room accoustics....

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Anonymous

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igglebert:scene:Speaker positioning is an art and can make mediocre speakers sing or great speakers sound dull and inncoherent. ...this is a very good point and should never be underestimated. Further, the stands you place a speaker on will have their impact too, surprisingly so. In all my years of owning and tweaking hifi, the best advice I ever received was to pick a speaker that many would consider too small for the room. This can provide far more flexibility to place it well, bringing huge gains in all areas. These days my worst nightmare is a pair of floorstanders in a small, square room with wooden floorboards and an amp that can't grip the drive units! Well, that and slow sub-woofers... That,s quite strange igglebert, i was always told to put a larger speaker whenever possible in the room as it gives more scale at lower listening levels, each to their own i suppose.
 

scene

Well-known member
johnnyjazz:igglebert:scene:Speaker positioning is an art and can make mediocre speakers sing or great speakers sound dull and inncoherent. ...this is a very good point and should never be underestimated. Further, the stands you place a speaker on will have their impact too, surprisingly so. In all my years of owning and tweaking hifi, the best advice I ever received was to pick a speaker that many would consider too small for the room. This can provide far more flexibility to place it well, bringing huge gains in all areas. These days my worst nightmare is a pair of floorstanders in a small, square room with wooden floorboards and an amp that can't grip the drive units! Well, that and slow sub-woofers... That,s quite strange igglebert, i was always told to put a larger speaker whenever possible in the room as it gives more scale at lower listening levels, each to their own i suppose.

This disagreement probably highlights one of the most important aspects of room acoustics: it is highly subjective.

Suggested reading: Floyd E. Toole's excellent: "Sound Reproduction: Loudspeakers and Rooms". This is pretty much the definitive work (IMHO) on surround sound acoustics and is used by a number of speaker manufacturers. Then again, if you read this, you'll be wanting to have a 5.4 or 7.4 system to achieve perfect base reproduction...

EDIT: This book is available on Amazon for £19.56: click
 

jaxwired

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JohnNewman:igglebert:This guide by Audio Physic might interest you. This is an excellent guide! I thought I had a reasonable understanding of speaker placement, but this has definitely added to my knowledge. Had a play about last night and the results are a cleaner sound, wider sound-stage and better separation between instruments. Brilliant!

I agree. Great guide! Most room acoustics arcticles or guides I've read are way too complicated to make good use of. That Audio Physics guide is very readable. I'd already spent lots of time playing with room acoustics and speaker position, but that guide made me try moving my listening position a bit more with some excellent results. Thanks Igglebert!
 

SonofSun

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Great article igglebert, optimising room accoustics and speaker positioning can give far better results many an expensive upgrade.

Everyone should have a butchers at this article.
 
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Anonymous

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johnnyjazz:igglebert:scene:Speaker positioning is an art and can make mediocre speakers sing or great speakers sound dull and inncoherent. ...this is a very good point and should never be underestimated. Further, the stands you place a speaker on will have their impact too, surprisingly so. In all my years of owning and tweaking hifi, the best advice I ever received was to pick a speaker that many would consider too small for the room. This can provide far more flexibility to place it well, bringing huge gains in all areas. These days my worst nightmare is a pair of floorstanders in a small, square room with wooden floorboards and an amp that can't grip the drive units! Well, that and slow sub-woofers... That,s quite strange igglebert, i was always told to put a larger speaker whenever possible in the room as it gives more scale at lower listening levels, each to their own i suppose.
Yeah, I've heard that approach used often. Thing is, like anything, it's easy to go overboard with a technical solution, i.e. speaker system, for the given requirements, i.e. room size, listening level, etc. Obviously the real answer lies in room acoustics and detailed analysis but the simple approach that works well for me is to not overdo it. I've heard far too many big speakers in rooms that just didn't justify it.

I'm by no means stating any form of fact other than my own experiences.
 
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Anonymous

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Yea, i totally agree with you igglebert, if it works for you then you are doing the right thing. The guy that gave me the advice was Jack at The Audio Salon in Glasgow, his home is his hi-fi premises, a beautiful victorian townhouse in the very fashionable west end, the rooms in the first 3 floors are all filled with the highest end equipment and massive sofas and furnishings, most of the speakers are huge and above £20,000 same for amps and source and in those surroundings large equipment really has a chance to show the listener what it can do when partenered correctly.
 
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Anonymous

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Hi,

Room accoustics have a massive impact on the performance of the system. Each room will be different and the results you get can be dramatically different for rooms basically the same size depending on a whole raft of areas, wall and floor construction, window placement, ceiling height etc as well as what is actually in the room. Setting a system up correctly can take a long time. I found the XTZ room analyzer very helpful. I think it sells for about £175 to £200 but it really helps in set up. If there are a few of you who need to set your systems up maybe buy one together. It simply speeds up the set up process; it makes it very quick to see what changes you make do to the frequency response. This means you can get close to a good response with the analyzer and then do the final tweaking by ear. I have been setting up systems for the last 25 years and can normally get great results, this simply helps with the process and can help pin point problems areas in your room. Using a system like this and some of the tuning tricks suggested on this thread enables you to do is get the best from the room you have.
 
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Anonymous

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i agree with room acoustics, its a nightmare, im still experimenting with my room and damping and speaker placement etc and nothing is helping so far, my room is giving off a weird sound, a perfect sound except for a bass problem. It basically doesnt exist, without my sub on you cant hear no bass from my speakers, weird one as ive heard them sound punchy and tight in previous properties/rooms
 

Sliced Bread

Well-known member
bluedjdaz2010:i agree with room acoustics, its a nightmare, im still experimenting with my room and damping and speaker placement etc and nothing is helping so far, my room is giving off a weird sound, a perfect sound except for a bass problem. It basically doesnt exist, without my sub on you cant hear no bass from my speakers, weird one as ive heard them sound punchy and tight in previous properties/rooms

I had a flat like that once. The lounge was tiny, but for some reason bass was sucked out of the room. It was really weird. I moved house into a living room that was over twice the size and the bass from the same speakers is now a little too much.

I wish I could help you, but I never really solved the problem!

The only thing that helped was when I experimented by firing the speakers down the length of the room instead of across the width. It was by no means perfect but it did help, unfortunately the room shape meant I couldn't leave it there as the door would be blocked by the sofa and the window blocked by the TV.
 
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Anonymous

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A friend of mine stays in a large tenement flat, his lounge is massive with a large bay window and high ceilings. Now the guy,s a bass player and we have jammed many times in the lounge through guitar and bass amps and the sound has always been very full and detailed and thats with him playing a fretless bass through a large cabinet, but when listening to his hi-fi in the same room it does not sound right, a lot of the music bounces about totally out of control, it,s very weird indeed and sounds terrible.
 
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Anonymous

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I have some concerns about neighbours . I want to listen high music but i dont want to discturb my neighbours. Is there any possiblity that we could control high sound. Is it possible to stop it completely.?
 

steve_1979

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jukils said:
I have some concerns about neighbours . I want to listen high music but i dont want to discturb my neighbours. Is there any possiblity that we could control high sound. Is it possible to stop it completely.?

If you use an AV receiver then it'll have a 'loudness' option which limits the dynamic range. Basically this means that the quiet parts of the music will be a bit louder and the loud parts of the music will be a bit quieter so that there's only a small difference in volume between the loud and quiet sections.
 

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