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A large room with a bit of an echo

Aidrian

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The long anticipated music room has been decreed by the domestic authorities to be combined with a dining area, in a roughly 30ft x 27ft (10m x 9m) space in a traditional stone building, with a flagstone floor, and a pitched ceiling - walls are bare limestone rubble, and about 12 feet (3.5m) feet high and the ceiling apex is about 22 feet (7m) above the floor, with three decent sized windows and a coupe of half gazed doors. Other possibly less reflective spaces were considered, but these would all have involved moving a grand piano upstairs, via a rather awkward staircase.

The acoustics are bit like a very small country church - great for live performance, but not quite so hot for listening closely to recorded music . Some furnishings and plants do help to soften the echos, but there's still too much natural reverb for a dedicated listening space (though the reverb does help make my attempts to sing and play the piano at the same time sound almost respectable at times). The aforementioned domestic authorities have indicated that installing egg boxes down one wall would not be considered at all favourably, even if they were emptied first and painted in pretty colours, but some sort of wall hangings and extra floor coverings might be allowed, subject to aesthetic and fiscal constraints. I believe that the reverb can be reduced but not down to that you'd need in a conventional living room.

No one really wants their entire musical entertainment to be comprised of the unintentional comedy of my singing and piano playing, so we are looking to add a decent system that will provide acceptable results given the limitations of the space; significant compromise with ideals will obviously be necessary. I do have a decent set of options for amplification, ranging from a distinctly middle aged, but still powerfully tuneful Perreaux power amp to a couple of less gutsy but slightly more modern integrated amps, but I am not averse to considering active speakers or anything else that will work. Sources still need to be worked out - I'm a definitely bit of a Luddite, but the family are all dedicated Spotifiers and bluetoothers.

Music tastes range from organ music (with consequent demands on bass reproduction), orchestral and choral music, through 70s prog rock and blues to modern folk rock and country music. (I left my secret vice, punk, out of that list as I think that punk always sounds better well cranked up on a nearly knackered 1980s budget hi-fi system than it ever does on anything more expensive - extra marks if it's played from a slightly scratched 45 or a homemade cassette tape.)

Solid walls and a high pitched ceiling coupled with some very substantial roof trusses preclude wall or ceiling mounted speakers, but ancient memories of helping to set up a PA system in a vaguely similar sort of space suggest that high mounted speakers pointing slightly downwards worked well. This could perhaps be combined with a sub-woofer to help the bottom end if need be. There's also an aesthetic requirement - even if mounted at high level the speakers need to work as pieces of noisy furniture and not just appliances, so that the resident domestic goddess does not become displeased. Extreme post-modernist design, cheap vinyl "veneers" or a large amount of exposed plastic are unlikely to pass that test.

So if I were to come up with a spare thousand or twelve hundred pounds where and how do you think I should spend it? No need to assume the kit needs need to be brand new or that all the money needs to be spent on hardware.
 
I am not even close to being a expert on acoustics although in the past I had very good success with ~1m x ~2m x ~7.5cm sound damping panels placed behind my head about 2 or 3 feet behind against a wall etc. The room reflections where decreased, the imaging was much better and the high end was not too sharp sounding. Overall it was a simple fix and I used it that way for some years until I moved.
 
I'm glad I don't have your room ;). With stone walls, bass modes are going to be your biggest headache, and the room dimensions will contribute to that problem. I suggest multiple subwoofers in one of the preferred Harman configurations, and lots of DSP. Don't bother with wall treatments; they'll just make the room sound worse.
 
Some furnishings and plants do help to soften the echos, but there's still too much natural reverb for a dedicated listening space (though the reverb does help make my attempts to sing and play the piano at the same time sound almost respectable at times). The aforementioned domestic authorities have indicated that installing egg boxes down one wall would not be considered at all favourably, even if they were emptied first and painted in pretty colours, but some sort of wall hangings and extra floor coverings might be allowed, subject to aesthetic and fiscal constraints. I believe that the reverb can be reduced but not down to that you'd need in a conventional living room.
First try to make your room as pleasant place as possible to converse with people - open bookcases on walls, lots of soft furniture, etc. Then strategically place a high directivity speaker so that a speaker-listener response is as anechoic as possible. Like this:
Solid walls and a high pitched ceiling coupled with some very substantial roof trusses preclude wall or ceiling mounted speakers, but ancient memories of helping to set up a PA system in a vaguely similar sort of space suggest that high mounted speakers pointing slightly downwards worked well.
Correct. But - all PA speakers are kinda ugly plasticky affairs. There are exceptions (not at your price range)
So if I were to come up with a spare thousand or twelve hundred pounds where and how do you think I should spend it?
This precludes any 'specialty' solution for your place. So you will have compromises - mostly with muddiness and boominess. But 'echoey' unintelligible sound can be avoided. Only thing I can think of is to get as large high-directivity speaker as possible. Try Klipsch the Nines. That is an active 8" with a DI (directivity index) ~10 above ~1.5kHz. You have to decide if its ugly or not. Compare it side-by-side with a plastic PA speaker to sell it to the committee.
Any remaining flutter echo can be dealt with strategically placed bookcases and/or decorative sound absorption panels.
 
£1200 budget is a bit of a constraint, that's a giant space.

A friend has a similar sized open plan room, we stuck a set of these in there and they did the trick, although I paid a lot less for them:


They sit close to a wall for best sound.

Plenty of other vintage options for big, 'forgiving' speakers. Like with big cars, used prices tend to be low.

For the rest of the room - carpet with rugs on top. Big, heavily padded sofas, lots of bookcases full of books. It will never be a mastering suite but if you want to do it cheap and without dedicated treatment this will get you to an acceptable compromise.
 
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