shoebox, the resonances are smaller here than in other proportions of the room. Square room, or close to L / Long is horrible to listen to music, generates a lot of echo and sound stage is impaired. A listening room of B & W-UK Steyning (Steyning Research Establishment) uses the classical Golden Ratio size 3m x 5m x 8m.

4) Electricity is 220Volts good, it costs the same price per KW / Time 127Volts and has more voltage and current.

5) Electricity is less bad in a building that has its own transformer, what is usual today. If you buy a house your transformer will be collectively, on streets posts with hundreds of residential and commercial users such as workshops, welders, metalworkers, carpenters etc and its voltage will be much worse because you are under the indifference of the electric company etc...

6) The level of noise in the room determines how good will be the end result of the listening.

7) Wiring good is thick wire (hard wire, AWG10 or larger), stranded wire is not suited for building as we know.

Parquet floors, wood, tile and bare walls create a room 'live', carpet and rugs create a room more muffled. Thick drapes are great to reduce outside noise and his wife will like.

9) My city is very humid and ground apartament and 1º floor has more humidity than hi floor, it can mould some CDs, etc., but if you have a tubed amp the prob is solved.

10 A radical solution to end the Small Room prob I evaluate for some years, is to buy or rent a room in a small business building. It also eliminates the neighbors prob. However is necessary to speak with the building manager on schedules, weekends, read the bylaws, the convention of the condominium and of course take a look at the building transformer. And you still get rid the naughty wife factor.

11) Small room can be great good if your amp is a small tube amp and you use a fullrange speaker.
Regards

[DTB300]

2) Apto wellmade and with thick walls, is old one, before 1970s years, but may need renew it.

Finding an apartment with thick walls is always preferred, but most of the time they are not available.

3) Good acoustics room is the Golden Rule (Golden Ratio = 1.00 Height x Width 1.618 x Length 2.618) also known as a shoebox, the resonances are smaller here than in other proportions of the room. Square room, or close to L / Long is horrible to listen to music, generates a lot of echo and sound stage is impaired. A listening room of B & W-UK Steyning (Steyning Research Establishment) uses the classical Golden Ratio size 3m x 5m x 8m.

Good luck finding an apartment/room that fits the Golden Rule.  Most of the time a custom made room is the solution.

4) Electricity is 220Volts good, it costs the same price per KW / Time 127Volts and has more voltage and current.

220 is BAD for this side of the world unless you want to hook up a dryer

7) Wiring good is thick wire (hard wire, AWG10 or larger), stranded wire is not suited for building as we know.

Gauge does not equate to good sound.

9) My city is very humid and ground apartament and 1º floor has more humidity than hi floor, it can mould some CDs, etc., but if you have a tubed amp the prob is solved.

Huh?  A tube amp will solve 1st floor humidity probs? 

11) Small room can be great good if your amp is a small tube amp and you use a full range speaker.

SMALL TUBE amp to solve small room problems???  Really???  The room is still there no matter what amplification you use.  Room Problems = Equipment Position + Seating Position + Room Treatments.

[Hipper]

10 A radical solution to end the Small Room prob I evaluate for some years, is to buy or rent a room in a small business building. It also eliminates the neighbors prob. However is necessary to speak with the building manager on schedules, weekends, read the bylaws, the convention of the condominium and of course take a look at the building transformer. And you still get rid the naughty wife factor.

Surely if you buy or rent a room in a small business building it would be better to use this for the naughty wife?

[FullRangeMan]

Gauge does not equate to good sound.
Huh?
 A tube amp will solve 1st floor humidity probs? 
SMALL TUBE amp to solve small room problems???  Really???  The room is still there no matter what amplification you use.  Room Problems = Equipment Position + Seating Position + Room Treatments.

