I forgot to comment that I did recently add my REL 7i into the mix, but even though it blended well, the quality of the bass seemed sub-par to that of the KEF's. Does that make sense? I pulled it back out.
How to choose speakers that won't overpower your room?
I am considering buying new floor standing speakers to replace my kef reference ones stand mounts and I'm wondering how to avoid buying something that overpowers my room. My room is fairly small 12 1/2 by 11, And I listened at fairly low volumes mostly jazz and some rock.
I will use Sonus Faber as an example, I'm thinking the Olympica Nova 2 or Nova 3 might be a good fit and I also look at the Serafino, and think that would be very nice as well, but I have no idea if these would be too much for my room. They all look good on paper. And yes, I realize that I have to go listen to these speakers I've never even heard them before, but still auditioning them at a dealer or somewhere else is not the same as putting them in your small room. Are there any technical details or cue that would tell me whether or not the speaker might be too much for my room?
Bonus question I am going to AXPONA next week is there anything that I absolutely should hear when I am there?
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Big speakers in a small room requires placement testing. My La Scala's are in a 11X12 room with speakers on the short wall and my listening position putts my head less than 6 feet away. I have two Amazon absolution panels 2x4 2 inches thick, sitting on top of the couch behind my head. My listening level is generally below 70 htz, When first moving into our unit I was worried that the La Scala's would not work, I also use a old 1970 Velodyn 15inch Sub Biggest problem was speaker positioning. the smaller the room the less flexibility you have in positioning, Mine are now 3 inches from back wall and slightly toed in. I did loose some sound stage depth, but the sound stage is rock solid . My system starts with a Raspberry Pi with a PI2AES hat the provides I2S out via HDMI limited to 24x192, 2 terabytes of digital music extracted to CD standard 16x44.1. The I2S output goes to Pontus 2 12 th ver2, XLR out to a Schiit Freya S ( non tub ) RCA out to a Decware Torii Jr Ver2 BTW PI2AES is a recent change from Audirvan Studio on a PC with USB out to Pontus Dac. The Raspberry solution is not a dramatic change but it is noticeable, sound stage strengthened and overall sound placement within the sound stage
Enjoy the music
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Being familiar with REW you should be able to accommodate any speaker. What causes people to experience room overload is simply the inevitable room modes. It’s the peaks that are responsible, peaks that can be 15/20 dB higher than the average in room SPL. These peaks will obviously take much longer to decay and this leads to the 3 complaints of: boomy bass, one-note bass or slow bass. Get the room dialed in and that trio of problems disappears. Room treatment and a couple of small subs will sort out not only the bass but the full spectrum The REL sub you own I think has phase flip only and this complicates matters in so far as finding the best position for it. Consider something like a pair of SVS SB1000 PRO or any other subs that provide variable phase adjustment so that you can place them where they are unobtrusive. or where convenient and not be restricted. It is better to have sealed subs and not ported because ports are frequency invariant and are bass sources that can’t be tuned. REW and mic are your best friends. Choose the speakers you desire and note that when the peaks are tamed and the nulls filled in you will be hearing much more than before and even at low SPL will sound great. Good Luck at the show. |
Thanks for the additional comments, I will be pursuing some room treatments. @sawbuck I built a custom Pi/Digi streamer a few years back with good success. I nigh have put it back in to see how it compares to the Innuos. |
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