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In-room bass performance in relation to room size?

kaspurr84

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So brief break down of what I'm working with. I've got a room in the house my wife has allowed me to do anything with. It measures 12x11 feet with 9.5 foot ceilings. I've basically turned it into my gaming room for my PC setup.

Lately I've been digging around researching what Hi-Fi speaker setup may work well in the small room, without being completely overkill but offering satisfying full range performance without a subwoofer. Initially I had in my mind on something like the Klipsch RP-600M II, until I realized how big they are for a bookshelf. So I have myself looking at things like the new ELAC Debut 3.0 6.5" for a 6.5" driver design its a fairly compact enclosure) The Klipsch RP-500M II, KEF Q150. None of which truly excel in bass extension. But given the room size, would that be in my favor for bass extension? Currently I am entirely on a headphone setup with a JDS Atom 2 stack, and Pro-Ject Debut Pro turntable with a Schiit Mani 2

My biggest potential issue is I don't have a lot of wall distance to place speakers. And some speakers need a lot of room to breath to perform well I understand that.

So with that all being said, speakers that have say a rated -3db around 50hz. Could that that actually be pushed lower in a small room? Or does it simply not work like that.
 
It measures 12x11 feet with 9.5 foot ceilings.
Acoustically, it's not hip to be square. I suggest you enter that into the REW room sim and behold the mode goodness. You can always flatten out peaks with EQ but good luck trying to get rid of major dips.
Currently I am entirely on a headphone setup with a JDS Atom 2 stack, and Pro-Ject Debut Pro turntable with a Schiit Mani 2
Which would mean you'd need something consumerish with unbalanced inputs... Kali LP-UNF comes to mind, or the Genelec G series if you want to get fancy (e.g. the G Three, the consumer version of their 8030). It would be awfully nice to have DSP for EQ though... hmm... (The Kalis would give you a whole range of options and may well be enough to make things better but it's hard to get things 100% right without completely custom EQ.) If all fails, I guess you could still run the phonopre through the PC's line-in and provide system-wide EQ there. No clue what one would use for live playthrough these days, Voicemeeter perhaps? Last time I needed that I used a Winamp plugin... it's been a while.
My biggest potential issue is I don't have a lot of wall distance to place speakers. And some speakers need a lot of room to breath to perform well I understand that.
Rarely more than a few inches, really. The rest is down to boundary effect. A speaker that is flat anechoically would get rather boomy while one that drops off turn out to be just right.
So with that all being said, speakers that have say a rated -3db around 50hz. Could that that actually be pushed lower in a small room? Or does it simply not work like that.
Nope. Looks like the lowest mode you'd get any support from would be at 47 Hz... below 40 you're increasing out on your own. My room is about twice the size and still has a ~33 Hz mode. Also, typical American "whole lotta nothing" architecture is going to leak out a lot more bass than something built massively.
 
The good news is that if you can seal your room, you will benefit from room gain. This typically adds 7-9dB to any frequency below a wavelength which is twice the longest dimension of your room. In your case, 12 ft room = 24 ft wavelength = 94Hz. The room is in pressure mode, so it does not form standing waves below 94Hz. The modal zone occurs with shorter wavelengths, so your room modes occur higher up in the frequency range. Most of us with larger rooms (e.g. me) have to deal with room modes down to 30Hz. That is one of the advantages of smaller rooms.

Another advantage is that you do not need speakers that can go loud. If I were you, I would choose a small-ish bookshelf with bass extension down to 50dB. Something like a KEF R3 Meta.

The disadvantage is that upper frequency reflections arrive early and loud. I have never heard a small room reproduce space as well as a larger room, most of them sound congested and smeared.
 
That is a small space to work in. You will need bass trapping in one or another way, and a lot of dsp power to solve the room issues fully. The question is how far you want to go to do that.

Speakers like the Neumann KH150 are made for such small spaces, to give good bass from close by in small spaces. The Neumann MA-1 room correction is quiet good, but you can do that also with a Dirac based system or other room correction. You surely will need that.

And i would do acoustic treatment in that room, at least bass trapping and first reflection. In such a small space that is needed, even with dsp, to fix the bass. You will have room modes arround 50hz and arround 75hz I guess, and those will mess up the bass. Schroeder frequency will be arround 250Hz with those dimensions i guess, so below that you will need a lot of correction and/or absorbtion to make it work.
 
So brief break down of what I'm working with. I've got a room in the house my wife has allowed me to do anything with. It measures 12x11 feet with 9.5 foot ceilings. I've basically turned it into my gaming room for my PC setup.

Lately I've been digging around researching what Hi-Fi speaker setup may work well in the small room, without being completely overkill but offering satisfying full range performance without a subwoofer. Initially I had in my mind on something like the Klipsch RP-600M II, until I realized how big they are for a bookshelf. So I have myself looking at things like the new ELAC Debut 3.0 6.5" for a 6.5" driver design its a fairly compact enclosure) The Klipsch RP-500M II, KEF Q150. None of which truly excel in bass extension. But given the room size, would that be in my favor for bass extension? Currently I am entirely on a headphone setup with a JDS Atom 2 stack, and Pro-Ject Debut Pro turntable with a Schiit Mani 2

My biggest potential issue is I don't have a lot of wall distance to place speakers. And some speakers need a lot of room to breath to perform well I understand that.