Gauge does not equate to good sound. Huh?
For security reasons is better use tick gauge hard wiring, heavy gauge=more safety & more energy avaliable to the home.
If the wiring is thin it will become hot with hi amperage flux, as air conditioning, and electric shower, my electric shower is 220V/5500W, and the news ones reach 7K Watts or more.
Iam felling rich, I was told my area will receive a new bigger power station this year.

A tube amp will solve 1st floor humidity probs?
A 6C33 run at 250ºC to 350ºC inside the bulb, it may dry your room air for some hours...

SMALL TUBE amp to solve small room problems???  Really???
Small room=small amp need if the speaker is hi sensitivity, and=low SPL need.
Small room=small problems, Large room=large problems.

Hipper: When in doubt ask for divorce...

[DTB300]

Gauge - as long as u meet code...no need to go larger just to go larger

A Tube Amp as a dehumidifier?

12 meters squared is considered small???  How tall are ceilings???

[Letitroll98]

12 meters squared is considered small???  How tall are ceilings???

That's a 13'x10' room using US measurements.  I think we could generally define small room in this context as spare bedroom or a small den.  "Small room" in acoustics means anything under auditorium size, but that's of course not where FRM is heading here.  I think it's a great idea for a little subset club, maybe we should propose a child board.

[DTB300]

I think it's a great idea for a little subset club, maybe we should propose a child board.

It could be, if enough traffic would warrant it.   Not sure if it would get enough. 

And with the Acoustics forum, room size, placement, and treatments are already covered. 

What else would make this forum worthy or different from Acoustics??

[Letitroll98]

It could be, if enough traffic would warrant it.   Not sure if it would get enough. 

And with the Acoustics forum, room size, placement, and treatments are already covered. 

What else would make this forum worthy or different from Acoustics??

Oh no, only viable as a child board to the Acoustics Circle.  And more of a passing thought than a serious proposal.  You're right, it would of course depend on the resultant traffic from this thread.  Perhaps a sticky would do.  All of the topics are covered under the Acoustics Circle, I was mostly just supporting FRM who I believe is looking to segregate those topics as they apply to small rooms be it in this thread, stickied or not, or in a child board if the thread grows.

I have the same issues, a 12m² room that when I got this townhouse thought would be perfect as a dedicated audio room, and proved to be a nightmare getting right.  I'm barely approaching that now.  I've got it pretty good with dynamic speakers, still having a few issues with my Maggies.  At least it's been an education, of sorts.

[FullRangeMan]

Gauge - as long as u meet code...no need to go larger just to go larger

A Tube Amp as a dehumidifier?

12 meters squared is considered small???  How tall are ceilings???

Well, I know Iam a bit exaggerated, but in 10 or 15 years you will be grateful to have used excellent materials, above what local regulations require. 
I mean say if you made ​​your home to your own use and living, but if it was made ​​to sell and make a profit anything can be used, as we can see in audio equips.

My room are w=3,15m x d=3,8m, h=2,8m so it is only 12m² and 33,5m³, it is very small as you can figure.
I like to classify the size of rooms by the cubic volume:
Small = up to 50m cubic
Medium = from 50 to 100m cubic
Large = over 100m cubic.
Believe me 12m² are small indeed, I said it why I use this room to listen music, of course for Home Theater and its action movies it is a good size etc

[Hipper]

I would guess there must be a minimum sized room, where, with anything smaller, you would be better off using headphones?

I used a 13' x 8' x 8' room (about 10m sq, or 24m cubed). Using the long wall, Auralex foam and a digital equaliser I got acceptable sound. This was effectively a nearfield set up. Now with a room 1.6 times the volume (40m cubed) and more rectangular and still using the the foam and equaliser, I get a better sound, not only because there's more space but because of sidewall reflections giving a more lively impression.

[FullRangeMan]

I fell this size exist, to me it is under 9m², according my personal taste.
I see only two prob with the phones:
1) Hi price, a Sennheiser HD800 cost $1400 already various years and the price dont fall.
This phone ask a dedicated tube amp(more around $500), so $2k for a phone system is no irrelevant.

