Need help with my living room setup aka give me my bass back

[GL1zdA]

I'm looking for options to improve my living Room setup. Here's the current situation:

Room dimensions

• Length: 5.27/5.24 m (17' 3")
• Width: 6.34 m (20' 9")
• Height: 2.72 m (8' 11")

Listener

• 0.90 m from back (2' 11")
• 1.60 m from left (5' 3")
• 1.00 m from floor (3' 3")

KEF R7 Meta (0.20 m wide, 0.38 m deep):

• 1.00 m from front (3' 3")
• left speaker: 0.60 m (1' 11") from left (0.50 m distance between wall and speaker cabinet)
• right speaker: 2.60 m from left (8' 6")
• 0.80 m (2' 7") from floor (Uni-Q center)
• LF -3dB: 48 Hz
• ports with outer rings of port bungs, as suggested by the speaker manual

This is how the situation looks like:



The amp is a Unitra WSH-805, no tape loops, direct in disables pre-amp, so while I can put something between the amp and possible subwoofers, I can't high-pass the KEFs.

I know, it's suboptimal in many areas and my possibilities are limited, but that's how my listening space will look like in the foreseeable future. There are two problems with this setup.

The first is bass is pretty underwhelming. I've listened to the KEFs before in a treated room, so I know what they are capable of. I use Ritchie Hawtin's Consumed as my bass test track, and it sounds underwhelming, especially the part starting at 0:50. Also, if I move my head like 30 cm to the front, literally all bass vanishes.

The second problem is mids start to be annoying (this unpleasant "ringing") at higher volume. Again, this didn't happen in a treated room.

I did some measurements with REW, normal form the "main listening position" in the middle of the sofa and MMM moving between all three seats. Measurements were with curtains closed. I'm also sharing the mdat files with measurements.



I'm looking for suggestions on how to improve this situation, before I try two things:

• For bass, I'm thinking about getting two subs with some extensive DSP options (thought about Arendal 1723 1S), since the amp is of the "dumb" type. I assume its DSP is enough setup it with MSO?
• As for the annoying mids, I will probably call an acoustician to help me find some treatment that would look good in the living room. Any treatment will have to be wife approved and child safe.

 

[JRowland]

For free you can try putting them closer to the rear wall. KEF designed this into them, 2 feet out is killing your bass I think. Also Genelec has some suggestions and if you place the rear of the R7 Meta 12" from the rear wall (KEF recommends a minimum of only 9") the front face happens to be 23.5 cm out which seems an "odd coincidence". Works for me though, here's my left corner loaded like yours 12" from rear wall with a 7" thick bass trap panel behind it.

Right which is asymmetrical like your room

This measurement is from the front face of the speaker to the rear wall

Adding: I just saw you have port plugs (partial) in as well, I'd remove those for now. Those work to reduce the bass when it is too much, I can pull the left R7 40Hz hump down some with half a plug but it sounds worse (to me anyway) than letting DSP cut it.

 

[janbth]

If there's a problem in the bass region, the first candidate to consider is room modes. Use a room mode calculator or the Room sim in REW.

With the dimensions you give, the lowest lying modes are about 27 Hz in the width direction and 33 Hz in the length direction. These correspond roughly to the two lowest peaks in your first plot. Then, in that plot, there's a low area up to about 80-90 Hz. A bit harder to diagnose that, but there are several modes in that region, so if a speaker and/or the listening position is in nulls of these modes, this might explain it. Play around with the Room sim to see what you can find. Also, check out Amroc to visualize modes. Anyway, multiple subs would be a good solution for such problems.

By the way, here are a few tips for showing plots in REW:

• The vertical axis should span about 50 dB. This is conventional and a compromise between stretching and compressing, and it allows for easy comparison.
• Use Var smoothing (1/48 smoothing below 100 Hz). If you are interested in the bass region, you want to show high resolution of the structures, like peaks and dips.
• Another thing if you are interested in the bass region it's useful to set the horizontal axis to show up to 200 Hz. There's a button for 10 - 200 Hz in the bottom right corner.

 

[GL1zdA]

Thanks for the answers.

For free you can try putting them closer to the rear wall. KEF designed this into them, 2 feet out is killing your bass I think. Also Genelec has some suggestions and if you place the rear of the R7 Meta 12" from the rear wall (KEF recommends a minimum of only 9") the front face happens to be 23.5 cm out which seems an "odd coincidence". Works for me though, here's my left corner loaded like yours 12" from rear wall with a 7" thick bass trap panel behind it.

I will play around with pushing them against the wall, I was reluctant it do it first, because the "stereo angle" is already suboptimal at 32 degrees.

If there's a problem in the bass region, the first candidate to consider is room modes. Use a room mode calculator or the Room sim in REW.

Played around the Amorc visualizer and indeed it identified some of my nulls.

By the way, here are a few tips for showing plots in REW:

• The vertical axis should span about 50 dB. This is conventional and a compromise between stretching and compressing, and it allows for easy comparison.
• Use Var smoothing (1/48 smoothing below 100 Hz). If you are interested in the bass region, you want to show high resolution of the structures, like peaks and dips.
• Another thing if you are interested in the bass region it's useful to set the horizontal axis to show up to 200 Hz. There's a button for 10 - 200 Hz in the bottom right corner.

Thanks for these. These were my first measurements, not sure where I have found the 1/12 smoothing recommendation, will change it to var.

I should have a proper mic stand this week, will run another round of measurements and post them.

 

[Keith_W]

And don't forget to post your MDAT. People here can see a lot more things than you may be able to.