Small Room - Want Maggie's

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Johnaki

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Small Room - Want Maggie's
« on: 23 Mar 2013, 02:03 am »
I've posted this in the planar circle and it was suggested I post here also.

I've got an 11.5x9 room that I would like to put MMG's or MG-12's in.  This room will be a dedicated two channel listening room with no other purpose.  One 11.5' wall is windows above and plaster below.  The other 11.5 wall is all wood.  One 9' wall is plaster and the other is wood.  The floor is maple flooring.

I will be able to treat the room as I like. 

Any ideas what I should be thinking about for room treatments.  Any ideas about speaker selection or placement would also be helpful.

One more thing, one 11.5 wall is the doorway and the rest is closet space.  It would be easy to take the closet out and have an 11.5x11.5 room.  I've read where a square room is not ideal, so not sure it would be a good idea, but would be doable.

Thanks for any suggestions.

timind

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Re: Small Room - Want Maggie's
« Reply #1 on: 23 Mar 2013, 02:33 am »
I tried a pair of MG12s in a small room (11x13) and had to return them after a week of trying every recommendation. Lots of good advice but in the end the Maggies never took me there. Maybe their sound just wasn't my taste.
Good luck with your trial.

Alex Reynolds

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Re: Small Room - Want Maggie's
« Reply #2 on: 25 Mar 2013, 09:59 pm »
A square room is not ideal, but a larger square room is more ideal than a smaller rectangle room. If removing the closet isn't a giant ordeal, I would think it to be a good idea.

For treatment, I typically recommend starting with both the front corners being treated floor to ceiling, either by superchunk/tritraps or soffit style traps and reflection points to be taken care of, either by diffusion or absorption. In a small room like yours, I typically recommend absorption at the reflection points instead of diffusion. With that said, diffusion might help with certain speakers. Some speakers simply don't have a great soundstage at short distances, and diffusion can help develop that sooner. Lastly, the back of the room tends to have a lot of "boominess" for lack of a better word, so you'll usually see some suggestion for thicker traps on the rear wall which I agree with.

My goal is always to end with the right "sound" for the room that one envisions. It all starts with knowing what you want to achieve in the room and knowing what it's lacking at the moment. For a more indepth discussion on quantifying how we think rooms "sound" - check out our article on decay times here: http://gikacoustics.com/understanding-decay-times/

Johnaki

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Re: Small Room - Want Maggie's
« Reply #3 on: 27 Mar 2013, 06:11 pm »
Thanks guys,

Could you direct me to an example of soffit style absorption.

Also, can these treatments be successfully done DIY.  I'm retired and have a full wood shop.  I would enjoy, and have the time, doing some of this.

John

Alex Reynolds

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Re: Small Room - Want Maggie's
« Reply #4 on: 29 Mar 2013, 12:01 am »
A soffit trap is simply a square trap (that looks like it would be a ceiling soffit). You can check out the GIK Soffit Trap on our website for ideas on it.
Thick porous absorbers like the soffits are much less difficult to DIY than say a Helmholtz Resonator or other pressure based tuned traps, though of course getting the fabric on tightly and neatly with sharp edges, etc is a bit more difficult.

maplegrovemusic

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Re: Small Room - Want Maggie's
« Reply #5 on: 3 Apr 2013, 02:03 pm »
I would recommend getting some Owens Corning or Johnsmanville . Superchunk the corners . Experiment with the 2x4 panels on both the front and back walls . Here is a pic of a maggie setup i use to have . When i treated my room it was a bigger improvement than any gear swap i had been doing for years .