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HiFi in standard Victorian sitting rooms

gustav_errata

gustav_errata

pfm Member
We're buying a late Victorian mid-terrace house and the hifi will end up in a standard sitting room of the era: 4.45m x 4.0m (14"7' x 13"1'), bay window, fireplace (disused) with recessed areas on either side, carpeted suspended wood floor. I can't remember the ceiling height, but fairly high compared to our current 1970s build. There is a radiator on the wall opposite the window, off-centre towards the door.

Given that many of you likely have or have had your hifi setups in such rooms, I was hoping there might be some acquired wisdom on layout, speaker size, etc, anything really.

Are you sat facing the fireplace, the bay window or one of the other walls? Are floorstanders ok or do they overwhelm the room? Is your sofa flush up against the wall? If so have you had success with acoustic panels on the rear wall?

For context, we have our hifi on a 120cm x 40cm AV stand (bespoke, so not being replaced) with the TV mounted on it. The stand has a cavity under it, so depending on the width it might fit over the raised hearth. My speakers are DALI Optikon 6 Mk2, but my long-term goal is some PMC floorstanders. I have also considered getting a subwoofer, but I will have to assess the space situation once we've moved in.
 
Sounds nice, I like traditional architecture.
Every sitting room needs a focal point, hopefully not a telly or worse a hifi rack . So really that leaves the fireplace or the view out the window.
I'd probably start with speakers either side or the fireplace.
 
Sounds very much like my room:

49837291282_51e5f8d68b_b.jpg


Rather an odd perspective due to iPhone wide-angle.

46585741181_b3d12dde38_b.jpg


Again an odd perspective that makes things look far more cramped than they are, but it still shows my chosen layout. The bay-window is to the right in both pictures.

I’ve lived in a fair few similar rooms over the years and always without exception prefer the speakers on the wider wall. I always follow old-school studio ’live end/dead-end’ logic so wouldn’t consider not having a carpeted floor and attempt to damp or scatter opposing wall surfaces. Rooms of this size tend to have a node around 40-50Hz, so choose your speakers wisely and avoid those with ports that add reinforcement in this range. My preference is for sealed boxes or huge vented speakers like the Tannoys which need no port chicanery. The other problem in small rooms such as this is you inevitably end up with the listening seat fairly close or hard up against the rear wall. This can often add reinforcement in the bass, certainly the case here, though it is thankfully clean and boom-free. It is another thing to be aware of. Get all the ducks in order and these rooms can sound superb IMO. When moving I know I can get rooms like this to work whereas I will reject some houses on room shape, e.g. no way in hell will I live anywhere with an ‘L’ shaped space.

PS If your house is like mine with two living rooms don’t be tempted to knock them through into one long space. That sounds like crap IMHO!
 
I have the speakers on either side of a kind of bay window, and a little in. I have always found speakers to work best firing across the shorter dimension, but it's not practical in my room due to the location of a door. And it's nicer to stare out the window than stare at the fireplace (which is on the right hand side as I face the speakers/window). Room is approximately 18' x 16' x 10' ceiling, suspended pitch pine floor over shallow void, four hardwood sash&case windows in that bay formation. Carpeted with underlay.

Acoustic panels didn't really do much for me, but mainly due to the room already having bookshelves (left wall), record shelves (behind), a huge sofa, a second smaller sofa and a chair. Plus far too much other clutter in the room. Overall it means the room is slightly over-damped, relative to neutral, and that has had its challenges as far as finding the correct acoustical 'seasoning to taste' - specifically, I find my room makes a neutral speaker slightly rolled-off sounding, so I tend to increase the treble lift on my speakers a little.

I would prefer a larger room, but it's about right for the speakers and sub I use. Incidentally, I found getting a sub with parametric EQ far more useful than messing with the panels, albeit panels can do stuff that sub EQ can't and vice versa.

These days my biggest challenge is finding the time to listen to music; the sound, as far as I'm concerned, is more than good enough for my purposes, lest the gear-acquisition-syndrome take hold again :)
 
Tony L said:
attempt to damp or scatter opposing wall surfaces.
Click to expand...
I'm presuming you don't extend this approach to the side walls, Tony, since having one side wall reflective and the other absorptive will surely pull the stereo image towards the former?
 
Always tricky in these rooms. My speakers have ended up on the wall that you have your radiator on, system in one alcove, tv in other alcove, armchair in bay window. Door immediately to right of right speaker. Speakers now replaced with Neat floorstanders, which are a bit more imposing in the room.

room.jpg
 
Ours is a pre-war semi-detached so probably 40-odd years younger, but the room is a similar size and configuration (slightly smaller at around 4m x 4m, give or take, but with similar chimney breast and bay window arrangement). Ceiling heights are decent, a bit over 8', but probably a tad lower than the norm for a Victorian equivalent. So, ball-park the same, and very common to a lot of UK houses in size and layout.

