Small room with many speakers. Use speakers with wide dispersion or narrow dispersion?

[NTK]

There is a difference between partially reflective and completely non-reflective.

 

[HairyEars]

Thanks.

How come most, if not all, commercial movie theaters I've been to have carpeted floors?

Do you consider commercial movie theaters a critical listening environment?
How often have you encountered a truly great sound in movie theater?

 

[NTK]

Thanks.

How come most, if not all, commercial movie theaters I've been to have carpeted floors?

Notice that even the rather extreme example (in terms of room treatment) of non-environment rooms keeps the floor reflection.

https://www.eetimes.com/Acoustics-and-Psychoacoustics-Applied--Part-1-Listening-room-design/

 

[Kain]

Okay, thanks.

If I want to avoid a hardwood floor due to maintenance and wear, what other options do I have? I assume floor tiles are too reflective as mentioned earlier in this thread? Would that be an issue even if the rest of the room is well-treated?

 

[NTK]

My recommendation is don't need to overthink it. Just have the flooring type you prefer to have. If you like tile, just strategically place some rugs.

 

[Kain]

By the way, is it true hardwood floors have high maintenance requirements and also suffer from wear?

 

[NTK]

I wouldn't consider hardwood high maintenance. It is relatively easy to clean. With polyurethane finishes, you don't need to (and shouldn't) wax it.

With regard to wear resistance, relative to ceramic tiles, for sure it is not as durable. But it all depends on what the room is for (i.e. what activities you do in the room). Hardwood is usually fine unless it is super high traffic, with frequent hard objects get dropped onto it (e.g. dropping a dinner knife onto it at the wrong angle will put a dent in it), get wet frequently, get exposed to sunlight (which will discolor it). If it gets really worn out, you can also refinish hardwood by sanding it down and recoat it.

 

[HairyEars]

I wouldn't consider hardwood high maintenance. It is relatively easy to clean. With polyurethane finishes, you don't need to (and shouldn't) wax it.

With regard to wear resistance, relative to ceramic tiles, for sure it is not as durable. But it all depends on what the room is for (i.e. what activities you do in the room). Hardwood is usually fine unless it is super high traffic, with frequent hard objects get dropped onto it (e.g. dropping a dinner knife onto it at the wrong angle will put a dent in it), get wet frequently, get exposed to sunlight (which will discolor it). If it gets really worn out, you can also refinish hardwood by sanding it down and recoat it.

All true.

The best way to guarantee decades of maintenance free service is to tread on the surface barefoot.

Hardwood floors are beautiful, add warmth to any room, and are pleasant on the soles.

 

[PappaDave]

True, unless you get a nice 9.1.6 setup made of D&D 8Cs

My unsolicited tip for you to achieve the best sounding Genelec 2-channel setup:

2 mains + 2 subwoofers in a stereo configuration fed by a digital signal, in order to give you a full range stereo. In my experience, the SQ is much better than 2 + sub/s in mono.

In my preferable setup, one subwoofer should be to your left, the other to your right. The one on your right processes the A channel, the left one plays the B channel. All that can be easily configured via the GLM kit.

If you don’t have room for 7382 x 2 by your sides, consider scaling back to 7380A x 2. A pair of those 15” subwoofers have monstruous LF output, especially for such a small space. Regardless, one of your biggest challenges will be to tame the bass, which takes a lot of bass traps

Now the question is how to feed the monitors with two separate signals: multi-channel and stereo. No, you can’t use the pre/pro to do that because the bass channel coming out of it is mono. I’ll use my personal setup to illustrate one solution. I introduced a passive switch between the L/R and the subs of my two sources: a pre/pro and a streamer. The output from the switch goes to the L/R monitors and subs respectively. I’m attaching a couple of photos.

In your case, instead of a streamer you could use an USB to AES interface, such as Matrix SPDIF 2 USB connected to your computer.

View attachment 384074View attachment 384075

I have been going through the same line of thought (albeit not as ambitious - 7.1.4). My understanding is that you can easily configure a stereo pair with 9320 as an option.

