[ebag4]

My office is in a small extra bedroom (10.5'x12.5'x8').  This room is also my 2 channel room.  I am considering building another set of speakers but it occurred to me that maybe some of the shortfalls I detect in my system are partially due to the type/size of speakers I have been using. 

So what makes a speaker too large for a space?  Is it only the bass response?  In my opinion that is probably a major part of it, however I have found that using open baffle bass somewhat alleviates issues with "boomy" bass, OB bass seems to load the room differently from the boxed type bass I have heard that can tend to get boomy.

I am asking this question mainly because I am trying to determine if going with a small, or smaller set of speakers would actually make an improvement to what I experience today.  The primary issue I seem to have is with soundstage.  I have good, non-boomy bass, I have good imaging, but the soundstage in this room is really where I have struggled.  I base this percieved lack of soundstage on what I have read here and other forums.  I can't say that I have actually heard the soundstage better reproduced elsewhere primarily because I have heard few good systems.

Thanks for taking the time to read this fairly long winded post.  I am interested in your opinions and experiences with sound in small rooms.

Best,
Ed

[bpape]

Much of it is due to bass output.  A smaller room takes less to pressurize.  In addition, many larger speakers (not all) really don't 'come alive' until they're turned up a bit more, which can be overwhelming in a smaller space.

Also, larger speakers purely due to size, tend to end up closer to room boundaries so that enhances bass response issues. 

Lastly, larger speakers don't generally 'disappear' like smaller monitors do which is only going to exacerbate the soundstage issues since you don't have as much space to move them around. 

If you need the last ounce of bass extension in a small room, the use of a good sub and a pair of good monitors is what I have found to work best.  If you can live with say low 40's, then something like the ACI Sapphire XL works wonders in a room that size.

Bryan

[TRADERXFAN]

Besides bass issues, I think there is such a thing as "driver integration distance". The taller the driver spacing, the further away it integrates.  I think they call it the recommended listening distance. But I could definitely be misremembering here.


As an example, I think Geddes Abbeys are recommended for 10'. So if you pull them out from the front wall a few feet, sit away from the rear wall a few feet,  one is bound to need a bigger sized room.

For your situation, how much acoustic treatment have you applied to that room? It may be that you are not getting a clean direct vs reflected image separation.

-Tony

[Kevin Haskins]

When you wife gives you that "look", you know it is too large for the room.   

[oneinthepipe]

Even though I have a small room, I would mourn the loss of the bass extension from my full-range speakers.  I used a variety of LS3/5A-type monitors for many years.  I would rather try to resolve as many of the bass issues as possible with my current full-range speakers than to forgo the bass.  Eventually, I will have a larger room.

[TRADERXFAN]

Furthering the driver integration thought, I wonder if a coaxial driver might be easier for a small room?  Like Danny's p-audio stuff.

edit** I found some support on the driver integration idea...
http://www.ethera.com/reviews/SoundStage/test_loudspekares.htm
"All small- and medium-sized loudspeakers are measured at a distance of 2 meters (6.5 feet). Where appropriate, larger loudspeakers are measured from a distance of 3 meters (9.75 feet) to allow for proper driver integration."



-Tony

[bpape]

Agreed on the driver integration.  I was thinking more of the speaker to room and listener to room interface.  Another reason smaller monitors usually work better since you an listen more nearfield and not lose that while still not sitting against a boundary.

Bryan

[ebag4]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, this is exactly the type of discussion I was hoping to generate.  With regard to the listening distances, just about anything I use in this space will be nearfield.  With my current OBs I am sitting in a 6.5' triangle, this gets the speakers 4' from the front wall, 2' from the sidewalls and my head about 3' off the back wall.

I have first reflection points on the walls covered with 703 DIY panels.  I also have 2 corners covered with bass absorbtion although that is a work in progress, a absortion panel on the back wall rounds out the treatment.

I currently have the coaxial portion of Danny's V-1 (reworking the crossover for the new version), and I am getting ready to order the bass sections but I started wondering if this will be total overkill for my space and will I be better served going with monitors.  I really love the OB sound, maybe a small dipole will give me the best of both worlds.

Please keep the feedback coming, it is appreciated.

Best,
Ed

[WGH]

My listening room is slightly larger than yours at 11.5' x 15' and have found that you can indeed have too much bass. Many years ago I bought a pair of Klipsch Quartet speakers for my wood shop because I had a low powered receiver in my shop and wanted to listen to music over the din of power tools. Just for fun I brought the Quartet's home to see what they sounded like, the 10" front woofer with the rear 10" passive radiator put out so much bass that no amount of room treatment would be able to control the output. They went back into my shop the same day.

A rear firing ambiance tweeter can enhance sound stage depth in a small room. My speakers have an adjustable rear tweeter and I notice the sound stage collapses when it is turned off. VMPS has an affordable ambiance tweeter that may solve your problem.
http://www.vmpsaudio.com/news.htm

Speakers designs with a tunable bass response might work too, you could re-tune them for a larger room later or an open baffle woofer with a bipole midrange/tweeter.

