Hopefully the picture doesn't post too big, guess we'll see.
Ok, we bought and are renovating a home to move into in about 2 months. I've been needing an office, and will finally have one. I'm trying to turn it into a dual-purpose room, since I'm the only one in my house that cares about audio. The room is 12x12 with 9ft ceilings. It's a VERY reflective room at the moment, but I'm making plans to calm it down - rug that will cover MOST of the floor, "acoustic" wood slats (wood veneer hub) on lower 35" of left wall (considering wrapping it all the way around the room under chair rail), heavy curtains flanking the windows, and possibly one to pull across the French doors on the inside, and could put some square GIK or DIY sound absorption panels above the wood slats at some point if needed ( I don't know how to figure out where to place them). I have a pair of leather chairs that I wanted to place as shown in the drawing, with a little cocktail table dead center on the speaker setup. As shown, the chairs are angled in a little and pulled off the wall about 6-8", which would make the listener's head about 12-14" off the wall (again heavy curtains flanking the windows, which will also have blinds). The overall goal of the room is a dark speakeasy or underground jazz bar type of feel. Dark walls, wall trim and ceiling. Heavy wooden desk and dark leather chairs. Brass accents here and there. Anyway...
As you can see, neither chair is dead center, which is the main driver behind new speaker selection now.
I'm planning to build my own desk. Right now, I have it drawn for 56" long which gives me room to put speakers on stands flanking the desk. However, my latest design preference is to build a longer desk - closer to 80 inches long in order to get bigger side cabinets. This would basically delete my floor space for stands as the French door in the upper most right corner opens up against that back wall, and would only leave a few inches of space from the end of an 80" desk. In this case, I would need to set speakers on top of the desk. I could built little feet into the bottom of whatever I pick to angle them back down a little towards ear height when seated in the chairs if needed - not an issue. I'll also be running a sub or two (I currently have an HSU ULS15-MK2 and 2 RSL Speedwoofer MKII) - put in the corners. I'm planning to deploy EQ of some sort, either via the Wiim Amp (when available), or an AVR - my Anthem MRX540 would fit on my desk if I go 80" long. I do want something with some fairly good vertical dispersion as well, since it is unlikely I will be able to sit at ear level with the tweeter, especially if set on top of the desk. I listen to newer metal that is well-recorded in professional studios by some of the most knowledgeable producers there are, not like the old classic rock stuff, so don't hit me with "well it doesn't matter what you pick because it's recorded poorly anyway." No, it isn't. So electric guitars, bass guitars that are tuned lower than most music, and fast double bass drums. With all of this laid out, on to my initial thoughts on speakers:
HSU CCB-8 - due to having 2 chairs slightly off center. Being coax, and the extreme toe in suggestion on these seems to make these a good pick - fire left speaker at right shoulder of right chair, and fire right speaker at left shoulder of left chair.
KEF LS50 (meta) - again due to being coax with the off-axis seating. Not sure I need these to be Metas, with EQ being employed and not using high-end electronics upstream, but not opposed to spending the extra for them. I had these (non-meta) in a large living room with dual subs several years ago and loved them, but the room was just too big. I obviously won't need that much oomph in this set up.
Ascend Sierra LX - I really want to try these, but it seems like they only make sense if I stick to a shorter desk so I can stand mount them. Wouldn't the response, and sound, suffer drastically if I set them on a desktop? Would probably have to fire them down at a higher angle than HSU/KEF due to the tweeter being higher, but then the desk top comes into play even more, no?
Thoughts, suggestions, recommendations?
Ok, we bought and are renovating a home to move into in about 2 months. I've been needing an office, and will finally have one. I'm trying to turn it into a dual-purpose room, since I'm the only one in my house that cares about audio. The room is 12x12 with 9ft ceilings. It's a VERY reflective room at the moment, but I'm making plans to calm it down - rug that will cover MOST of the floor, "acoustic" wood slats (wood veneer hub) on lower 35" of left wall (considering wrapping it all the way around the room under chair rail), heavy curtains flanking the windows, and possibly one to pull across the French doors on the inside, and could put some square GIK or DIY sound absorption panels above the wood slats at some point if needed ( I don't know how to figure out where to place them). I have a pair of leather chairs that I wanted to place as shown in the drawing, with a little cocktail table dead center on the speaker setup. As shown, the chairs are angled in a little and pulled off the wall about 6-8", which would make the listener's head about 12-14" off the wall (again heavy curtains flanking the windows, which will also have blinds). The overall goal of the room is a dark speakeasy or underground jazz bar type of feel. Dark walls, wall trim and ceiling. Heavy wooden desk and dark leather chairs. Brass accents here and there. Anyway...
As you can see, neither chair is dead center, which is the main driver behind new speaker selection now.
I'm planning to build my own desk. Right now, I have it drawn for 56" long which gives me room to put speakers on stands flanking the desk. However, my latest design preference is to build a longer desk - closer to 80 inches long in order to get bigger side cabinets. This would basically delete my floor space for stands as the French door in the upper most right corner opens up against that back wall, and would only leave a few inches of space from the end of an 80" desk. In this case, I would need to set speakers on top of the desk. I could built little feet into the bottom of whatever I pick to angle them back down a little towards ear height when seated in the chairs if needed - not an issue. I'll also be running a sub or two (I currently have an HSU ULS15-MK2 and 2 RSL Speedwoofer MKII) - put in the corners. I'm planning to deploy EQ of some sort, either via the Wiim Amp (when available), or an AVR - my Anthem MRX540 would fit on my desk if I go 80" long. I do want something with some fairly good vertical dispersion as well, since it is unlikely I will be able to sit at ear level with the tweeter, especially if set on top of the desk. I listen to newer metal that is well-recorded in professional studios by some of the most knowledgeable producers there are, not like the old classic rock stuff, so don't hit me with "well it doesn't matter what you pick because it's recorded poorly anyway." No, it isn't. So electric guitars, bass guitars that are tuned lower than most music, and fast double bass drums. With all of this laid out, on to my initial thoughts on speakers:
HSU CCB-8 - due to having 2 chairs slightly off center. Being coax, and the extreme toe in suggestion on these seems to make these a good pick - fire left speaker at right shoulder of right chair, and fire right speaker at left shoulder of left chair.
KEF LS50 (meta) - again due to being coax with the off-axis seating. Not sure I need these to be Metas, with EQ being employed and not using high-end electronics upstream, but not opposed to spending the extra for them. I had these (non-meta) in a large living room with dual subs several years ago and loved them, but the room was just too big. I obviously won't need that much oomph in this set up.
Ascend Sierra LX - I really want to try these, but it seems like they only make sense if I stick to a shorter desk so I can stand mount them. Wouldn't the response, and sound, suffer drastically if I set them on a desktop? Would probably have to fire them down at a higher angle than HSU/KEF due to the tweeter being higher, but then the desk top comes into play even more, no?
Thoughts, suggestions, recommendations?
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