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Thoughts on Speakers for a Small Audio/Video Room

Hoping to get some thoughts from the group here. 

I recently moved into a dedicated TV/audio room, but the room size is on the small side: 15.5ft x 11.5ft.  As pics will show, there's quite a bit in there, so empty volume is decreased further due to that.

I've been using Aerial Acoustics Model 7B speakers, which I've been very happy with in larger spaces, but they seem to be overwhelming the room and I'm getting fairly overwhelming bass. Vocals have sort of a chestiness/congested nature to them, and there are bass undertones to most songs.  If I play records loud, I need to activate my rumble filter, which I never used to have to do.  As a sidetone, I also have Monitor Audio Gold Reference 20's in my collection.

Preamp is a recapped Mcintosh C35 and amp is a recapped MC2255.  Phono pre is a VTL TP 2.5 II, TT is a Marantz TT-15S1 running a SAE1000LT MM cart.

I borrowed a friend's Sonus Faber Electa Amator II's and they sounded very good in my room - sweeter, more natural, no congestion, though I did give up bass slam/impact, which I kind of missed.

Here are pictures of the room:

Front:

Back:

I'm playing around now with plugging the rear ports of the Aerial, as well as putting some acoustic panels in the back corners of the room.  Both of those seem to have helped quite a bit.

As far as measurements, those Aerials are currently about 80" apart, 16" from speaker back to front of cabinet, 96" from each speaker to the listening position.

What's your opinion: With some room treatments/plugged ports, can the Aerials work well in a room of this size, or do I need to move toward smaller speakers?

If I go smaller, any thoughts on something like the Sonus Faber Concerto Domus (there's a pair local to me) or Sonetto III?  Those seem to be more modestly sized, don't go as low.  Would those be at least a lateral to the AA Model 7B's, or a step down in terms of overall speaker quality?  I only mention Sonus Faber models as I was impressed with my friend's speakers and generally do enjoy the smoother, more musical speakers and will give up some detail/pinpoint accuracy if needed to avoid brightness/listening fatigue.

Thanks all. . .

 

captouch

Showing 3 responses by audiorusty

audiorusty
296 posts
 

Hi Captouch,

Are you using any type of isolation under your turntable?

If not, I use the Townshend Seismic Vibration Isolation platform, and it works quite well.

https://www.townshendaudio.com/hi-fi-home-cinema-equipment-vibration-isolation/hi-fi-home-cinema-equipment-vibration-isolation-platform/

As a point of reference my room is 14’ 4” x 10’ 6” x 9’. My system, consists of 8 speakers, 4) 12” subs. 2) 8” mid bass cabinets and 2) mid/hi cabinets. It’s a four way system, three way active. I have been known to hit peaks as high as 119 db. The four subs help smooth out a lot of the nodes, though I still had an approximate 80 Hz standing wave issue that I have been able to eliminate by adjusting the the crossover point and using a parametric e.q. band in my DSP unit. The bass in my room has all the slam/impact that the music calls for and I have no issue with overloading the room or any bass boom at all.

You can get there with out giving up the slam/impact, you just have to keep plugging away. You might want to contact someplace like GIK Acoustics and see if they have some thoughts.

audiorusty
296 posts
 

Hi Capt.

I do electronically tune my system to the room. I chose that path, rather than tuning the room to the system for primarily economic reasons. I felt that for an approximate $450.00 investment I could get 80% to 90% to where I wanted the room/system interaction to be. That’s not to say that someday I won’t also invest in room treatments, because there are pluses and minuses to everything and I firmly believe that a hybrid approach will yield the best results, but total WAG here, room treatments done correctly for my room will come in somewhere around 2k to 5k and at this time I have other expenses that are more important.

audiorusty
296 posts
 

I am not very knowledgeable about acoustics, but my understanding is that nodes, aka standing waves occur between parallel surfaces, i.e. front and back walls, left and right side walls and floor to ceiling. The distance between the surfaces dictate the frequency of the standing wave. The speaker emits the signal, it bounces off the front wall, back to the back wall and then back to the speaker, arriving at the speaker in phase with itself making a perpetual loop at that frequency, and when like frequencies collide in phase their output energy increases. (Sidebar, octave intervals of the fundamental standing wave will be their own standing waves.) Due to the omni directional behavior of low frequencies and the low number of actual cycles of the frequency in the room at any given moment, using speaker placement as your only weapon against standing waves can be challenging. Specially in smaller rooms.

Standing waves usually diminish above 300 Hz, because as the wave length gets shorter many more cycles of each frequency can be present bouncing around the room and when like frequencies collide out of phase their output energy decreases creating a smoothing effect between nulls and nodes. This is the theory behind multiple subwoofers in an audio system. Multiple subs place more cycles in a room that can collide at different phases smoothing out the low bass response of the room.

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