Daz B said:
davedotco said:
Daz B said:
I currently have our box
room as my dedicated listening room. The room measures just 2m x 2m which is less than ideal. Recently I feel less than satisfied with my system. My system consists of a 20 year old Kenwood 3020 se amp, Mission M71 speakers, Rega P1 turntable and Marantz CD 63. I have recently purchased a vintage Thorens TD 150 turntable but needs a new cartridge. The question is will upgrading my amp and speakers be wasted in such a small room ?. I feel a speaker upgrade may provide a better listening experience but have concerns regarding the limited scope for speaker placement. I am looking at speakers in the £500 to £1000 price range.
About what you are trying to achieve and how to get there. Small rooms can be a pain, but if they are dedicated listening rooms, with no other purpose, then all is not lost.
Forget about any sort of conventional layout, place both the listening position and the speakers as close to the centre of the room as possible. You will be sitting very 'near field' so experiment with the angles, I find crossing the speaker axis just in front of the listening position works well, but do play about.
Get as much damping into the room as possible, whether soft furnishings or purpose built, controlling the primary resonances will help a lot, you are sitting close, the bass will be the issue so do what you can, then adjust both the seating and speaker positions.
Finally make sure that your record player is properly supported, whichever one you use. This is important in any system but absolutely critical in such a small room.
It's interesting sugessting moving nearer to the speakers. I feel I am close enough as is it. I have tried speaker placemement and believe I have them in the best position. I will try your sugestion.
The main issue I have is my system doesn't sound very good at low volume and wondered if a better amp or speakers could change this.
This is a separate issue and probably not room related. You need to look at each issue separately.
Firstly the room, virtually a cube so all the primary resonance modes are the same, damping the room will help but best to avoid driving these modes if at all possible. This means getting both the speakers and the listening position as far away from boundaries as possible.
Good small speakers can be listened to up close, the soundstage will form behind the speakers if the positioning is correct, as I said forget convention, you can get better results by trying things differently.
Bear in mind that in a small room microphonic effects will be emphasised, so supporting the turntable will be pivotal. For the Rega, a wall shelf is probably best though the Thorens, with it's suspended sub-chassis will be better off on a light rigid table.
If the lack of quality persists, whatever you do to the setup, then the components are not good enough for your requirements, you may have to consider a new amp and speakers.