2) Even the HD800 dont can replace a regular speakers.
I have asked several HD800 users and all told me that it is good, but not enough to replace the speakers.
The great fullrange Visaton B200 cost just 125euros each at Thomann.
For this price the HD 800 had to have superior sound quality to any tower loudspeakers.
If he was this good, it would be the solution to my problem, but I sure it yet sound as a headphone.

[Hipper]

I agree about headphones. It is really a different way of listening.

My point was that there must come a situation where the room is so small that no speakers can perform, apart from acting like headphones.

Maybe I'm wrong? Possibly some set up with very small speakers would work better then headphones? My desk for example is 2m x 1m. Many people have small computer speakers that provide a fair sound, so perhaps a 2m x 2m room could sound OK.

[FullRangeMan]

A 2m x 2m room seems a bathroom, really no suited to speakers.
I would welcome a great headphone better than any speaker for a affordable price, as 300-500 dollars, I would even buy a tube amp to match, but the soundstage had to be really big, large...

In studio they used in the 90 years the nearfield monitor Yamaha NS1000, may be others nearfield monitors today.

[FullRangeMan]

Nothing new on the front, unless I change my system to other room on the house for test a bigger room(19m²) acoustics.
At the Cardas site I found the Golden Trapagon room project, it is the best room design I see so far, and would like to inform audiophiles, then those who visited those site may already know. The proportions reported on the site are in feets, then on the 1st image transfer to metric system.

The 2nd image below a drawing with measurements in centimeters of usefull floor area, and area in m² and volume in m³.

As it can be seen in the drawings the front of the room where the loudspeakers seat, is smaller, because of this difference in size to said site q has a great effect on the spectral decay of musical notes.

Imagine that the Cardas site said the room Golden Trapagon room works as a musical instrument (guitar) side walls has the effect of strings and the bottom wall has the effect of the bridge of the guitar where the strings are tied, it must be wonderful.  I think who has little room is the audiophile that suffers most, and want own a large room, than have a great audio system.  Room very small restricts the possibilities alot.  At least we are free from echo.
Besto

[FullRangeMan]

Adapting your small room to Golden Trapagon:
Unfortunately because the room is small only the roof can be modified, the procedure is simple, just a linear lowering of the ceiling at the speakers side, as follows:
Lower in the loudspeakers wall side and where are higher at the other end of the room.
>> Formula: room height / initial height = 1.26
ex. if the room height is 2.80 M / 1.26 M = 2.22,
Then on the side of loudspeakers wall the roof begin with a height of 222cm and at the end of the room the ceiling will have the normal height of 280cm. The false ceiling can be made ​​of wood or absorbent material among many others which exist in the market, however the empty space between the false ceiling and the old ceiling of the room can not be vague to avoid echo or resonance, it should be placed  an acoustic absorbent glass wool (is toxic material), blanket cotton, polyester or blankets and old clothes ... The new roof would look like this (in red).

Below the image of a theater with sloped ramp for comparison.

[JBrahms]

If there's a Small Room Club, I'm a member !  (see my thread on Two Room Choices, Both Bad). 

[FullRangeMan]

[FullRangeMan]

[JLM]

Any residentially sized room is a challenge with small rooms (as defined above) a particular challenge.  I've had a Cardas Golden Cuboid (8 ft x 13 ft x 21 ft) room for 10 years with the Cardas prescribed near-field setup and while I've enjoyed it, do wish for more displacement (how American) as it feels like a 10 ft x 13 ft x 8 ft room (based on the listening position). 

Some have said that 12 ft x 19 ft x 32 ft would be wonderful, but then might as well try the Cardas Golden Trapagon and build it inside a separate structure (the room would be over 31 feet long with back wall being nearly 16 ft x 26 ft = 10,100 cubic feet = 293 m cubic = 5 times the size of my room).

At that size first reflections would be greatly reduced, but it'd be harder to develop room filling sound.