 

[Kain]

@HairyEars

A point on the self-noise of these speakers was brought up on another forum that I thought I would get your feedback on as well.

Basically, if I wrap my small room with 3 x 8361A as LCR and 12 x 8351B as wides/surrounds/overheads, is the self-noise of these speakers likely to cause an issue or be noticeable at the listening position? I've read posts on this forum stating that The Ones are pretty much dead silent in terms of self-noise. Just want to confirm if that is true.

It was also stated on the other forum that the S360A has ~5 dB more self-noise than the 8361A. The S360A is designed to be more of a Main Monitor where the distances are longer so the higher self-noise would not be apparent.

 

[HairyEars]

@HairyEars

A point on the self-noise of these speakers was brought up on another forum that I thought I would get your feedback on as well.

Basically, if I wrap my small room with 3 x 8361A as LCR and 12 x 8351B as wides/surrounds/overheads, is the self-noise of these speakers likely to cause an issue or be noticeable at the listening position? I've read posts on this forum stating that The Ones are pretty much dead silent in terms of self-noise. Just want to confirm if that is true.

It was also stated on the other forum that the S360A has ~5 dB more self-noise than the 8361A. The S360A is designed to be more of a Main Monitor where the distances are longer so the higher self-noise would not be apparent.

Don't worry about it. All the monitors you're considering have self-generated noise <= 5db, which is extremely low.
No difference between the 51B and 61A. The W370 has 15db of self-generated noise, and Genelec is working on a fix.

If you want to learn more about self-generated noise, read here:

What is Self Noise (or Equivalent Noise Level)?

Self-noise is perhaps the most useful specification. Nobody wants a noisy recording, and there’s only so much noise we will tolerate before we feel it distracts from the music.

www.neumann.com

 

[Kain]

Don't worry about it. All the monitors you're considering have self-generated noise <= 5db, which is extremely low.
No difference between the 51B and 61A. The W370 has 15db of self-generated noise, and Genelec is working on a fix.

If you want to learn more about self-generated noise, read here:

What is Self Noise (or Equivalent Noise Level)?

Self-noise is perhaps the most useful specification. Nobody wants a noisy recording, and there’s only so much noise we will tolerate before we feel it distracts from the music.

www.neumann.com

Thanks.

I saw your post regarding your addition of the 9320A to your setup/system. With the experience you have with it now, would you still say getting the 9320A over the GLM Calibration Kit + 9310B Volume Controller is not worth it? Looking at your post, the volume control and fader of the 9320A alone might make it worth it over the GLM Calibration Kit + 9310B Volume Controller.

By the way, is your Mac mini the only source in your audio setup or do you also have others such as a 4K Blu-ray player, Apple TV, etc.? If I were to have a computer as my only source for my audio setup, would you prefer the computer be a Mac or a PC? If I am not mistaken, Apple Music/iTunes on PC is limited to lossy audio unlike on Mac where you get lossless and hi-res lossless audio so this would be something to consider.

 

[HairyEars]

Thanks.

I saw your post regarding your addition of the 9320A to your setup/system. With the experience you have with it now, would you still say getting the 9320A over the GLM Calibration Kit + 9310B Volume Controller is not worth it? Looking at your post, the volume control and fader of the 9320A alone might make it worth it over the GLM Calibration Kit + 9310B Volume Controller.

By the way, is your Mac mini the only source in your audio setup or do you also have others such as a 4K Blu-ray player, Apple TV, etc.? If I were to have a computer as my only source for my audio setup, would you prefer the computer be a Mac or a PC? If I am not mistaken, Apple Music/iTunes on PC is limited to lossy audio unlike on Mac where you get lossless and hi-res lossless audio so this would be something to consider.

If:

You have the budget;
and are concerned about listening SPL levels;
and are too lazy to interact with your computer/TV every time you start and end your listening session;

then definitely get the 9320A

 

[Descartes]

If you have a small room (12 feet long x 10 feet wide x 9.5 feet high) with many speakers (9.1.6 setup), is better to use speakers that have a wider dispersion or a narrower dispersion? Note that this is for a single listening position.

Love the KEF LS50 meta or if you can afford it the Reference One Meta