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Can you make a small room sound decent?

mightycicadalord

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Is it possible to make small rooms sound anywhere near decent? I've been trying to get good results in some of my rooms but no dice.

I've got an 11'x14' and a 12'x13' rooms and man, I cannot get anything good out of either of them. I've got a good chunk of treatment I can utilize but it never seems to be enough. The 12x13 room is really lively so I scratched that. The 11x14 sounds a little better so I went with that. Ceilings are 8ft.

My treatments are as follows.

2'x4' 10" deep triangle bass traps in the corners covering the middle of the corner mostly, not going from floor to ceiling. I may build two more and stack them.

4'x4' 4" thick ceiling panel above my head

2'x4' 2" thick panels on the left and right, there is room to double up on the thickness with these and I just might do that.

I have more materials sitting in the garage and can order more if need be. Just wondering how much you need before a room starts to get better. I think my left and right needs to just be a a big 4'x4' x 4" on each side because there are nasty phasy things going on when you move left to right. Should I just abandon this small space?
 
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Purité Audio

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You need to acoustically measure with REW.
Keith
 

FrantzM

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What speakers you have?
What material is the room made of?
Photos?

Do not yet despair. Multiple subs, DRC and modest room treatments can bear great results..
Waiting for more info.

Peace
 

Joe Smith

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My small top floor workroom is roughly 8' x 14' and I think I get very good sound with either desk location or further back in a listening chair. Two windows, carpeted floor, speakers angled on 30" stands on either side of the desk along the short end of the room. I make a slight toe in adjustment to optimize for nearfield versus far-field.
 

FrantzM

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Here is my room: Drawings... Not a photo .. it is way uglier ;)

1644786025812.jpeg


Treatments are at the first reflection points. Ceiling and rug on the floor. Walls are cinder blocks. Floor and ceiling are poured concrete.

DRC is Audyssey via a Denon AVR X-3400H. A bit of help from REW and a miniDSP 2x4 HD to present the two subs as one sub to the Denon Audyssey. I will add one more subwoofer soon. Results are IMHO very good. I will measure and post here.

I believe your rooms can work if some care is taken.


Peace.
 
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mightycicadalord

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I'll have to take some measurements later when I get home, but here is the room visually. Kind of dark picture that was taken at night, oopsy.

273031015_1325337101263451_1594224684824545389_n.jpg
 

R3Forge

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hi, i have a similarly sized room like op and it sounds decent. i have a small dip (~3dB) at (~120hz) and that's it.
driving a pair of Genelec 8320 with a pair of Genelec 7350 Subs.

i have two heavy thick curtains on the front wall, three 2'x4' 10" deep rockwool absorbers on each side and one on the ceiling.

ceiling, floor, front and backwall are massive concrete and sidewalls are plasterboard.
 
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mightycicadalord

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I would start by pulling them out further from the front wall.

I can never tell what is the right distance to the front wall. Up close I get more even bass but something about the mid bass suffers a lot, and pulled out the mid bass improves but I lose all my low end :(
 

FrantzM

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Please consider subwoofers.. At least 2. Seriously. They don't need to be the best . I am being driven to tears bya pair of $220 subwoofers on a regular basis in my small room.. which reminds me... Time for an audio session :D
 
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mightycicadalord

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I have a sub I could try but no real way of splitting signal between the mains and sub. my speakers go low too so they'd probably run into each other without a xover.

I think the low end in here is fine, there's plenty of it, EQ can even it out, it's the stuff above the bass that annoys me. Like talking in the room doesn't feel good to do. I have a room next to this one that at least feels better to talk in but is about as lively.
 
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FrantzM

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I have a sub I could try but no real way of splitting signal between the mains and sub. my speakers go low too so they'd probably run into each other without a xover.

