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Floor standing loudspeakers for 500 sq ft room

Digital_Thor

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I don't think you would ever find any competent sound engineers who would say ignore the room and just focus on DSP and the speakers. I am not saying anyone here is giving that type of advice, but I can't for the life of me imagine why if somebody was in a permanent space they would not really look into the room effects first, solve those as much as possible/viable and then move on from there.
I guess where a possible divide might occur is whether or not DSP alone can adequately mitigate room issues, or whether physical mitigation techniques and or combined with DSP is the better approach. Ultimately it would come down to resources and time as I do know that properly treating a room requires time and money so not always the most practical/viable route.

The trick is not to think that you can solve any issue with ONE specific approach - you rarely can. But - use whatever means you can, at the right place and in the right amount - that will most certainly work.
So - a 3D-sound problem needs to be solved with a 3D solution. A DSP only works in 1D. That is why multiple subs works.... different placements, different levels, delay and EQ.
But surely do all you can in the room, before going for DSP and subwoofers. But but.... building a good room is expensive and difficult..... subs are much more easy and will always bring benefits and good results - in all rooms.

Most DSP's are tranparent enough for subwoofers and you wont hear the hiss from the DSP at low frequencies.
 

A Surfer

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The trick is not to think that you can solve any issue with ONE specific approach - you rarely can. But - use whatever means you can, at the right place and in the right amount - that will most certainly work.
So - a 3D-sound problem needs to be solved with a 3D solution. A DSP only works in 1D. That is why multiple subs works.... different placements, different levels, delay and EQ.
But surely do all you can in the room, before going for DSP and subwoofers. But but.... building a good room is expensive and difficult..... subs are much more easy and will always bring benefits and good results - in all rooms.

Most DSP's are tranparent enough for subwoofers and you wont hear the hiss from the DSP at low frequencies.
Absolutely agree. I look forward to the day when I have a permanent and larger room than the small room I have now. I have become used to nearfield listening, but I would enjoy a larger room to test speaker placement.

It seems likely that I will be within a year moving into a larger room, but not sure that it will be better. The room in question will be about 12'x25'. I will be using the shortwall for speaker placement and thus have quite a bit of room to sit away from the speakers, but sadly not enough space to have more than 3 feet from each side wall. This will be compounded with a fairly low ceiling (7' maybe) with your typical budget drop-ceiling foam tiles. Not sure what such a room will be like. I also suspect that at that time I will discover my two REL T Zeros are a little small for the task. Anyway, sorry EdW, this is your thread not mine.
 

Rick Sykora

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I did rather gather that REW was a PITA. I thought I might learn a little from it before moving on to Dirac, Audiolenze or Acourate... Who knows I might appreciate them more after REW.
The negative for the KEF speakers is that with the 2 rear ports a larger distance from the rear wall may be needed compared to the B&W. Something to check out on a demo.

Oops, did not realize you had existing setup in the room and some respectable speakers. Gathering a mass upgrade is in the budget, but would help to know what you have currently. What music do you like and how close is the main listening position to the speakers?

Is the room more live or dead? For that matter, what are you trying to improve? If you cannot tell, am a big advocate of defining the problem first!
 

pierre

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you Should talk to purity audio (London dealer): he has a nice collection of active Speakers. He sometimes hang here.
For that amount and if the look is ok, active speakers can be great. Another option is to optimize the room if that’s a viable option.
 
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EdW

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Oops, did not realize you had existing setup in the room and some respectable speakers. Gathering a mass upgrade is in the budget, but would help to know what you have currently. What music do you like and how close is the main listening position to the speakers?

Is the room more live or dead? For that matter, what are you trying to improve? If you cannot tell, am a big advocate of defining the problem first!
Hi Rick

Thanks for offering to help. Some answers. Odd shape area adding up to ~500sq ft. I intend to place the speakers on a 14’ wall firing up the room (25’ with a large area bolted on the side). Speakers about 8’ apart, listening position about 10’ from speakers. Front of speakers approx. 3’ from rear wall. The room can be changed from fairly lively to moderately damped with heavy floor to ceiling drapes on the windows (approx 50% of room perimeter).
Old style B&W 803 driven by Arcam FMJ 32 + 85 amps. Just swapped to Topping D90 in place of Cyrus streamer in order to be able to do room EQ (and a better DAC). Choice of speaker will dictate any amp upgrade.
Listen mainly to classical music. Everything from solo instrumental to orchestral, operatic and choral.
 