We have 2, 2-seat sofas on adjacent walls, one facing the bay, the other facing the hearth. Hardwood flooring, and curtains to either side of the bay, but only window-length, not floor length. The radiator is in the bay. Loudspeakers go in the bay, but actually roughly on the room/bay boundary so there's space behind them, albeit angled as its the 'sides' of the bay. As the room is roughly square, there's no real long axis/short axis to think about and this configuration works best with the decor, radiator, and location of the system. I've used small standmounts and large floorstanders, ranging from LS3/5s (didn't do much for me), Amphion Argon 3S (liked, muchly), up to Kudos Titan 808s. The latter were well OTT, but worked, no real room issues. The Titan 707 is a happier upper size limit for the room, though.

I keep a thin rug folded up under one of the sofas, in case floor reflections were a problem when we went from carpet to hard floors about 2 years ago. I haven't needed it. I think we've somehow got the balance of soft furnishings and hard surfaces somewhere about right.

In short, it's turned out to be a pretty benign and accommodating space for hifi, and I can listen at quite high levels (~85dB with >102dB peaks) without things coming off the rails. I do use good supports, an excellent mains block, and quality cables but no room treatment beyond the furnishings.
 
Tony L said:
PS If your house is like mine with two living rooms don’t be tempted to knock them through into one long space. That sounds like crap IMHO!
Click to expand...
Good to know! There is a second reception room, as well as a breakfast room that the current owners already joined with the kitchen. Combining the two reception rooms had crossed my mind but the plan is to keep them separate, with the other as a play room, which brings entirely different benefits to hifi!
 
I have a slightly smaller square victorian room except no fireplace which was removed.
As mentioned above sofa is also hard up against wall which exacerbates some excess bass. I ended up using 4 GIK bass traps in 3 corners. 1 behind each speaker and 2 stacked in other door free corner. This tamed the bass effectively and due to their white cloth and angled shape blend in well.
Sound is excellent the best I have had in any house of many.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. We're not moving in until late April but obviously I'm already thinking about how I want to arrange everything. I'll be glad to have this thread as a manual!
 
ToTo Man said:
I'm presuming you don't extend this approach to the side walls, Tony, since having one side wall reflective and the other absorptive will surely pull the stereo image towards the former?
Click to expand...

Both side walls have a vaguely even amount of diffraction/absorption, though the room does sound better at night with the curtains drawn. It is a very nicely damped and well behaved room, largely due to it being so full of stuff! I’ve said it many times before but a good record/book collection makes a hell of a difference to room acoustics and can turn otherwise problematic alcoves into an effective acoustic treatment!
 
My parents had a room like that with pretty tall ceiling. Across the room (the smaller dimension and speakers either side of the fireplace/chimney breast. Heavy cutains across the bay window like a theatre stage..
 
I’ve lived in 2 Victorian Houses, I had to keep the volume low in both as neighbours complained. I heard one neighbour fall out of bed when he died!!

Saying that I’d happily live in another one. Good luck with the move.

Cheers BB
 
we recently moved to a victorian property and the living room opens up to the dining room. I couldn't get the system to work in the living room area, it was just too awkward and there's a wood burner so don't really want that near my sugden. so the system has gone in the dinning room. not ideal but I sometimes work on the dining room table and will listen to music then, and it's nice to have music playing whilst eating/ having friends round.
 
gustav_errata said:
"Alcoves", damn it. That's the word I was looking for.
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Yup! They're good for breaking up standing waves or building record shelves but not for speakers. With your just off square room, 'firing down' and 'firing across' is moot, but PMC floorstanders? Not if my current experience of Twenty.26s are concerned; they need space to shine. With the higher ceiling ((my Victorian place had 10' ones) I'd say Briks would be perfect (only kidding but whatever modern equivalent there is could be good.

Just a thought; if you're having any electrical upgrades done, consider a dedicated supply for the hifi; cheap adjunct if having other work done.

Anyway, it's always 'suck it 'n' see' when moving to a new abode. B.t.w., our sofa is in the bay area but a little forward of it to allow both access and the soundstage to have 'air'.
 
@gustav_errata

Your room sounds similar to my music room.
I have had the room just for HiFi (no television) for 30 years now and have tried many configurations.

I had the fireplace removed as I didn’t need it - it had been replaced at some time in the 1940-50’s so wasn’t original. The void now has a subwoofer and records stored in it.
I have a 2’ void beneath the wooden floor - I run pmc floorstanders in front of where the fireplace was, about 2’ out from the wall. This is the long wall. Years ago I decoupled the speakers from the floor (as much as I could) using granite slabs and felt pads - this made a massive difference to the sound.
I used to have speakers firing down the length of the room from the bay window, although this looks great, the sound is narrow compared to where they are now.
The alcoves either side of what was the fireplace have my equipment on one side and records on the other.

C3-AC4155-4-AFC-45-A1-8152-BDD667014014.jpg
 
In a Victorian through lounge with front section used for the stereo. Speakers KEF 104/2 (in Winter) are about a metre in from the bay, the centre of each almost in line with an edge of the bay, the sub woofer in line with the cent5e of the bay. Takes a lot of fiddling around as some parts of the floor are loose and deffo best soundwise to avoid those. Did try firing out from the alcoves but just not enough space for the speakers to 'breathe'.
 
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