Small Room


Hello

Let me start by saying I’m a novice. I have a very small room to work with, real small 11x8 the ceiling is 9 feet high. I have a pair of Sound Lab Dynastat electrostatic speakers. Here are a couple of questions.

1. What wall should I use for the speakers?
2. Is there some type of room treatment I should use for this small room?

Thanks in advance
mikepconline
Yeah your right "Programmergeek" I got the speakers almost free. So thats why I'm going to give it a try. Just wanted some type of heads up to problems that may come my way.
Sounds like they just want to sell speakers. ""Sure our speakers will work everywhere"" There is optimal size rooms for every speaker, I guess speakers can be used in every room, they will make sound but there is certain rooms that are the right dimensions and will image correctly certain speakers.

I know this doesn't answer your question but I hate to see statements like this from manufactures sacrificing quality to sell stuff..
This what the web site Q&A states.
" All of our speakers work well in a small room. From an acoustical standpoint, within reason there is no room too small. On the other hand, I would recommend our larger speakers for larger rooms."
"The distance is not particularly critical. I would suggest about 3 feet. Toe the speakers toward each other slightly. If the speakers must be placed against the back wall, make the toe-in angle large, on the order of 35 degrees. This does not affect the sound as the speakers provide full spectrum sound over the entire dispersion angle."

I don't know how true this statement is but I will soon find out.
Your room is sized a lot like my second listening room, so our problems are similar. My own solution is quite different from yours, but I didn't start out with six-foot high panel speakers with 10-inch woofers.

As you know, electrostatic panels are dipoles--they radiate sound front and back. This means they need space all around, they don't like being placed close to a wall. You could experiment, and you might come up with a near-wall placement you liked. However ideally they would be as much as a third of the way into the room.

If you placed them along the long wall, then, you would be pretty much doomed to nearfield listening, as in a studio monitoring setup. Smaller speakers are really better for nearfield. It takes a certain distance to hear an integrated sound from many speakers, especially panels.

Short wall placement might be the best compromise. Again, they will not like being close to a wall, though. You will need to experiment, but the solution may involve placing them 18 to 27 inches away from the side walls, which will narrow your soundstage a lot.

Do you see that the problem is a little like stuffing a gallon into a pint jar? Your Dynastats were really built for a larger room.

Those woofers will overload the room quickly as you turn up the volume. I think you are right to consider acoustic treatment--at least one and preferably two corner bass traps, and something to control highs at the wall boundaries and corners. If you placed the speakers at null points ( see the "Speaker positioning" links at the Audio Asylum FAQ ) that might help.

Why don't you contact the manufacturer and see what advice they can give?