Help Requested - New Room Setup


Yep, here I am. We have just moved into the new home and with it came the new listening room I have been salivating over. At this time the salivation has turned into swearing. LoL. Without embelishing too much, I feel like a kindergartner trying to color inside the lines with fat crayons at this point!

With the new room, came the belief it would automatically sound fabulous... I didn't put much thought into setup as in the past I have been lucky to find the "correct speaker placement" relatively easily. That has not been the case thus far. I have moved the speakers all day long with little improvement here and there. Here are some of the basics:

Room size is 15' 10" wide by 21' 10 long, ceiling height is 9' with a 9 box coffered ceiling (beams approx 6" deep x 8" wide). There are a couple new photos up on my system thread, but in general the rear wall is all built in shelving units for album storage. One side wall has drapes that are 6" from the ceiling to the floor and cover the three windows (approx 6-7' wide). I have some Eighth Nerve corner treatments as well as two fake ficus trees in the front corners to help with diffusion. The entire room is carpeted with frise (shag like). There is no noticable bounce to the floor, specifications were I joists on 16" centers and the builder beefed it up to 12" centers.

At this point the midrange and highs sound decent. The overall complaint is the bass from lower note stand up bass and down seems to be rolled off, or perhaps have a suckout. Amps have been plugged directly into the wall after thinking the line conditioner may be limiting dynamics, this did not prove true. Some of the "muddiness" was cleared up as I finally spiked the speakers in a place that was fair. The bass did tighten up, however still seems to be quiet at certain frequencies. My speakers are the Meadowlark Blue Heron 2 which are 1st order time and phase aligned transmission line which are front ported. I have been told I may not have to move them out too far from the rear wall. I don't mind if I need to. Measurements given are to the midrange driver. Yesterday I had the speakers out 47" from the rear wall and 36" from the side wall. Currently they are placed out 44" from the rear wall and 48" from the side walls. They are 2" shy of being 8 feet apart. Distance from a speaker to rear of listening chair is 12 feet. Distance to rear wall from where your head would be in the listening chair is 3 feet. Throughout the day, I have moved the speakers anywhere from 2.5 feet from the rear and side walls to about 4.5 feet from the side walls and 5 feet out into the room. The speakers are currently very slightly toed-in. My limiting factor here is the monoblocks are now placed inside the equipment rack. If need be to move the speakers out further I can place the mono's on their dedicated stands to tweak and just get longer speaker cords down the road. At this point I am a bit dumbfounded that movement within that entire area of speaker placement the bass response on deep bass seemed low. Please keep in mind, this system was set up in my old home in a spare bedroom of 11'6" x 11'8" x 8' ceiling... so I would imagine this would be much better with room to breathe. Which direction would I want to go to get more bass emphasis, of course while maintaining midrange and treble balance, imaging, etc.?

Of course considerations include, all gear and cabling has been in storage for seven months. Perhaps it has 10 to 11 hours of play time on it now. All five Porter Port outlets in the wall are new, as well as the cryo'd 10-2 Romex for all 5 dedicated 20A circuits.

Any input or feedback would be greatly appreciated. If there are any websites or general rules to follow for best initial setup, please point me in that direction. I suppose I have been lucky in the past to really just "eyeball" a few different locations, and then tweak toe-in and have it sound great.

Thanks again for your time and consideration.
audiofankj

Showing 1 response by fsarc

Beautiful system and room! My room is quite similar in dimensions- 21.5 x 16.75 x 7.4

I have Vandersteen 5As. If you have the ability to do so, try moving your listening position. You just might be sitting in a null. Most attention is paid to moving the speakers, but sometimes the listeing seat in the room can be the real culprit of a bass null. I would try moving your listening position a little closer to the speakers. Keep us posted!