Is 9'x11' too small?

One more suggestion: Since you still have them in your bigger space, I would try to place them 5-6 feet apart, toed in, and sitting about 6 feet away. That might give you an idea on what to expect with respect to soundstage and near field listening.

Rene

Jh2os, I had them on the short wall, about 2 foot from the sides and three feet from the back. The best listening position is probably about 5-6feet from your speakers a little away from the back wall. Actually the wall behind your listening chair is fairly important, it should not be too reflective. Also best to kee your chair away from the backwall a little bit.

DIrty is right in that in will be quite difficult. I prefer the slighltly bigger room as well, but I would take the smaller one anytime if I am less limited by placement restriction.

Also feel free to drop me an email in case you have any more questions.

Again good luck.

Rene

The previous room for my system had exactly that size (9x11 x 8 high) and a very similar setup to the one you are planning. What is the ceiling height? Probably 8 or 9 feet as well. You might have some trouble with the 50-60Hz peak (first room modes) and the 100-120Hz higher harmonics, especially since all modes have about the same length. Moving the speakers out the way you did will certainly help quite a bit. Monitor speakers that roll of around 50-60Hz will help as well since that is the region where the room will reinforce the bass.

I prefer the medium size room I have right now (10x17 x 9). The sound is more balanced and I still have a nearfield setup to avoid coupling to room modes.

The smaller room should work well but placement will be very critical. As long as you leave some room during the planning stage for moving around speakers and for adjusting the listening position you should do fine.

Good luck,

Rene

Hi again, I just found this great link to Ultimate AV website (Don't run away because of the V in the titel), which offers an Excel spreadsheat to calculate room modes. The sheat further calculates the frequency peaks and nulls at your listening position.

Excel calculation

All you need to do is enter your room dimensions and seating position and you get all the data you need. Nice way to play around with the seating position.

And the most interesting thing is: I took some measurements of my system/room a while ago using a corrected Radio Shack SPL meter, and I could see all the predicted "nulls" as little dips in the measured spectrum.

This is a really nice way of playing around and given my measurements it seems to work.

AND MOST IMPORTANT: Besides all this theory, don't forget to listen, your ears will tell you the best location. But the calculations might be a good starting point.

Enjoy!

Rene

And one more comment: The article doesn't mention this but this table also
works for a speaker placement check. The speaker should NOT sit at a
postion with frequency peaks since it will be very easy to excite these room
modes. For speakers "nulls" don't matter as much I think. I just checked my
speaker placement and it is completely fine in my room.

If you need some help or have any questions, please feel free to drop me an
email.

Rene

Saki70, I had a diagonal placement in one of my previous rooms and loved it. Only problem the room has to be pretty much square to do that, which yours seems to be. Only thing that gets slightly difficult in the diagonal placement is to place speakers far enough from the back/side wall.

Good luck!