Speakers....AGAIN

[admin_exported]

Hi, anyone any suggestions for speakers for a small room, 3.5 metres by 3 metres, planning on replacing my quads as they are not quite keeping the ears happy on lots of CD's, they are great on certain stuff but on rock music they tend to just sound like the Bass is sounding like a hum and over bearing instead of a dinstinctive sound

Have tried different placements of speakers, got them about 30 centimetres from back and about the same from the side walls. there might be a cheaper option if anyone has any ideas, possible speaker cable change?

Cheers in advance

Daz

 

[Craig M.]

maybe, rather then trying to find speakers to work well in such a small room, you might be better off trying to absorb some of the excess bass with some acoustic panels?

 

[jaxwired]

Well, an obvious suggestion would be ATC SCM 11s. Sealed box, so very little room interaction. The new EB2s would probably work a treat. You might also consider Dali Menuets. They are small enough to work well in a very small room. Spendor SA1 maybe?

 

[TheHomeCinemaCentre]

Lots of choices for this but a set of Dali Ikon 1's would be a nice step up from your Quads and not overpower the room. The 12's do have a slighly slow bass by comparison to a lot of rivals and that is probably what you are hearing.

 

[the record spot]

Any idea of budget?

 

[Anonymous]

My budget would prob be around the £500 mark may be able to stretch to likes of EB2 price, where i stay i have no way of demoing any speakers so obviously needing to way my options up carefully on what i go for.

 

[Anonymous]

was having a look at some of the sealed box speakers mentioned above....hopefully getting a bit a of a bonus next month so decided to treat myself to some new speakers.....just one question and sorry if it sounds thick...obviously the EB2 are far bigger than likes of the SCM11's....my room is 3x3.5 would the EB2 bee too big for my room regardless of it being a sealed box?

Cheers Daz

 

[Steve Reichert PR Manager ArmourHome]

Hello Daz,

I know you've tried moving your speakers within your room but may I suggest you have another go at that before you spend a lot of money? The reason I suggest this is because it's not usually recommended to place speakers equidistant from both rear and side walls. You should hear a more open sound if have your speakers say; 35cm from the rear walls and 20cm from the side walls.

Obviously, very good speaker stands also tend to tighten the bass and allow the speaker to deilver more detail.

Very best regards,

Steve

Steve Reichert, PR Manager - Armour Home (Q Acoustics)

 

[Sorreltiger]

I improved the bass on my 12Ls by putting bungs in the rear ports. In the end, I settled with one port open and the other closed. I actually used washing-up sponges, which were exactly the right size!

 

[matthewpiano]

Good advice from Mr Reichert and Sorreltiger there. I really think tuning the sound in these ways is much better than spending £500 on what is only going to be a sideways step in reality. The Quads are excellent speakers but just need lots of patience to set them up for their best.

Worth seeing if you can borrow some different speaker cable to try as well. I find the QED Evolution XT works far better with my 11Ls than my Chord Rumour does.

 

[Anonymous]

Dazzler123:
Hi, anyone any suggestions for speakers for a small room, 3.5 metres by 3 metres, planning on replacing my quads as they are not quite keeping the ears happy on lots of CD's, they are great on certain stuff but on rock music they tend to just sound like the Bass is sounding like a hum and over bearing instead of a dinstinctive sound

Have tried different placements of speakers, got them about 30 centimetres from back and about the same from the side walls. there might be a cheaper option if anyone has any ideas, possible speaker cable change?

Cheers in advance

Daz

I'm not sure how far out you tried moving the speakers, but I'm going to guess that 30cm is too close to the wall. I've got my Quads 90cm from the back wall and one is 20cm from the side wall, while the other is very far off the other side wall (probably 150cm). The bass to my ears isn't anything like you describe, though I will say that these speakers definitely put out lots of low end. More than one would expect when looking at them. Frankly, I don't use a sub nor do I feel I need one, and I listen to mostly rock. With that said the bass is tuneful, full with ample weight, well integrated and not at all overbearing.

Remember that the speakers are rear ported, and if they are too close to the wall the bass would almost surely take on the characteristics you describe. If you have no other option I'd try plugging the ports, and if you feel that doesn't work and want to replace the speaker you may want to look at front ported models.

By the way, I almost got rid of my Quads but after making some changes to the way my system is set up I have opted to keep them as I now love the sound. When I try to pinpoint something wrong with the sound I just can't. They are detailed like crazy, fast, with good body and weight through the lows and mids, and they've got smooth, extended highs. A big improvement came when I got rid of my terminated jumper cables and replaced that with maybe 3 inches of speaker with with bare ends. I don't know if those old jumpers were faulty, or maybe the thick spade connector prevented the bananas on my speaker cables from making a solid connection. I also found improvement by changing speaker cables, which my dealer explained was just a better match to the amp's output (I'm going from Atlas to LFD by the way, my sig isn't updated yet). This has me thinking that many systems that people aren't fond of could have the potential to sound better than they do but there might be something in the way they are set up that is holding them back. Finding what that is is the tough part.