I think the low end in here is fine, there's plenty of it, EQ can even it out, it's the stuff above the bass that annoys me. Like talking in the room doesn't feel good to do. I have a room next to this one that at least feels better to talk in but is about as lively.
Not much time to reply to this... but this is a common mistake: it doesn't matter, as a matter of fact this is quite good that the mains overlaps some with the subs... Later perhaps. I got to watch the Superbowl !
But Subwoofers are almost mandatory, regardless of the intrinsic bass capabilities of the mains... In such a small room they are needed to let the mains be placed where they image and play the rest of the spectrum best and leave the bass to subwoofers and DSP...
Peace
 
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LTig

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I have a sub I could try but no real way of splitting signal between the mains and sub. my speakers go low too so they'd probably run into each other without a xover.

I think the low end in here is fine, there's plenty of it, EQ can even it out, it's the stuff above the bass that annoys me. Like talking in the room doesn't feel good to do. I have a room next to this one that at least feels better to talk in but is about as lively.
You've just discovered that speaker positions for good bass differ from those for good mids. That's where subs come to help.

However if even live talking sounds weird I don't think your system has any chance to sound good. Luckily it's much easier to reduce reflections in the mid range. It could he enough to add diffusers, even natural ones like book shelfs and a rug on the floor.
 

Doodski

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Like talking in the room doesn't feel good to do. I have a room next to this one that at least feels better to talk in but is about as lively.
It seems to me that you are not damping the room enough. Those panels are a good idea although from your description they are not targeting certain frequencies that you say are lively. I suggest get some ~5 or 6 foot high used office divider panels (Less expensive used) that are sound absorbing and put 2 or 3 behind your head on the wall. That will dampen the room significantly. I did that before and the difference was very noticeable.
 

LightninBoy

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Yes. High level Steps:

1. Buy a sub or two and a way to apply crossover and eq.
2. Buy a measuring mic and install REW.
3. Remove all the room treatments.
4. Measure and optimize your listening, speaker and sub placements.
5. Reintroduce your treatments stepwise and measure each change to confirm the treatment had a net positive impact. If it doesn't, leave the treatment out
6. Apply eq particularly in the bass and low mids where the room has the most impact.

There's nuance and detail within each step. But if you follow this as a high level plan you can ask this forum detailed questions at each step.
 

LightninBoy

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I have a sub I could try but no real way of splitting signal between the mains and sub. my speakers go low too so they'd probably run into each other without a xover.

I think the low end in here is fine, there's plenty of it, EQ can even it out, it's the stuff above the bass that annoys me. Like talking in the room doesn't feel good to do. I have a room next to this one that at least feels better to talk in but is about as lively.
I can almost guarantee you that your low end is not fine ... As in not flat. Small rooms require sub(s) for linear bass regardless of how low your mains go.
 
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mightycicadalord

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It seems to me that you are not damping the room enough. Those panels are a good idea although from your description they are not targeting certain frequencies that you say are lively. I suggest get some ~5 or 6 foot high used office divider panels (Less expensive used) that are sound absorbing and put 2 or 3 behind your head on the wall. That will dampen the room significantly. I did that before and the difference was very noticeable.

I've wanted to this from the beginning but those materials are just crazy expensive. Anything for commercial spaces had such a massive markup.

I think my low end is pretty decent, I only have this on my phone at the moment, missing the db axis but still. Is that not flat? I've got that dip there but as I said my problem is really with everything else, like this space just feels crazy reflective.

I'm not ruling a sub out but I really don't have any complaints with the low end, it's really tight and goes low.
 

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Doodski

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I've wanted to this from the beginning but those materials are just crazy expensive. Anything for commercial spaces had such a massive markup.

I think my low end is pretty decent, I only have this on my phone at the moment, missing the db axis but still.
Yes, beaucoup expensive. I bought 3 from a auction. The reduction in expense was significant. You have a pretty major depression there in your graph.
 

TurtlePaul

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Would you be willing to get a much much bigger carpet and maybe place it on a thick carpet pad?
 
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