Wayne

 

[sl_1800]

My room is only 10'8" x 14'8" x 8' and I have my Orions and one of Danny's OB subs which is two drivers or half of the V1.  To be honest I wish I had another OB sub which would be equal to a pair of V1's.

[Mag]

Sloppy bass is another factor as opposed to clean fast articulate bass. When I moved my first sub into my audio room, it sounded real boomy. I almost jumped to the conclusion that it was a lousy room acoustically. On a hunch I went out and bought a new sub. It was a sonic boom in comparison, but never sounds boomy.

Another factor I think is that bass frequencies being wide and longer, need some time to expand before hitting room boundaries. Perhaps a 10 x 12 room is too small for that.

[JimJ]

If you can't fit it in the door.

[ebag4]

Thanks guys.  Bass is not my issue in this room.  I run 2 15" Hawthorne Augies in OB (see my avatar), the bass is fast and articulate.  My issue is soundstage.  I have good imagining but I don't have the soundstage I keep reading about.  The soundstage I have is behind and between the speakers and very nondescript, for lack of a better term.

Best,
Ed

[WGH]

I have good imagining but I don't have the soundstage I keep reading about.

A lot of writing is just hyperbole, maybe what you hear is what is on the recordings you have.
How about moving the speakers into a larger room for a day and see what happens? 100' of lamp cord should do the trick.

[Mag]

Thanks guys.  Bass is not my issue in this room.  I run 2 15" Hawthorne Augies in OB (see my avatar), the bass is fast and articulate.  My issue is soundstage.  I have good imagining but I don't have the soundstage I keep reading about.  The soundstage I have is behind and between the speakers and very nondescript, for lack of a better term.

Best,
Ed

Why didn't you say so?

Sometimes I have to close my eyes to see the soundstage. Something about seeing speakers & stuff interferes with the illusion.

[orthobiz]

When you wife gives you that "look", you know it is too large for the room.

If your wife can even see the speakers, then they are too large.

Paul

[JLM]

Small rooms all but force nearfield listening, which isn't everyone's cup of tea, and can be made worse by "forward" sounding equipment, speakers that have a midrange emphasis, and especially mid/treble horns.  Nearfield setups help to remove the room effects, which then puts the rest of your audio system under more of a magnifying glass. 

From my reading/understanding a point source for all frequencies is ideal.  The best 3D imaging and soundstaging I've heard comes from small two-ways, coaxials, or single driver designs.  The worst are vertically arrayed dipoles (a very American bigger is better mentality) as most sound sources (instruments/voices) don't originate from floor to ceiling or two sides at once and recordings aren't engineered with any of this in mind.  Ironic to me that speaker designers sweat phasing in the crossover, but then spread the drivers across a large baffle (typically with the drivers physically located out of phase) and somehow hope to get a "seamless" sound.  To make matters worse they mix ribbons with horns, or domes with cones, etc. and then tries to convince others of the coherence of their designs.

Part of your issue (not to beat the bass question to death) is the room height to length ratio is nearly a perfect 2:3.  Its best to avoid any perfect ratios.  The ancient Greeks (with their stone structures) figured out that 5:8 (1.625) worked best for acoustic and visual concerns.  Nowadays the perfect ratio has been calculated to be 1.612.  See the Cardas website.  BTW I followed the Cardas recipe, which includes nearfield setup with single driver speakers and am very pleased.

[Wind Chaser]

I have good imagining but I don't have the soundstage I keep reading about.  The soundstage I have is behind and between the speakers and very nondescript, for lack of a better term.

Sometimes I have to close my eyes to see the soundstage. Something about seeing speakers & stuff interferes with the illusion.

That's the best way to listen IMO, it allows your mind to concentrate and experience the music in away that can't be done with visual noise competing for the minds attention.

[Ethan Winer]

If you can't fit it in the door.

Agreed, that's my only criteria too.

Seriously, I've heard very big speakers in very small rooms and I thought they sounded great. Though Tony's comment about "driver integration distance" and coaxial speakers is relevant. In the world of pro audio, "large speakers" are shaped very differently from the 6-foot and taller models you see in audiophile rooms. I have a pair of JBL 4430 monitors driven bi-amped with just over 1 KW of Crown amps. These are huge and old-school like you'd see in top studios 20+ years ago. But they're not tall. More like a half-size refrigerator, with a horn speaker above a 15" woofer:



So even though these speakers are huge, and can play really loud when you want, you don't have to be more than a few feet away to get the proper balance between the woofer and tweeter.

--Ethan

[JackD201]

The soundstage I have is behind and between the speakers.

A lot of people go for that presentation and go to extremes to achieve it. Too bad it isn't your cup of tea.

What are you shooting for? Do you want a more laid out soundstage or perhaps one that is immersive? Going by your speakers and the room size the former would be tough indeed as placement options are very limited. If it is the latter a super tweeter or ambience driver might help a little bit. I don't know if that little bit will be enough though without upsetting overall balance and coherence.

As in Ethan's example the dispersion pattern of the loudspeaker, I believe, more than their size would determine how the soundstage is laid out.