2. speakers
  3. 150303-1627

Swapped long wall to short wall and now I am having some big issues

I have a 14.5 x 27 ft x 8' room (it is narrower at 12 ft (the last 6 ft on the end where I have the speakers)


I had my system aligned on the long wall with the rack in between the speakers.

The speakers were 9' offset from listening position and the side wall were so far away (and had two record cabinets) that they were out of the equation.  I had real traps mondo bass traps in the corners and GIK art panels to handle slap echo.

The sound was excellent - great tonality, dynamics, imaging. The only issues I had were a limited listening area and not back enough for full speaker driver integration.


After listening to a friends system in a 12x23 room - old home with wood construction I was a gasp. His system was short wall and there was great integration with easily 2 rows of 3 people could sit and listen. It was a very relaxing and engaging experience.


Fast forward. I made the move. knocked out a closet in the corner. Removed one of 2 floor to ceiling record racks, a Wurlitzer jukebox, and Victrola.  I placed the equipment racks on the opposite side wall.  The speakers were set up 2 feet from the walls in front of the two corner bass traps. The sound was dreadful.  The once luscious mids were thin and highs (1.2-3khz) were bright and cymbals were brittle, hard strumming acoustic guitars and brass sounded terrible as well.  If the music got dynamic - it sounded terrible.


The vinyl was bad - cd atrocious.


I went ahead and took all the acoustic panels out except the GIK art panels.


I did some research and bought some GIK Impression 2' 2" panels for first reflection  and GIK Impression 1' 4" diffuser/bass panels for the front corners allowing absorption from the back.  This was much better but still way off.  I moved the speakers out from the wall and then the instrument subtle details snapped into place - at 6 ft this was most apparent however it developed a very bloated mid bass.


I am looking for ways to tame the high end and mid bass but bring out the mid range,  I do not want to over treat.

This in incredibly frustrating as I had my sound very refined and the short wall setup should theoretically produced better results.  I would be interested in your comments and suggestions.


Thank You

128x128audiotomb
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
you can either build a new room or you can accept that you will never get perfect sound in a bad room. 


mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,234 posts
 
OK, on the long wall you had delayed primary reflections on the side walls and they occurred at lower volumes because they were farther away, a situation that would probably favor that speaker which has one design flaw, it has two tweeters which are too far apart to reproduce the highest frequencies in balance with the rest of the speaker. They will have a tendency to be too bright and harsh. The farther away you are from them the brighter they will get. Sit in your listening chair and have someone move a mirror along the side wall and mark the point you can see the speaker from your listening position in the mirror. The mirror should stay flat against the wall. Stick acoustic foam tile, I would say a 2 X 4 foot area centered on that point for both side walls. Do the same for the front wall. This will diminish reflections from 250 Hz up and smooth things out. The bass performance is going to change based on the speakers distance from the front wall so if you are unhappy with it you have to move the speakers back and forth until you get the balance you like. Do this before you find the spots on the side walls to dampen. Frequently the bass will sound its best with the speaker right up against the wall which unfortunately will not give you the best upper frequency performance. Life is full of compromises. 
audiotomb's avatar
audiotomb OP
1,112 posts
 
Thanks for the suggestions and I will work on extremes on the speaker position

i have gik products for the first refections,
I do have the opportunity to offset the speakers to the room slightly and the center of the tweeters are only separated by 4".

Daedalus are known for their accurate tonality and non fatiguing sound.

i didn't see a way to attach my long and short wall diagrams 

i am also using REW measurements

I will set up a pair of paridygns as well

thanks
almarg's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
almarg
9,670 posts
 
... that speaker which has one design flaw, it has two tweeters which are too far apart to reproduce the highest frequencies in balance with the rest of the speaker.
Mijostyn, as I mentioned in my previous post I have the same speakers as the OP. I also have a DEQX HDP-5 in my system. When I acquired the DEQX about three years ago, as part of the calibration and correction processes it performs I used it to measure the frequency response of the speakers, with room reflections minimized. I accomplished that by moving each speaker to the center of the room, placing large sound absorbent panels along the nearest walls, and a pillow on the floor directly in front of the speaker being measured. The measurement microphone was placed on a stand, directly in front of and pointed at the tweeters, at distances of 30 and 36 inches (those distances having been chosen per DEQX recommendations, to minimize room reflections that are picked up by the mic, and to delay them as much as possible relative to the sound reaching the mic directly). The HDP-5 puts a lengthy series of brief frequency sweeps through the system, and computes the frequency response and other speaker characteristics by analyzing what the mic picks up.

Those measurements revealed that the greatest response in any part of the audible spectrum occurred at about 18 kHz, and the average response in the top octave (10 to 20 kHz) was slightly greater than the average in the rest of the spectrum.

Also, from a subjective standpoint, in addition to the characteristics the OP mentioned in his post just above Daedalus speakers are widely recognized as being "fast" and dynamic. That would seem to be consistent with my measurements.

Regards,
-- Al



skywachr
123 posts
 
Before you do a lot of radical stuff, try something simple. Here it is. Position your right or left speaker, depending on orientation of the room near a corner as you normally would, preferably elevated. If the first speaker for example is the right, move left in the room from there and skip the corner you come to entirely. Keep moving in that direction until the next corner and place the left speaker there as you would if both speakers were associated with that shared wall. Place your listening position between them approximately on the diagonal of the room. Hope this helps. You may be surprised.
More to discover