Need help with new 11X 13 dedicated Listening Room


Hi everyone. I know this sort of thread has surfaced here from time to time but I would really like some ideas or actual situations that you may have had and how you FIXED them.

My new room, a bedroom is actually 10'8" X13'4". Small but all mine!!! As long as the door is closed the wife doesn't care about the "home decor" look. I would still like it to look somewhat nice with tastefull tweaks,not the recording studio look.

Now, the room has an entrance door on one short wall and and a 4'H X 6'W window on the other short wall.
On one long wall is a 6'W closet that is about 3'from the entrance door and the other long wall is solid. The floor is oak wood with an 8' ceiling. I will starting from scratch except for the basics.

With the usual window treatment (curtains) that will be used, carpet or area rug, a listening chair, component rack with amp stand and a storage cabinet (4' or 5' base cabinet with counter top) for the LP's, CD's, Nitty Gritty 1.5FI and what ever.

I would like to know what the best way to place the speakers would be. I know that I will have to let my "ears" fine tune them (Duh!) but I'm looking to find the best location. Long wall or short? Treatments you have tried that worked or didn't?

I have discussed this with a few friends with mixed opinions that really are no help. This is where i'm hoping to get the best advice, ideas.

If this will help, my basic system is as follows.
Bryston 4B amp
Bryston 11B pre amp w/phono
Music Hall mmf CD 25
Music Hall mmf 7 TT
Monitor Audio Silver 8i's
Monster Cable HTS 3500
Synergistic Master Control Center
and various cables.
I will be purchasing a tube pre amp soon but the room is the important thing right now.

I'm really not looking for advice on "my system choice", thats a personal choice anyway ( OK maybe the tube amp).

Any help in this matter would be deeply appreciated. Thank You
Ag insider logo xs@2xramond
I had a room the same size with Theil CS.5's. I had my listening position up against the rear wall with the speakers about 4' out from the back wall. I've tried the Audio Physics method and just never liked it. I never got the room great and never did acoustic treamtents short of natural furnishings but I was happy enough with it then. The Bass shy Theil's got more oomph that way, and the images could still float outside the room on the Q-sound recorded stuff. I've always only done very slight toe-in, if any.
Had a very similar room..perhaps a foot larger in length and width. After a couple of months of trials (using the more traditional Cardas method for speaker positiong and the RPG software), I settled on LONG WALL speaker placement following the Audio Physiscs positioning approach. This worked VERY well, particularly after treating every forst reflection point (ceiling included) with RPG foam and placing and RPG Skyline diffusser behind the listening position. Note that this approach to speaker positioning places you pretty close to te real wall, so the diffusser is crititical. My monitor speakers were about 8 foot apart (center to center), and 3 feet away from the side walls, and about 7.5 feet away from the listening position (so, near field listening). This gave a wide soundstage with excellent depth/definition, and minimized room-induced coloration. I now have a much larger room, and though some things are better, I stiil miss the old set up. Give it a shot....you can find links to this and other speaker positiioning theories on the Audioasylum FAQ's. Of rouces, if you can spare $ 50 and some time, you might want to get the CARA (www.cara.de) software and do a CAD model of the room. I've just started using this and it is VERY good indeed, much better than the twice as expensive RPG software, for helping you detemrine the optimum positioning for speakers and listening position.