Large speakers in small room

[mikemusic]

Think about mains

My Isobariks sounded rubbish in my small room
Problem was the mains.
Nasty 4 way adaptors and switched socket out
Bank of unswitched sockets in

Plus earth in ground outside renewed as very loose

Surprising improvement in sound quality

 

[Moppit]

My kef reference 2's overpower my 4 x5 room. Moved to Harbeth shl5+ and they go surprisingly low but work perfectly with my QUAD qsp.

Tried some lockwoods with both 15 and 12"Tannoy drivers and these sounded absolutely fine. There was a slight bloom in the mid bass that clouded the mids. I tried an SHD mini dsp which tided this up perfectly and the mids came out very clear. Stuck with the Harbeths as the mid and top are so perfect. They go just as low as the Tannoys. Room correction did not work with the Harbs. I realised that if it ain't broke....

Just make sure your amp is not too slow for your chosen speaker or you will get boom...more power!

 

[El_Soldado]

My kef reference 2's overpower my 4 x5 room. Moved to Harbeth shl5+ and they go surprisingly low but work perfectly with my QUAD qsp.

How far from the wall are your SHL5+? I have P3ESRs in a room that size and they sound great, but would love something with a bit more scale.

 

[Moppit]

They are about 35cm from the rear, and similar from 1 corner. I've got mine on something solid stands, the base of the speaker being 43cm from the floor.

 

[jobseeker]

As some have said, it depends on the definition of large. I used Amphion Xenons very successfully in a 2.4m square room. PMC Fact 3 also worked very well in there. But the little rear ported Proac Response 1 SC were too boomy.

 

[dubblebubble]

Love my Art Emotions in a 5m x 4m extension, with glass doors on two walls and a window on another. Musicality in spades up to neighbour bothering levels! Large transducers and enclosures are really a negotiation with your family rather than a question of room integration

 

[linnfomaniac83]

What are your thoughts? I’ve a small room but would love to try some JBL 100 classics or some Klipsch.

Watching a video of Michael Fremer he has some large Wilson’s in his small room and back in the day I heard a pair on Linn Keltics in Griffin Audios small listening room upstairs at their premises on Bristol street in Brum many years ago.

I had Keltiks in a smallish room, hard to explain the exact measurements because it was an L shaped room but the area they were playing in was basically about 4x3 meters and by some miracle, they sounded fabulous... I think I’d have struggled with them in my current room (5x3.5m) because there was a bass hump at about 65Hz... with some well thought out furniture shuffling and some attention to placement, that is gone, so they may work. The key is to keep them as far from the side and rear walls as possible, and put things in the corners to help break standing waves. At one end I have a large bay window with heavy velvet curtains, and at the other end I’ve put some CD racks in the corner behind the left speaker... result, clean, deep bass with no nasty boom. FWIW, active Ninkas do produce quite a lot of bass!

PS, I’ve only just placed the CD racks there today, I had other stuff there previously just to try and break up standing waves with reasonable success but these racks have made an unexpected and really positive difference, I’m going to be fastening them to the wall properly tomorrow and might put a GIK or similar bass trap above them in time... but I don’t think it’ll be necessary.

The other end of the room, the bay works wonders for breaking up standing waves!

 

[linnfomaniac83]

Borrow/home dem' some.

I have never owned any small speakers and have always had a very average/ordinary sized lounge. I am using 180 litre cabinets in a room of around 15 x 12 feet.

For most people there are likely to be two actual limitations - acceptance by others in the household, and designs that need plenty of distance away from a wall.

Yep, that’s the make or break IME. My room is a dedicated listening room (although I watch movies, concerts and YouTube in here too hence big TV), I can get away with whatever I want in here within reason (wardrobe sized Tannoys would be a serious squeeze), but I think my next speakers may be Linn Akubariks, which aren’t exactly small.

 

[linnfomaniac83]

Large speakers can work perfectly fine in a smaller room. Just because it's a bigger speaker, doesn't mean it will have more low frequency extension (although they often do). Obviously, more low frequency extension means more chance of boomy bass (try before you buy).

The other thing to consider is - the more drivers the speaker has, the more likely you will need to sit further away for the drivers to integrate properly.

It’s not the low bass that causes the biggest issues in my experience but rather the area around 55-70Hz, but a lot of larger speakers have a lot of presence there. My Ninkas go pretty low (38Hz @-3dB) and the bass was jus clean and tight down there before I sorted the room out... at 65Hz, it was a mess.

 

[aedagnino]

I had Keltiks in a smallish room, hard to explain the exact measurements because it was an L shaped room but the area they were playing in was basically about 4x3 meters and by some miracle, they sounded fabulous... I think I’d have struggled with them in my current room (5x3.5m) because there was a bass hump at about 65Hz... with some well thought out furniture shuffling and some attention to placement, that is gone, so they may work. The key is to keep them as far from the side and rear walls as possible, and put things in the corners to help break standing waves. At one end I have a large bay window with heavy velvet curtains, and at the other end I’ve put some CD racks in the corner behind the left speaker... result, clean, deep bass with no nasty boom. FWIW, active Ninkas do produce quite a lot of bass!

