room size and speaker placement

gshisme

Well my way with words is bad and my audiophile's lingo is even worse but here goes anyway. I have been looking for some new (used) equipement for two channel but until then decided to move my H/K 320 and RT600's around the house a bit just to see what differences my subject title makes. In the smaller room which is 13x11, with the speakers against the narrower wall, they just didn't sound very musical. The bass seemed to get lost and the mids seemed to shout at you. The tweets sounded a little bright for my taste, although that was a common trait no matter where I placed the 600's. I then moved the system to a larger room which is 15 1/2x12 3/4 and placed the speakers against the wider wall. This room has a 6 foot opening to the dining room to the right which I thought for sure would kill the sound. Well the sound absolutely opened up although I had to use a few more decibals compared with the smaller room to get the same sound level. Much more musical and the bass came to life, even for the RT600's. The mids were more neutral and not as forced sounding. In both rooms the speakers were placed 18" away from the wall and the same distance apart, just to the right and left of the 47' widescreen.

Anyway the bigger room gave new life to these speakers (although still a little harsh which I think has more to do with the H/K), but now I am wondering can a room be TOO small for good acoustics? Damn if only I still had the Rotel/Lsi combo to try in the larger room. Incidentally, the PSW303 was much more noticable in the larger room. Perhaps because it had a little more room to breath in the corner (although still too boomy for me) but it works pretty good for H/T.

Well I wanted to post this because I was quite surprised at the difference in sound quality in the two rooms. Let me just note here that both ceiling heights are almost 8' and the smaller room has plaster walls as opposed to dry wall in the other with both having dropped ceilings with the same panels and like carpeting.

OK, stop laughing now. Just that I was quite surprised at the results.

organ

I'm also using the long wall and it sounds better to me than the short wall.

As for your question about a room being too small for good acoustics...IMO, just about any room can be musical if you work on it (room treatment, proper placement, etc).

Maurice

mantis

As for your question about a room being too small for good acoustics...IMO, just about any room can be musical if you work on it (room treatment, proper placement, etc).

Bold but I will have to disagree.Most rooms sound terrible for music.I mean most rooms sound terrible for music.Most rooms sound terrible for theater.Once more most rooms sound terrible for theater.I have plenty of reasons why.

1st off most rooms are not suited for sound..........meaning by the time you hear it it's an echo of what was outputed.I have had 5 different I'll call them listening trail rooms and non of them where close to what I consider a good room for audio.

As an Installer,I get to setup 1 to 3 theaters or sound room 5 to 6 days a week.Over the last 4 years I have only had the pleasure of setting up some awesome sounding system due to the "good room".

The room play a huge part on your overall sound it's Incredible.I can't believe sometimes we setup the same exact system in different rooms and that same exact system down to the damn wire,sucks in some and kills it dead in others.

Now we all have our listening availible spaces.We have to make the best out of it.Livingrooms are the worst.Mostley due to essectics with the wife.....or just a poor build for sound room.

organ,
not picking on yeah Bro but your opnion I totally disagree with.

gshisme,
Everything matter in overall performance of a system.The room,the electronics,wire ,speakers, everything effects it as sound travels the way it does.
Mating the speakers correctly will yield the best start in a bad or less then Ideal room.Yoou won't be able to hear exactly what that system can do, but with alot of time ,effort and patience,you can get it to sound as good as the room will allow.or the wife will let you......
Dan

organ

Dan,
I belive Gshisme was talking about 2ch not HT. If the room is not good, you will hear an echo like you said. That's why I said just about any room can be musical IF you work on it. This means room treatments, proper gear, etc. If I had a room that's 12x12 to work with, it's small, but you can get a sound system to work in there. I'd start with something small like a pair of LSi7, good CD player and an int amp. After that I would begin working on the room. It's going to look ugly with sound absorbing panels but it will work out.

Maurice

Tour2ma

gshisme,

How many different speaker placements did you try in each room?

gshisme

Initially I set up the system in the smaller room. Because of the widescreen TV in such a small room I was pretty limited to how much I could move the towers around..ie left to right and vice versa. After spending a whole Saturday (and more than one six pack) moving them towards and away from the back wall and left to right as much as I could, I found the towers sounded their best when placed about 18 inches from the back of the speaker cabinet away from the wall and 51" apart. I thought if I spread them apart a little more for two channel it may open the sound up a little but there was no noticable difference when i did. When I moved the system to the larger room I duplicated the distances from the back wall and speaker to speaker. As stated above there was a much improved sound stage.

I had expressed interest in ATC's RDA's for two channel but I dunno', the RT's are sounding pretty good right now. Never ending quest for the best sound I guess. By the way, the seating furniture is layed out pretty much the same in both rooms. Exceptin being loveseat and recliner upstairs and sofa and recliner in the larger room downstairs.