Is It a Bad Idea To Put Big Speakers In a Small Room?

[Cosmic_Error]

My room is 11x14x8, I'm considering a few speakers as an upgrade from my Adam Audio T5Vs which I chose because people said for a smaller room I would need small speakers, I think I should have gone with the T7V because the bass is pretty lacking. I've heard a lot of conflicting opinions about putting bigger speakers in a small room is a good idea or not. To clarify I'm not talking about really big speakers just kind of bigger like a the Wharfedale Linton or some of the smaller floor standing speakers. Anyways would like to hear your guys' opinions and also I would like to know if there is any evidence based in science or not (I'm not smart enough to interpret graphs and whatnot).

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

You can place 3 way big boys in that room with no problems. In fact they will sound better than the little boys on stands. I insist on 3 way with dual 8 inch woofers. As long as you room correct with Anthem or Dirac. Trust me, a big floor stander will not "overpower" your room anymore than dual subs. The key is good room correction.

 

[boselover61]

The biggest problems would be booming mass and the lack of space for a truly huge separation between speakers for a bigger sound stage. Other than that no problem really

 

[Chromatischism]

As said above, it's all in the setup and equalization. And the Adam T7V is not a big speaker at all, it's just big for a desk due to the space it takes up.

I think the old "wisdom" about not putting big (I mean actually big, like a Focal Grande Utopia) speakers in a small room comes from the excitation of room modes due to the increased low bass output. People feel like "the room can't handle the speaker". But with setup and EQ it can be mitigated or cured.

However, finding the right placement for the speaker is crucial and that is trickier in a small room. The best approach is to let carefully-placed subwoofers handle the bass under about 100 Hz so that you don't need speakers costing $130,000...each.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

The biggest problems would be booming mass and the lack of space for a truly huge separation between speakers for a bigger sound stage. Other than that no problem really

Bass will not boom in that size room unless the speakers suck. I assume he can place the speakers 7 feet apart on long wall. Plenty of room for separation.

 

[Cosmic_Error]

Bass will not boom in that size room unless the speakers suck. I assume he can place the speakers 7 feet apart on long wall. Plenty of room for separation.

I do have plenty of room to get the speakers 7' apart.
Also thanks for all the replys, I could not have asked for a better group of enablers.

 

[Cosmic_Error]

You can place 3 way big boys in that room with no problems. In fact they will sound better than the little boys on stands. I insist on 3 way with dual 8 inch woofers. As long as you room correct with Anthem or Dirac. Trust me, a big floor stander will not "overpower" your room anymore than dual subs. The key is good room correction.

Total noob question here but what part of the system does room correction?

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

You don't need to go broke or lie to spouse about cost of your addiction. You can purchase cheap Infinity or JBL 3 way on sale. Cheap 3 way don't have Spinorama yet. Use waveguide and trickle down technology.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Total noob question here but what part of the system does room correction?

All of it. I use Anthem Room Correction. Most expensive part of system but worth it to me.

 

[Cosmic_Error]

You don't need to go broke or lie to spouse about cost of your addiction. You can purchase cheap Infinity or JBL 3 way on sale. Cheap 3 way don't have Spinorama yet. Use waveguide and trickle down technology.

Best part about being unmarried is I don't have to explain ridiculous purchases to a spouse. Any good suggestions for about $1500 per pair of speakers? That's what I have to spend on speakers right now.

 

[boselover61]

JBL HDI 1600s, Revel M16s, Wharfedale Linton, JBL Studio 590 when on sale. Those would be my suggestions

 

[preload]

Bass will not boom in that size room unless the speakers suck.

Are you sure about that? Methinks there will be primary room nodes <100 Hz.

 

[Cosmic_Error]

Are you sure about that? Methinks there will be primary room nodes <100 Hz.

Would that not be a problem with almost every speaker? Even very small speakers easily get down to 100Hz.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

JBL HDI 1600s, Revel M16s, Wharfedale Linton, JBL Studio 590 when on sale. Those would be my suggestions

Studio 290 is good.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Are you sure about that? Methinks there will be primary room nodes <100 Hz.

You can cover the walls with 12 inches of insulation. As long as you live alone and own the abode.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

One problem with really large speakers like the Utopia in a too-small room is that one needs to be farther away from them for the drivers to integrate together and not sound like separate woofer/midrange/tweeter point sources. Bookshelf sized speakers and similar towers should work well in a smaller room. Ideally, you would want enough space so that the speakers can be well out into the room, away from the side walls, and the listener out from the rear wall to achieve the best imaging if that's important to you.

 

[Cosmic_Error]

You can cover the walls with 12 inches of insulation. As long as you live alone and own the abode.

I can do some alterations but this is going in my bedroom so I can only do so much sound treatment.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

I can do some alterations but this is going in my bedroom so I can only do so much sound treatment.

I was fascitious. You won't need that.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

One problem with really large speakers like the Utopia in a too-small room is that one needs to be farther away from them for the drivers to integrate together and not sound like separate woofer/midrange/tweeter point sources. Bookshelf sized speakers and similar towers should work well in a smaller room. Ideally, you would want enough space so that the speakers can be well out into the room, away from the side walls, and the listener out from the rear wall to achieve the best imaging if that's important to you.

You could hang your head outside the nearest window. Seriously, imaging is great but at what cost?

 

[preload]

Would that not be a problem with almost every speaker? Even very small speakers easily get down to 100Hz.

Exactly.