So with that all being said, speakers that have say a rated -3db around 50hz. Could that that actually be pushed lower in a small room? Or does it simply not work like that.
‘Room to breathe’ is just audiophile nonsense, speakers were/are shuffled backwards and forwards in an attempt to cancel problematic frequencies, acoustically measure with REW.
Keith
 
I imagine my home office, where I have a desk-top set-up, is a similar size and I'm very happy with the sound. There's quite a lot of clutter in the room, so it's fairly dead, and I don't sit symmetrically in the room.

You can see I have some acoustic panels behind and between the speakers, there is also a subwoofer under the desk and I use EQ/room correction:

1727085052979.png


I did modify my desk and fitted a larger top to it, about 1.2m deep, so that I'd have more room for everything. The speakers are about 1.1m from my head and about ~15cm from the panels behind them.

There's a whole thread about desktop audio here, which might give you some inspiration: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/your-desktop-audio-setup.12057/

For EQ I use an ARC Studio, which you can read about here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-low-cost-solution-for-room-correction.52418/

With some experimenting with the placement of the speakers, and maybe some EQ/room correction and acoustic treatment*, I think you can achieve very good results, even in a less than ideal room. As good as a purpose built, dedicated listening room, or studio, probably not. :)

* Acoustic treatment, doesn't have to be dedicated panels, but maybe thick curtains, a rug, soft furnishings, things like that, that will absorb sound and stop the room being too lively or reflective.
 
Personally, I would never put a 6" midbass driver in a room that size. I've set up a couple rooms similar in size, very with little to no treatment, on a budget ($150 passive speakers). Not for critical listening levels of performance given really problematic rooms (my wife's studio with angled ceilings, my concrete block walled office at work), but for music that plays well enough to enjoy.

I find that a 4" driver works better for me than 5.25", and certainly better than 6". With slightly louder volumes, the bass bloats with the larger drivers. Which means more EQ if I want to tame that. The 4" drivers seem to fit better without eq.

I still eq. :)

Genelec, neumann, kali would be my choice for a higher level system, maybe with a sub. NOT the Jamo 808 for a sub, but something with that form factor might work, or a KEF kc62. Then DSP the heck out of everything.

For passives, I would look for something that rolls off pretty high, not seek deep bass extension. I would see how they work, then consider adding a sub. This is not a market segment I know well, but in the USA I would consider Ascend Acoustics luna v2 mini monitor. Front port, good measurements, good company. Based on the larger LXs I have, I expect the bass on these would be very high quality. https://ascendacoustics.com/collect...a-v2-mini-monitor-pair?variant=40387513909302

That said, if I wanted and expected to have a larger space later on, I would be tempted by larger speakers. But any good 4" system can find a home later on, desk, small room, etc. So I would resist that temptation most likely.

And now I have to resist the temptation of the luna v2s, because those would be very nice on my desk instead of the neumi silk 4s budget dictated!
 
Thanks everyone for not ripping the noobie apart with kind of a stupid question. I'm not new to the audio game just a different approach these days from the single life and a large space with NAD separates with early 2000s Klipsch Reference towers before everything became Reference and a lot lower range. Hence why outside of the home theater stuff in the living room, my personal music setup recently has been headphone focused. Just looking to maximize what I can do in this little extra room that was unused except for boxes and storage for 2 years.
 
I have a listening room just slightly larger (4m x 4m x 3m). Yeah, square room (bad).

But, I managed to squeeze a pair of KH310A + push-pull 12" subwoofer to sound very good in the room.

My speakers are very close to the front wall (speaker nearest point to the wall is about 4").

I have a couple of medium sized bass traps and usual room furnishings (curtain, bookshelves, cushion chairs) to gain some absorption & diffusion.

EQ is definitely going to be your good friend to make whatever system you choose sound good and balanced.

Do try one’s best to achieve equilateral triangle with main seat.

Don't be afraid to put a subwoofer in the room :)
 
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Placing the speakers on either side of a corner will help to control the worst of the standing waves of the room. It's worth a try if it practically suites your situation.
 
Thanks everyone for not ripping the noobie apart with kind of a stupid question. I'm not new to the audio game just a different approach these days from the single life and a large space with NAD separates with early 2000s Klipsch Reference towers before everything became Reference and a lot lower range. Hence why outside of the home theater stuff in the living room, my personal music setup recently has been headphone focused. Just looking to maximize what I can do in this little extra room that was unused except for boxes and storage for 2 years.
From my own experience, I can recommend the very small Elac Carina BS243.4 for such a special application. The down-firing bass reflex also allows for placement close to the wall, in my case on the 1.6m wide desk, wall right, left and back.

New on offer for €500-600/pair, used sometimes for as little as €350-400.
 
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