Rick Sykora

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Hi Rick

Thanks for offering to help. Some answers. Odd shape area adding up to ~500sq ft. I intend to place the speakers on a 14’ wall firing up the room (25’ with a large area bolted on the side). Speakers about 8’ apart, listening position about 10’ from speakers. Front of speakers approx. 3’ from rear wall. The room can be changed from fairly lively to moderately damped with heavy floor to ceiling drapes on the windows (approx 50% of room perimeter).
Old style B&W 803 driven by Arcam FMJ 32 + 85 amps. Just swapped to Topping D90 in place of Cyrus streamer in order to be able to do room EQ (and a better DAC). Choice of speaker will dictate any amp upgrade.
Listen mainly to classical music. Everything from solo instrumental to orchestral, operatic and choral.

Thanks for sharing!

What do you like about current system and what are shortcomings that you want to address?
 

Hipper

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Firstly, before spending any money on new speakers I advise trying to get the best out of what you've got. It may not be as exciting as buying new kit but it is certainly more effective at improving what you hear. You may be surprised how good your current system can sound. You can do this as follows:

Reduce ambient sound. What you hear will benefit if any external noise entering your room is reduced. Use additional glazing for example.

Careful attention to speaker and listening chair (your ears) placement.

Room Treatment, DSP/EQ. Room treatment (bass traps etc.) will in part be dependent on your speaker choice. Your source will be a factor in which DSP/EQ systems you use. If your source is a PC you can use software. If a CD Transport etc., you may require hardware - DEQX, Antimode, MiniDSP and a few more. Some of these do their own measuring of course.

Measure. Finally to implement all this (external noise reduction, positioning, room treatment and DSP/EQ) you will need some measuring equipment. REW may require some learning but the full set of tools are there - frequency response, phase issues, decay time. It can create filters for you to implement on some EQ equipment (that's what I do, using a Behring DEQ2496).

The bass region (0-300Hz) is the number one issue to get right in all these operations. The rest of the frequency response can be adjusted but sorting out the bass will reveal the mids and highs as you may not have heard them before.

After all this you may find you no longer want new gear. If you still want speakers I offer this approach:

Consider the type of listening set up you want: stereo, stereo with a centre channel, multi channel - some of these other arrangements may be better then conventional stereo. If your media are in stereo there are processors that convert to multi channel.

Consider speaker type - electrostats, ribbons, and others as well as more conventional arrangements. Then perhaps subs, both to enhance bass and help with bass issues of your room.
 
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EdW

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Thanks for sharing!

What do you like about current system and what are shortcomings that you want to address?
First of all I’ll correct a error in my previous posting - my current amplifiers are Arcam FMJ A32 and FMJ P35 in a biamp arrangement. The A32 is the same as a P35 but with an integrated preamp. Knowing what I do now I don’t think I’d have bothered biamping. I do not believe that the amplifiers are the root cause here. Although far from SOTA by today’s standards they are around 0.01% THD or better at power levels up to beyond 100W 8 ohms with good delivery into 4 ohms (continuous) or even 2 ohms transient. But with the new speakers I would almost certainly be looking at new amps as well.

The improvements I’d like to get:
1. Cleaner upper mid and lower treble range - just where hearing is most sensitive. Very noticeable on choral recordings.
2. Better stereo soundstage (a bit subjective, I know) - it may just be a facet of issue 1. above. Sort out 1 and the soundstage improves automatically.
3. Tighter and better extended bass

Certainly the KEF blade in the demo did address the issues I noted above (I used my own FLAC files here). The demo room had light touch acoustic treatment and may have been quite well sorted out for all I know. But the speaker placement was pretty casual and the seating position for a good sound appeared to be very uncritical.

So my first step is to learn a little more about my own listening space and possible simple acoustic treatments and take it from there
 

Rick Sykora

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#1 could be amplification (if soft clipping), but that really depends on how loud you listen.

#2 is trickier as could be lots of things and is a matter of taste, but could be helped by...

#3 back to adding subwoofers if your decor allows. Also gets back to #1 as good bass requires power. Subwoofer amps could relieve the other amps of the bass load.

The great part about adding subwoofers is they can clean up the room sound and are a useful starting point as any benefit applies generally no matter what other upgrades you add later. You are trying to energize a large space and need woofers that can handle. Subwoofers are one way, but better bass in the mains (and more amplification) can help if subwoofers are not an option.

Room treatment may help, but sounds like you already have some flexibility with draping. Without seeing or diagraming more, is hard to tell. How high are your ceilings?
 
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EdW

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#1 could be amplification (if soft clipping), but that really depends on how loud you listen.

#2 is trickier as could be lots of things and is a matter of taste, but could be helped by...

#3 back to adding subwoofers if your decor allows. Also gets back to #1 as good bass requires power. Subwoofer amps could relieve the other amps of the bass load.

The great part about adding subwoofers is they can clean up the room sound and are a useful starting point as any benefit applies generally no matter what other upgrades you add later. You are trying to energize a large space and need woofers that can handle. Subwoofers are one way, but better bass in the mains (and more amplification) can help if subwoofers are not an option.