PS, I’ve only just placed the CD racks there today, I had other stuff there previously just to try and break up standing waves with reasonable success but these racks have made an unexpected and really positive difference, I’m going to be fastening them to the wall properly tomorrow and might put a GIK or similar bass trap above them in time... but I don’t think it’ll be necessary.

The other end of the room, the bay works wonders for breaking up standing waves!

Is that a sub under the turntable?!

 

[linnfomaniac83]

Is that a sub under the turntable?!

Haha, no, it’s a fabric box full of paperwork... I need to move that turntable back to its rightful place (my second system), I had it there whilst troubleshooting a speed issue with my main deck.

I have thought about picking up a B&K sub to fill in the very bottom end (below 38Hz), I wouldn’t have it playing noticeably loud, just enough to give back some of the bottom end presence that I miss from the Keltiks... I’d probably put it in the gap where the fan is currently sat.

 

[Fatmarley]

It’s not the low bass that causes the biggest issues in my experience but rather the area around 55-70Hz, but a lot of larger speakers have a lot of presence there. My Ninkas go pretty low (38Hz @-3dB) and the bass was jus clean and tight down there before I sorted the room out... at 65Hz, it was a mess.

What I was trying to say (obviously badly) is that speaker size has nothing to do with bass boom. I can still see people assuming that if they have a bass problem only small speakers will solve it. That' is not the case, a huge floorstander can be made to produce exactly the same low frequency response as a tiny standmount. You can't go by manufactures specs (f3 / -3db low frequency roll-off point) to try and work out if a speaker will work in your room for various reasons, so the only way to know for sure, is to try them in your room.

 

[linnfomaniac83]

What I was trying to say (obviously badly) is that speaker size has nothing to do with bass boom. I can still see people assuming that if they have a bass problem only small speakers will solve it. That' is not the case, a huge floorstander can be made to produce exactly the same low frequency response as a tiny standmount. You can't go by manufactures specs (f3 / -3db low frequency roll-off point) to try and work out if a speaker will work in your room for various reasons, so the only way to know for sure, is to try them in your room.

I think the biggest challenge with large speakers in a small room is placement, they can physically dominate the room if they’re pulled out into the room... but they ideally need to be pulled out into the room, in most instances anyway.

 

[inist]

Klipsch Fortes III have a passive radiator on the back so dont need to come out to far into a room

 

[leroyd]

Using System Audio Pandion 30's in a smaller room than recommended. Carefull positioning and reducing the circumference of the rear port has given excellent results.
These speakers are not that well known in the UK, but are highly regarded in Scandinavia
https://system-audio.com/sa-pandion-30-is-loudspeaker-of-the-year-and-we-are-proud/

 

[peterm]

I think the biggest challenge with large speakers in a small room is placement, they can physically dominate the room if they’re pulled out into the room... but they ideally need to be pulled out into the room, in most instances anyway.

I had Acoustic Energy AE1s in a moderately large room where they sounded fantastic, I never expected to buy another pair of speakers, but when I moved to a house with a large listening room they just couldn't drive the room at low frequencies so they were retired to the office on the end of a Sony micro system!

Later I set up a second system in our "granny annexe" in a room 11 x 11 feet. The little AE1s were uncontrollably boomy until pulled out so far into the room that you couldn't really walk around without knocking them over.

Out of curiosity, and nostalgia, I bought a pair of B&W DM2as like my second ever pair of speakers 45 years or so ago. After establishing that they were probably not going to displace the Obelisks from the main system(!) I decided, before taking them to the charity shop (they were cheap) that I'd try them in the annexe.

Although much bigger than the AE1s they could be placed right back against the wall, and in the corners, whilst still retaining a very tight, controlled, even slightly dry bass and they remain there to this day.

Prior to the DM2s I had a pair of Rega ELAs in the annexe system which also worked very well in the corners of the room.

The AE1s were front ported bass reflex designs, the DM2s front ported "transmission line*" and the Regas rear ported ditto (* transmission line is not really the term for these 2 speakers of course - "quarter wave" or some such description is closer).

It goes to show that you can't take anything for granted where speaker choice for "difficult" rooms is concerned!

 

[piccadilly]

Check mate. I've also got Bowers and Wilkins DM2A's in a very small room (study). I use the old IKEA stands on top of 1 foot square granite bases.


They did sound a lot better in the larger living room. But still sound ok in the small study. Powered by a Nait 1 and a Teddy Pardo DAC.

I want to make the room cosier. Got a few canvas prints waiting to be hung on the walls.


Any idea how the DM2A's sound compared to more modern speakers?

 

[yeti42]

I’d love to try DBLs but I’d lose access to too many records, the NBLs will have to do. The room is 4.1m by 3.8m on average, they’re 5.5cm from the back wall and there’s no room mode so intrusive I notice it. They even image deeper than the Thiel CS1.6s they replaced.