That's a perfect room for headphones..............
Is my room size going to be a problem for speakers?
A bedroom may become available in our home when one of our sons heads off to college, and I was thinking of claiming it as a listening room. Put my Rega P3 table and just listen to vinyl. For an amp I was thinking the Rega Brio, the Audiolab 6000A or 8300A, or maybe the Schiit Ragnarok. Or the older Luxman R-115 receiver I'm using in the living room.
I've been asking people about speakers, and it's starting to sound that the room size is going to be a problem. It's only 10 feet by 10 feet. I was hoping to avoid doing anything by way of room correction, and just throw in a pair of bookshelf speakers. A used pair of Totem Rainmakers was a thought, or maybe the Q Acoustics Concept 20's or even the new 3030i's. The Buchardt S300's are at the top of the list, as well as price point (about $1200 new).
So my question concerns whether the room size is just too small. I don't want to overmatch the room with equipment that's too much for it. Should I maybe scrap the plans and use the money for living room upgrades? Or is there a way to make this work without spending too much time and effort preparing the room itself?
Thanks for any thoughts and suggestions.
I've been asking people about speakers, and it's starting to sound that the room size is going to be a problem. It's only 10 feet by 10 feet. I was hoping to avoid doing anything by way of room correction, and just throw in a pair of bookshelf speakers. A used pair of Totem Rainmakers was a thought, or maybe the Q Acoustics Concept 20's or even the new 3030i's. The Buchardt S300's are at the top of the list, as well as price point (about $1200 new).
So my question concerns whether the room size is just too small. I don't want to overmatch the room with equipment that's too much for it. Should I maybe scrap the plans and use the money for living room upgrades? Or is there a way to make this work without spending too much time and effort preparing the room itself?
Thanks for any thoughts and suggestions.
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I have a small room that I use for my computer room that's about 12 x 12. I have some harbeth p3esr special edition speakers in there and a small subwoofer. It's also where I have my best headphone amp and headphones. You could go either way or both ways. That's system doesn't have sound staging or the presence of my big system in the big room but it sounds really good. |
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It's only 10 feet by 10 feet " In a room that size, one problem is that the reflections path lengths are very short. In general the earlier a reflection arrives, the more likely it is to be detrimental to timbre or clarity or both. IF you have free reign, I suggest a pair of Maggies set up along a diagonal. Their dipole radiation pattern combined with the reflection angles will minimize early reflections relative to more conventional speakers in a more conventional configuration. Also, square rooms tend to be the worst from a bass mode standpoint, but dipoles have more benign room interaction in the bass region than monopoles. If the bass is still lumpy, try doing a setup somewhere in between "normal" and "on a diagonal". This will put your two dipole bass sources each at a different distance from nearby room boundaries in the horizontal plane, which is beneficial for smoothing speaker/room interaction in the bass region. Duke |
I'm not sure what you mean by room correction, but 10' square is a challenge, unless you do very near field. Like 2' in front of your chair. :) Otherwise, if you want a more traditional presentation, your challenges are both bass and room reflections. It's going to be very very lively in the mid/treble and make it hard to get a good image. The better controlled the speaker dispersion is the less room acoustic treatment you'll need. Perhaps some smaller horn loaded speakers like a Klipsch Heresy? Also, tone controls. :) |
My music room in our last house was 10x11 and I had a pair of 6" full range drivers which worked out perfectly since they work better close to a wall/corner. It is also a simple speaker to drive which keeps the costs down on amplification. That system shocked a lot of my audiophile friends so you might look into it. Madisound does some speaker kits and well as Mark Audio (I used their Pensil design). |
I’ve had some pretty small setups, 10x10 isn’t really a big deal with the right speakers. There’s an awful lot out there for near field listening. I’m not sure why it’s not a problem for people with desktop setups but is if you’re in a comfy chair, but there you go. I was just talking with somebody else with similar issues. The issue with the Buchardt S300 is they’re ported out the back. So that would mean you’d have to get them at least a few inches away from the wall. For small monitors, Totem, Ascend, Salk on the high end, Elac and JBL make excellent dynamic little speakers on a budget. I’m especially fond of Focal’s Shape 69 and Fritz Carrera BE for near field listening, but those are probably not as budget friendly as you’d like. I’d be perfectly happy with them in a small room. |
uncle_monkey You are right. The key is to buying a speaker that works well in the near field. That rules out just about any tower speaker I have ever heard. That said, you are still only going to get a percentage of what a good speaker can do in a room that small, say 70-80% at best. With a good set of headphones, that number is 100% in any room. Oz |
PLEASE,that room size can be made into a small oasis! Small Dynaudio’s or Sonus Fabers driven by tubes & a well treated room will put a smile a mile wide on your face! As for time to treat the room a half day & good combination of corner tunes,echo tunes & 2'x4'x2" acoustic panels should put you about 90% of the way to end game acoustics.. |
Small rooms are the easiest to set up for good sound. The choices are endless. Most important thing: carefully manage the bass produced by the main speakers. You can always supplement them with a sub and get it just right but if too much/too big you can’t get rid of it. I like kef ls50 or Ohm Microwalsh in small rooms mainly because point source driver configurations work well for soundstage and imaging in tight quarters. Larger speakers might produce too much bass but otherwise any size is ok in tight quarters assuming enough room for flexibility in placement as needed and as long as not much separation between drivers. You want midrange and treble frequencies to arrive at your ears at ~ the same time and from same location for best detail, soundstage and imaging. Won’t happen if speaker drivers are further apart. Smaller monitors are typically all that you will want or need. Large speakers will take up a lot of limited space and be much harder to set up optimally, if even possible. Again. best to keep bass extension limited in tight quarters by using smaller speakers like with ls50 and add a powered and adjustable sub to get the bass just right. I use ls50 and powered sub as described in a 12 x 12 room and this is a wonderful setup. In 12x12 room directly above I use Vanatoo Transparent One Encore active speakers with built in DSP and tone controls that are also easy to tune in and get just right. |
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