[robert1325]

Hi ,

I would like to ask some opinions or advice, about my current speakers.
B&W dm 603 s3 : http://www.bwspeakers.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/products.models/label/Model%20DM603%20S3

I am using these in a 4 x4 m.  room, they are driven by a 2x100 watt SS chinese amplifier.
http://www.ornec.com/product/EU/G&W_TW-2006X_integrated_amplifier/ 
Don't let the price fool you, it was a great upgrade from my old cambridge audio 640A.

I really like the signature of these speakers (after auditioning Jmlabs 716,elac, quad 22l , epos m5, paradigm refence 60)   But in my room the bass is boomy ( this got much better after my amp upgrade) and the volume needs to be very high to get good speed and details ( openess)     there's also some kind of boxxiness in the midrange

Would it be better to get some smaller speakers ,  bookshelves instead?     they are about 2 feet from the wall ( further is not possible)   and the left speaker is near a side wall,   left sounds louder.     

Some comments would be greatly appreciated.  I'm using good cables (speltz anti-cables) and my source is a bolder modded squeezebox.      My music taste is all over the place ( jazz, indie rock, lounge, funk.......... )    And I use the system for my movies to ( quite a film buff)

Thank you

PS
Sorry for my grammar, I'm dutch

[robert1325]

Oh yeah, I forgot something,     I tried the amp / squeezebox combo on my fathers B&W 801's   and it sounded great , so it's not the fault of the amp and source

[machine]

A 4m x 4m room is going to be a problem in itself.

Any room with equal dimensions, or even multilple of another (i.e. 12m x 4m (4x3=12)) is going to have problems with nulls and peaks. 

See the Acoustic circle for more info, and what room treatments, if any, can help you.

I have stacks of mineral wool sheets, which have been sitting since the spring waiting to be made into bass traps and 1st reflection point absorbers.  I need to get working on this so I can see what difference it makes.  My understandig is it can make a huge difference.

[ted_b]

Yes, as I was typing about the room dimensions "machine" brought up the same issue.  You've got huge bass humps at 43 and 87 hz, reinforced by the two equivalent dimensions.  You need bass trappings.  Second, if your speakers were "too" big for your room the volume would not need to be turned up so high; in fact, the opposite.  The acoustics are your first priority, then listen to some speakers.

[kenscott30]

Ask here.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=73.0

They might be able to help.

Ken

[robert1325]

Thank you for your suggestions   

I just meassured up my room again, and to my surprise it's not 4x4 but 3x3 meters...

room treatments are important I know,  but since my room is already to small I don't want to use the space that's left space for bass traps.   

But I don't want to write room treatments off right away, my experience is not big enough for that.

The B&W's do sound better when the volume is louder , I had to crank them in the shop to.

Do you think , changing my speakers to bookshelves will solve some of the problems I'm having?
Maybe something more open sounding? One thing to keep in mind, is that I didn't audition the amp I bought.    The match might not work ?     

Thanks again

[ted_b]

Doubled up bass nodes now at 58 and 116.  Bass traps don't need to make the room smaller, they can be put in corners, etc.    I'd use bookshelves with a small sub to augment.  Use a $599 Velodyne SMS-1 to smooth/EQ your bass realtime in the room.

[chadh]

Here's another idea that might help...but it will probably take some work.  If you're using a squeezebox, you can get a plug-in that does digital room correction: http://inguzaudio.com/RoomCorrection/

I haven't used it myself - but I'm hoping to try it soon.  The software is free, but you have to get hold of some recording equipment to take measurements of your room, and the hardware requirements are not trivially met.

Having said that, I have no idea how well this DRC will deal with really serious bass peaks.

Chad

[robert1325]

Hi thank you ,    I was thinking of doing that sometime,  my dad has some microphones ( I think they are phantom, or at least they work on batteries.   )     I can wire it into a luxman tape recorder and wire that into my creative soundcard. 

My budget is the money I would get from selling my speakers and about 200 hundred extra.    So some bookshelves wouldn't be a bad idea, I could get a subwoofer later.       That SMS 1 thing is 850 euro's       

My new jolida phono stage comes tommorow,  the digital room correction will not apply for the analog .

[robert1325]

ok, just did some sweeps   I'll do some processing on them tommorow...

Was frightenend to blow up my speakers 

[Rob Babcock]

Wow, your room looks a lot like mine!   I have a similar "problem"- having moved here not long ago I find my speakers right on the top of side of what will fit in my room, sonically speaking (I have Monitor Audio Gold Reference GR20's).  My room is fairly well treated w/8th Nerve Adapts & Responses, but I will finally need to tweak the parametric EQ to trim the bass just a tad.

[warnerwh]

You could also try a Behringer product to help get rid of these peaks. I'd still get at least 2 bass traps in that room. It's just too important if you want good sound quality. Until you've heard the improvement you won't believe how much they can help. You can make some yourself fairly inexpensively.

In either case you don't want those bass modes to ruin your sound, they will also destroy midrange clarity. Any speaker you put in your room will have this issue.

You'd be better off getting a lower range speaker in a manufacturers lineup and fix your room problem. You will have much better sound this way.