Room treatment may help, but sounds like you already have some flexibility with draping. Without seeing or diagraming more, is hard to tell. How high are your ceilings?
Thanks for your thoughts.
#1. this is well below any overload. It could be caused by a little bit of muddying with uncontrolled bass resonances in the room. But I suspect it the sound of B&W era 2000 speakers
Ceiling height varies in the main listening area just over 9’ but in other areas the ceilIng is coffered and only around 8’6”
 

Rick Sykora

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Thanks for your thoughts.
#1. this is well below any overload. It could be caused by a little bit of muddying with uncontrolled bass resonances in the room. But I suspect it the sound of B&W era 2000 speakers
Ceiling height varies in the main listening area just over 9’ but in other areas the ceilIng is coffered and only around 8’6”

Have some fond memories of b&w 801s from longer ago than your 803s. ;) Have been through enough upgrade cycles that I finally decided to keep 2 different systems. This diverged for me further when home theater came along. I am rebuilding now but design my own as I cannot stomach the margin charged for the top of the line audio.

Will share one other experience as it circles back to the subwoofer aspect. Subwoofers with smaller towers are often a better value than trying to get a single speaker pair to do the whole job. Active speakers are definitely the next step for the high end, but subwooofers get you most of the advantage of active with better range of options for handling the middle and top range of music.

Hope you find something that you really enjoy!
 

MarsianC#

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Odd shape area adding up to ~500sq ft. I intend to place the speakers on a 14’ wall firing up the room (25’ with a large area bolted on the side). Speakers about 8’ apart, listening position about 10’ from speakers. Front of speakers approx. 3’ from rear wall. The room can be changed from fairly lively to moderately damped with heavy floor to ceiling drapes on the windows (approx 50% of room perimeter).
Would you mind sharing a room plan?
@Purité Audio has in deed some very nice speakers...
 

steve59

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After 5 years and 7 pair of speakers I made an offer on a pair of dsp 8000's. Previously I tried subs in my room, but ultimately find them distracting for music. I'd always had bass problems in my room and a pair of strauss with side firing woofers while not ultra revealing were pretty good in the bass...got me thinking, blade, blade 2, maybe, but I don't want to have to spend a fortune on amps to unlock the bass and as the revel's (and previous kef's)showed me often the best measuring speakers are the hardest to drive. I'll admit I still drool over the blades, persona's, etc, but when i'm home my system sounds like I want it to.
 

A Surfer

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After 5 years and 7 pair of speakers I made an offer on a pair of dsp 8000's. Previously I tried subs in my room, but ultimately find them distracting for music. I'd always had bass problems in my room and a pair of strauss with side firing woofers while not ultra revealing were pretty good in the bass...got me thinking, blade, blade 2, maybe, but I don't want to have to spend a fortune on amps to unlock the bass and as the revel's (and previous kef's)showed me often the best measuring speakers are the hardest to drive. I'll admit I still drool over the blades, persona's, etc, but when i'm home my system sounds like I want it to.
Sounds like you have room mode problems with bass that you never assessed and compensated for. I may be wrong of course.
 

richard12511

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After 5 years and 7 pair of speakers I made an offer on a pair of dsp 8000's. Previously I tried subs in my room, but ultimately find them distracting for music. I'd always had bass problems in my room and a pair of strauss with side firing woofers while not ultra revealing were pretty good in the bass...got me thinking, blade, blade 2, maybe, but I don't want to have to spend a fortune on amps to unlock the bass and as the revel's (and previous kef's)showed me often the best measuring speakers are the hardest to drive. I'll admit I still drool over the blades, persona's, etc, but when i'm home my system sounds like I want it to.

Those look incredible. Love that they're actually active. Rare(but much appreciated) for high end audio.
 

chelgrian

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I’ve never heard them but I’ve heard of them! There are some dealers relatively near me and I might just look them up. Thanks

Fyne Audio is where the engineers from Tannoy went when Music Tribe shut down their Scottish operations.
 

steve59

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A surfer, I'm sure my room's a big reason many speakers didn't cut it.
 

Rick Sykora

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After 5 years and 7 pair of speakers I made an offer on a pair of dsp 8000's. Previously I tried subs in my room, but ultimately find them distracting for music. I'd always had bass problems in my room and a pair of strauss with side firing woofers while not ultra revealing were pretty good in the bass...got me thinking, blade, blade 2, maybe, but I don't want to have to spend a fortune on amps to unlock the bass and as the revel's (and previous kef's)showed me often the best measuring speakers are the hardest to drive. I'll admit I still drool over the blades, persona's, etc, but when i'm home my system sounds like I want it to.

Please share what other speakers you tried, any other tech applied, etc. and why your room is a challenge.

Thanks!
 
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