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To those who support idea a room isn't large enuff

In my reading in the forums I have read at various threads and just didn't want to say anything at the time for fear of starting a riff with someones belief that a small room size can be a constraint to "it not being capable of supporting a low frequency note".

A little background on myself regarding low frequency reproduction. Not a professional speaker/subwoofer builder. Read and reread Vance Dickinson? Loudspeaker Cookbook. Designed and built a few/some sub systems.My favorite and what I considered the most accurate sub was a sealed enclosure with what I believe was a passive device made by one of the Danish driver manufactures. It fit into a hole apprx. 3.5" in diameter to only cover the hole with a type of acoustic fiber that was apprx. 3/8"-1/2" thick.Its purpose was to help smooth out the impedance curve the amp would see, from the driver thru the negative side of the sub. Pls. correct me on that last sentence if I have forgotten more than I remember.

Without going into great detail and possibly causing any confusion, I'll use the best illustration I know of that's simple to debunk those that believe in the aforementioned.

When a sub system is built for an automobile and you play music/sinewaves or what have you, it will reproduce 20/30/40 hz without constraints as long as you have the system capabilities. I've felt a 20-30 hz signal reproduced in an autimobile that I wouldn't have thought capable at the SPL's I heard and felt.In actuality I have ran a cd with stepped frequency tones. And from 20 - 100 hz I got the strongest tones bursts between 30 and 50 hz.With music the bass guitar sounded full and robust.Kinda like the bass my Apogee Stages put out.

JUst my thoughts on the subject. Pls. feel free to offer your take and why you may feel differently.
steveallen
rives
953 posts
 
Shakey offers good advice. We wrote an article on this and equated it to a kitchen. You wouldn't put a Viking commercial stove/oven with 8 burners in an apartment kitchen of 15 sq feet. Likewise you shouldn't put giant loudspeakers in an 11 x 13 room. Speakers have a "comfort zone" in terms of operating. The drivers are designed to operate optimally with a certain amount of power and driver movement. Big speakers in a small room means that is likely not to happen until it's very loud and completely over playing the room. That being said, I have a small office with a pair of 2 way monitors on stands that sound really nice. You can make a small room work, but don't try things that work against it.
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youngho_yoon
11 posts
 
Steve Allen, you're thinking of the Dynaudio Variovent.

Bass behaves differently in small spaces compared to large ones. As you probably know, axial standing waves form between parallel surfaces (walls). Below the lowest frequency standing wave (calculated by 565 divided by the largest room dimension in feet), there are no more standing waves. Instead, pressurization of the room occurs, if there's a decent seal, and bass response actually slowly rises with decreasing frequency. That's why you can get great clean deep bass in cars when the windows are closed.
jkalman
298 posts
 
The issue with rooms below around 1500 cubic feet is that the room colorations (resonant modes, nulls, RT, etc) become bad enough that even room correction becomes pointless in terms of decreasing the severity of the issues (info taken from the Master Handbook of Acoustics).
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