room size question.


( wasnt sure what category to put this in ,so figured this one would get more views)

 

in watching some you tube videos, one from Jays audio lab, and another one from Paul ( ps audio ), they both mention how the speakers should be set up in the room and it seems they bring them out into the room quite a bit.    they say that when this happens, you have the soundstage and jay was mentioning that there are layers that one gets to hear when listening.

my question i guess is that can this same thing happen in a smaller room, say 12x12 or is one just limited to say center imaging due to room size ?

room is treated

 

this is the ps audio video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x63RORq8JMw

jays video 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZOWcvbfNZw

bshaw

Those definitely can be put on wall. And come with all the hardware. I know, I have bought many Alphas. From the very link you posted, under Installation Guide tab:

 

INSTALLATION GUIDE

All (23″ x 45.5″) Alpha Series Panels come with two sawtooth hangers for easy wall mounting.

You have your choice of orientation. 
 

You will actually have to pay extra to buy the freestanding wood kits. If you lost those sawtooth hangers, they can be bought in any hardware store. Unless you don’t want to hang them, or you are not allowed. That’s another story, totally understandable though 

I agree with you, but when I go, once a year or so, it’s giant speakers in giant spaces. (my point being that soundstage is not a given, we are not recreating but creating it)

@grislybutter , gotcha. It’s been like over 40 years since I dropped acid & went to a Rush concert at an amphitheater, but even more recently (which is now over 20 years ago) when I was catching way smaller acts at general admission 500 seat venues (which usually were not filling anywhere near capacity) I wasn’t there for the sound stage and I don’t think I was hearing a whole lot of it; I was there to see an artist that I really liked perform. What I heard in my living room usually sounded better than what I went to see live.

@bshaw , I will thank you for posting this thread. I had been putting it off for a while, but because of this thread I was in the room tonight tweaking the speakers, & I wound up bringing them about 6 more " from the rear wall, incrementally closer together (therefore incrementally further from the sides) & the listening chair moved back a bit. Hopefully I’ll be back there again tomorrow night to do some more evaluating.

A couple of more things to take or leave as you please: but all CDs are not created equal. I won’t ever be critical of anything anybody listens to, but ATTEMPTING to create a better sonic environment & ATTEMPTING to listen critically is what turned me on to jazz (which is not to say that jazz is all I listen to). My small room & what usually seems like probably a smaller venue or studio seem to work well together, plus there is a lot of well mixed and mastered source stuff to choose from. I’ve tried classical, but I think that this is where the small room’s limitations become more evident. Plus, classical doesn’t really float my boat.

This (hopefully) quick story is the last thing I’ll say about electronics: around 25 years ago I was listening to a smallish Cary tube amp (four 6550s for outputs), and a B&K HT preamp (I have long since abandoned HT) & my stereo system utilized a pair of B&W 805s. I read Stereophile religeously & I longed for the sound stage they all wrote about. One month Stereophile featured the Mesa Baron (a dual monoblock in one chassis tube amp, 12 output tubes per monoblock that are switchable in thirds from full triode to full pentode, meters, rack handles, all sorts of cool looking switches . . .) and a local dealer actually had one he let me try out for a weekend! Plus he was going to give me a decent trade in on my little Cary! Man, I was excited about that! He advised I utilize 1/3 triode & 2/3 pentode & most of the time I did. Using the same speakers & without changing their placement I was instantly struck by how close in my face the music was & how it filled the room. I was listening a lot to the the Cowboy Junkies at the time & Margo’s voice took on a husky quality (as did all vocals) & a smoky or musky sounding background was always pervasive. But it was new & different & I initially found it appealing & it was a soundstage & I hadn’t really heard one before so I had just about made up my mind to buy it,

but

the last thing I did the Sunday night before I was going to bring it back or close the deal on it was to hook my little Cary back up & I put the Cowboy Junkies back on & listened to Sweet Jane (it was either off of Trinity Sessions or their only live CD at the time) and the sound stage shrunk back to the wall that the speakers were on, but there was a blackness to what surrounded the music and around the vocals and the instrumental work--cymbals hung in the air & vibrated and I could imagine her clenching her teeth on certain passages & it was like, "that other stuff was neat in a different sort of way, but this is clean & pure sounding." So I kept the little Cary (I still have it) & gradually upgraded through a couple of more amps & a couple more preamps and wires & cables & digital front ends.

There was a point to that seemingly pointless story, but anyway, good luck on your quest. Ramble on. . . .

@thyname 

 

mine didnt come with brackets as the idea was to have them on the stands as there was not enough room to hang them on the side walls and it wouldnt be even either....so went with the stand option.                             i can either get the brackets or i can just take it off of the panels and swap them around.

 

i have wondered though about placing something on the back wall i have....as all i have is a small curtain for the window and the bass corner traps that are stacked 2 high.      wonder if a panel(s)  on that blank space would do anything ?

A few speakers are designed or are tunable (via port stuffing) to enable placement closer to the rear walls. It's just a matter of how the load the room acoustically. Monitor Audio Silver 300 7G are one. In my room,   I am able to get them within 18" of the back wall and 30" from the side walls with the lower port stuffed and still have male and female vocals that aren't muddy, and bass extension to the around 40Hz. FWIW, I've tried and no way I can get my Magnepan LRS (need more room) or KEF LS50s (they're nearfield monitors) to work in my room. I also have 9 - 24" square by 2" acoustical panels on the ceiling - these made a huge improvement in a very high 12- 15 ft sloped ceiling room.

@bshaw Yes the models are different but the example is applicable. Both models are dynamic driver / enclosure design.

The M2 is quite a nice choice as smallish two - way designs have come quite a long way.

My current ' stand mount ' mains are a two way design with rear ports which are placed near the ' front ' wall and perform in exemplary manner for imaging.

The example that I cited goes to demonstrate that a speaker - enclosure can be placed nearly against a wall and function well.

The 12' x 12' room ' constraint ' seems to be the immediate concern given:

my question i guess is that can this same thing happen in a smaller room, say 12x12 or is one just limited to say center imaging due to room size ? ".

The lower the ceiling the greater a smaller space would be affected but a symmetric room is more predictable acoustically. Also note that a ' small room ' - acoustically - could be as much as 700 sqft as an example.

In general terms damping the room at one end and diffused at the opposite can work well. As with almost any rooms frequencies below 200 Hz will remain as difficult to treat in an easy way. 

None of these ' circumstance ' preclude good imaging though. 

Large playback systems like the examples used in the videos listed can deliver exceptionally high SPL levels in a large room. A different goal.