Overkill for small room


Hello all - long time lurker, first time poster. I've enjoyed reading so many of these posts, and I feel like I'm learning so much from you guys. Thank you for that.

I am strongly considering a pair of Dynaudio 20i - I am aware they require serious amplification - but I suspect that they'll be too much for a small room

Room specs: (11 wide by 14 long, normal ceiling height with acoustical tile, carpet tile covering one entire wall, wall-to-wall carpet on top of cement slab, no basement).

Am I nuts? 

Thank you in advance.

letshearit

@letshearit  I also have a room about that same size with a pair of Sonus Faber floor standers. I’ve found moving them well into the room and about 8’ apart solves wall reflections and some nasty bass nodes. I guess you would call it near field listening. My amp is a 140watt PC tube amp. The carpeted room sounds pretty fantastic. I don’t know the speakers but if you have room to play with positioning then I imagine even a larger speaker would fair well. Anyway…I hope so as I’m considering a size upgrade. Depends on this years taxes…! Good luck…!

 

 

@OP. You have plenty of space in a room that size to optimally position those speakers. They don't go particularly low in the bass either - which is a good thing in this case. Because this is essentially an American forum the way people evaluate room size is somewhat distorted. You room is not particularly small by European of Asian standards.

My room is almost exactly the size of yours, but opted for sealed cabinet Spendor 4/5 Classic (small monitors). But had some ported speakers before them and it was just fine. As stated earlier, with 14 feet you can pull them well away from the front wall - say 3-4 feet from the wall to the front of the speaker. Experiment with distance from sidewalls, but may need to get them a little closer to the sidewalls than in a larger room in order to get a decent enough stage. A bit of sidewall/ first-reflection treatment mixed with diffusion and some bass trapping is pretty much essential (even if you’ve got that much rug). Get in touch with a company like GIK for free advice on treatment and placements. But don’t overdo it, a little on the live side is alway more natural sounding 👍🏼

My first audio room was small like yours--13x15 feet.  Here is what worked great in that room:

Speakers were pulled off the front wall about 6 feet and then 2 feet from the side walls and toed in to the listening chair which was just off of the rear wall forming an equilateral triangle.

Treat first reflection points on the side walls and then behind the listening chair with rockwool panels.  Making your own is way cheaper and just as good or better.  If you want premade panels, check out Audiomute, priced better than GIK and some of the other routine recommendations.

I tried multiple speakers in that set up and the all sounded great with an stereo image that made that small room sound HUGE.

As I dealer, I had one too many customers say: "My room’s not big enough for a Home Theater!" So, I bought a 30" x 30" British phone booth (replica, the real ones literally weigh a ton) and put a full 7.1 surround system in it -- custom enclosures, infloor subs, etc. This thing rocked!!

After that, when people said the familiar: "My room is not big enough for home theater!", the qualifying question was: "Is it bigger than thirty by thirty inches?"

Small rooms have their challenges (and benefits). Great advice here from guys who know a lot about the subject. Best of luck.