speakers in a bad room

Dude, sound waves are sound waves. Pull out your physics book. Get a thick rug, fill a book shelf at the back of the room (with books), and buy some acoustical treatments to dampen the initial reflection points!

I can't think of a speaker that will work well in the room as it is today. Way too many reflection points, the room must echo like crazy. Is there any chance you can do make some changes to the room? Buy an area rug for the floor, maybe hang some tapestries on the walls?

i will get a rug in front of the speakers, but is that enough ?

I think I agree with Jeff. Rugs and tapestries will offer greater sonic improvements than expensive speakers.

18 X 24 is a bit small. However ages ago I had a system, (mono because stereo was not yet invented) in the concrete cellar of a New York City house. When I played dixieland jazz it was great, because the jazz dives that I visited at the time were all in cellars.

I agree that the reflections will be wicked, wicked good perhaps! To get the full effect get a speaker with a honky horn midrange.

Today my system is much more refined, and I listen to a lot of classical chamber music. But when I play jazz, I'm not sure it has quite the impact of that first system long ago.

The room will need some form of acoustical treatment, but I suggest you mate that with a speaker that is designed with narrow dispersion characteristics which you can set up for near field listening. This will probably limit you to single driver or two way speakers.

Onhwy61 gives good advice that had not occured to me. Listening in the nearfield (which really means with you and the speakers forming a near equilateral triangle, about 6-8 feet from the speakers) significantly reduces room effects.

Also having the speakers well away from the rear and side walls (like 2-3 feet) and toed in towards the listening position will all help. Hopefully this will work for you aesthetically .... it doesn't work for my wife so I have a dedicated listening room in the spare bedroom.

Also a highly reflective room will tend to sound bright, and will not tolerate loud music without starting to sound muddled. Hopefully you enjoy listening at moderate volumes.

As for suggestions what is your price range and the rest of your system ?

18 X 24 is a small room??? I guess we live in different economic circles but I know of very few homes that have a room that big.

Set your system up. Use the rug. Talk to Nathan at Eighth Nerve about treating your room. His stuff really works and it is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things. Actually, very cheap for what you get.

Depending on your ceiling height you could actually have a wonderful room. Certainly 18 x 24 dimensions can accommodate all but a couple of the largest speakers out there. The concrete walls are a great asset and will help the bass and add solidity to the sound. Yes, your room is probably bright and reflective right now, but it could have a lot of potential. Its much easier to tame a hard room than try to bring life to a dead one. You'll certainly need room treatment and need to work with knowledgeable people on this. Pile thickness of a rug is very important for its acoustic benefits and character. The wall treatments should be chosen very carefully as well, many of commercial audiophile products do little to help with reflections and if anything do more harm with their coloration. If your ceiling height is 10' or more, you could have an amazing listening room.

Innersound speakers have a narrow radiation pattern which means less reflection off the walls.

This is the direction you need to take.

There may be other speakers that beam Quad ESL 57 maybe?

agree with Philjolet.. a dipole speaker might work better if you have to place on the short wall due to the figure 8 radiation pattern (output to the sides is cancelled...

that being said you can go planar or dipole dynamic(alon)

good luck,

mike

Herman...I guess that 18 X 24 is a good sized room, for anything except audio. A very popular feature of newly built houses is the "great room" often 30 X 40 or more, and with a high ceiling and irregular shape. This really makes for good audio. Old Colonial houses like mine often had small rooms, but walls get knocked down and several rooms made into one. That's how mine got to be about 26 X 34 which I still consider to be too small.

People who live in apartments or condos or developments where houses are close together are at a serious disadvantage. My closest neighbor is about 600 feet away with woods in between us. No problem when I crank it up!

The cellar that I mentioned as a good venue for jazz was about 25 X 50.

thanks for all the answers. about if it is a small or big room, it is more than double the size of what i have now.
the ceiling heights is exactly 10'.me and my wife live in denmark right now, but are moving to her country next year.the new house are ready, so i am making plans for bying new setup, because the one i have now is for 240v. so i am gonna start all over. i have aprox. 30000 us for the new setup.

Well Pedersen, $30k can buy a lot of stereo. Especially in Denmark. It can buy an AMAZING amount of equipment if you choose ultra hi-end kit speakers over the commercial offerings (where $30k will buy you the equivalent spkrs ONLY). Dipoles are a good suggestion; Linkwitz lab offers these (exquisite), there are other plans too. Indeed, most/all of the parts are easily available in Denmark that has a strong diy community so, maybe you should buy before you move?

18x24 is a small room? I agree with the others. A 30x40 room would equal my entire house. Yikes.

17x23 would still be a nice room size, I would stud some walls and pack in as much insulation as I could at the very least. Large speakers with truly deep bass response will not sound good as is unless you like...BOOOOOM.

Dave

As Sogood51 said

"Large speakers with truly deep bass response will not sound good as is unless you like...BOOOOOM".

I thought that one important aspect of High End audio was unrestricted low end. If you are in the process of building or remodeling the cost of a bigger room is probably less than the cost of all the room treatments you will otherwise need.

well mr. Gregm. you would be surpriced over the prices on stereo equipment in denmark.its normally double up us prices.
i need a set of speakers, a cd/dvd player, amplifiers, tuner, plasma screen, cables. not surround sound.
i will see if i can get a carpet on the floor and some absorbments on the walls.

Concrete will not absorb low bass, bass notes will linger and build with-in the room in a cascading mix and become less than real sounding...bass should growl at you..not shout.

Dave

Sogood51...I understand your point about reverberation in a concrete room. My point is that for certain kinds of music, jazz in a cellar dive or organ in a stone cathedral, that "cascading mix" of reverberant sound is exactly what is needed for realism.

Of course, my room is not concrete. I am just making an observation about something (unexpected) that I have observed.

Eldartford

Sounds good to me! I think rock sounds best played over big PA systems to be honest so can understand your observation and agree that it would (could) sound more LIVE (real) in some cases.

Dave

I think Sogood's suggestion is the best place to start. You are still going to have some boom. You will either need to build a high Q resonator or possibly correct for the remaining boom electrically with something like our PARC. Even if you do intend on dealing the anticipated problem electrically--try to do everything else you can to minimize that amount of correction first. This is one case where you should build the walls one layer 1/2 inch sheetrock and insulation behind. It will allow the walls to give and reduce the Q a bit.

There are a lot of resources on our website that might be helpful to you. Here's a link to the resource page

Probably something from Europe. My understanding is many homes in Europe have hard floors and concrete walls and many of the European speakers are designed with this in mind. I dont know this to be fact but I have read it in several threads.

A good tube amp and tube CDP should also be considered.

A throw rug, some pillows and other sound deadening material will also help.