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Speaker for mixing in 45m2 room

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Lilith

Lilith

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I will order the KH120 later before the price goes up.
 
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Will write more the next days
 
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IMG_20220602_220007.jpg
 
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Lilith

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Congrats
How's the sound?
Compared to my Eris 5 my room mode at 130Hz is much less pronounced by ear. Didn't measure yet. Bass is also moderate. Curious what the measurement will show. Phantom center is very good and they are much faster and more dynamic than the Eris. Even without any room correction they sound good. Was not possible with the Eris.
 
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Lilith

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Did some measurements last week and these are the FR of left (green) and right speaker:

R1AE9Fp.png


My speakers are ~65 cm from the front wall (front of speaker to wall) and the front wall is treated with 3 GIK panels (~10 cm thick). In the front corners there are 4 Bass Traps and on the ceiling 4 Basotect panels. The rear wall (the room is L=8m x W~4.7 m, H=2.4 m) is untreated. In the FR there are two main issues: Dip at 100 Hz and a broad dip at ~1kHz. I think the 800- 1000 Hz dip comes from comb filter effects from the big table. The 100 Hz dip is unlikely SBIR from the front wall as I have the panels there. It gets better though when I remove the panels and move the speaker close to the front wall (from my experience with my Eris 5 monitors, I'll look for the measurments), but I want to sit close to the speakers. Moving the table closer to the front wall is boosting the 130 Hz mode a lot! If I remove the panels and leave the speakers at ~65 cm front wall distance (like they are now) I get SBIR at ~200 Hz, which is not present with the panels. I also read at gearslutz that a dip at 100 Hz is quite common (even for professional studio) and that treating is not necessarily the best thing, because we are used to have a notch there because of floor bounce. The 800 Hz- 1000 Hz I could treat with some aborbers on the table or playing with the desk filter of the KH120. This will lower the 200-300 Hz range a bit. The measuremts above are without room correction.

Hg6f1Vn.jpg

@fluid suggested to look at the spectrogram to check where the dip at 100 Hz is coming from. Can I learn something from the peak energy time at 100 Hz which is ~50 ms?

h5iAi46.png
 
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Lilith

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@floor bounce:

 

audio2920

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Yeah, probably the floor. But I wonder if a un-smoothed graph with a more zoom in on the x axis would give you any clues; the shape of the dip makes me wonder if you've actually got two or more separate nulls that are close in frequency? The room looks quite anechoic except the floor and windows, so I don't know that this is likely in your case, just saying, it's a "maybe".

(If there were, for example, distinctly separate nulls at say 95 and 105Hz you could then move the speakers a relatively small amount, horizontally and/or vertically and see if that clues you in on what they're from?)
 

fluid

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@fluid suggested to look at the spectrogram to check where the dip at 100 Hz is coming from. Can I learn something from the peak energy time at 100 Hz which is ~50 ms?
I can't really tell anything from that graph due to the settings used, I don't have REW in front of me now to suggest alternative settings to look at.

You can use an SBIR calculator to get an idea of the main problem areas in your room by putting in the distances. I guessed some of your distances and there was trouble from 80 Hz through to 130Hz.

http://tripp.com.au/sbir.htm

Pushing the speakers back to 500mm away from wall pushes some of that up to 170Hz where your panels will be more effective. 10cm of anything will not be doing much at 100Hz.

As your room is rectangular you can use REW's room simulator to virtually move your speakers around to find the position with the least destructive boundary interference and then target your treatment to the areas where positioning isn't effective. I have found this to be very accurate and much easier than moving and remeasuring but that is another option.

Also consider the height of your monitors as the ceiling can be as much of a problem as the floor, more so when you have a desk in the way. Putting the speakers halfway in between is often the worst of all positions.

This all comes down to distance you should be able to get a very accurate match between simulation and reality with no need to guess what could be causing the problem.
 

ernestcarl

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After picking and setting out my preferred "optimal" speaker and listener positioning in the room...

In my own small desk setup, it appears to be the height and length modes and boundaries that conspire against me.


1654759891644.png



1654748041782.png


Cancellation dip and increased GD specifically in the subwoofer around 80 Hz is probably made worse in combination with the tangential and oblique modes -- I think -- hmmmn... maybe it's mostly coming from the height axial mode and/or floor bounce? When the desk and monitors are raised up in a "standing desk position", the deep 80 Hz cancellation and increased GD peak from the sub goes away.

The room already has some acoustic absorbers in place (in addition to absorption from the underlying wall structures & furniture) so can't really compare what improvements in the FR magnitude would have been in contrast to having completely bare walls -- though, it's likely primarily going to be in the time domain e.g. early to late FR. The "late" FR curve isn't particularly "flat", but the level is so low that it is rather made inconsequential. Pulling out my keyboard tray underneath the desktop out will slightly increase dips spread between ~450 Hz to +1 kHz a little, and somewhat opposite result is obtained vis-a-vis by adding removable dense absorption panels over the desk surface itself.

1654748960696.png 1654749623365.png 1654759950390.png1654749643606.png

Normally, I would not bother filling in much of the broad response dip between 450 Hz to +1 kHz (caused mainly by the desk)... but I decided that I'd give it a go -- with the blessing and confirmation coming out of my alternative MMM measurements.

1654751679931.png
 
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test1223

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Did some measurements last week and these are the FR of left (green) and right speaker:

R1AE9Fp.png


My speakers are ~65 cm from the front wall (front of speaker to wall) and the front wall is treated with 3 GIK panels (~10 cm thick). In the front corners there are 4 Bass Traps and on the ceiling 4 Basotect panels. The rear wall (the room is L=8m x W~4.7 m, H=2.4 m) is untreated. In the FR there are two main issues: Dip at 100 Hz and a broad dip at ~1kHz. I think the 800- 1000 Hz dip comes from comb filter effects from the big table. The 100 Hz dip is unlikely SBIR from the front wall as I have the panels there. It gets better though when I remove the panels and move the speaker close to the front wall (from my experience with my Eris 5 monitors, I'll look for the measurments), but I want to sit close to the speakers. Moving the table closer to the front wall is boosting the 130 Hz mode a lot! If I remove the panels and leave the speakers at ~65 cm front wall distance (like they are now) I get SBIR at ~200 Hz, which is not present with the panels. I also read at gearslutz that a dip at 100 Hz is quite common (even for professional studio) and that treating is not necessarily the best thing, because we are used to have a notch there because of floor bounce. The 800 Hz- 1000 Hz I could treat with some aborbers on the table or playing with the desk filter of the KH120. This will lower the 200-300 Hz range a bit. The measuremts above are without room correction.

Hg6f1Vn.jpg

@fluid suggested to look at the spectrogram to check where the dip at 100 Hz is coming from. Can I learn something from the peak energy time at 100 Hz which is ~50 ms?

h5iAi46.png
It doesn't look bad. Now you need at least one subwoofer and you are done ;)

No matter how hard you stretch the room acoustics without sub it wouldn't give you the bass you need. With electronic music you need at least 35Hz with some headroom (IMHO). Deeper is obviously better.

You can try to put the speakers even higher, if the elevated sound source doesn't bother you. It will increase the sound a bit due to later early reflections. You have to adjust the vertical angle of the speaker at some point so that you sit in the main beam of the speaker.

Some fine tuning tips: you can cover the blanke part of the speaker stands with some damping material or at least turn the speaker stand that no blank edge is there in front of you. It acts as an early diffraction source. Also some damping material behind the computer monitor at least at the edges might also help a bit to eliminate early diffraction sources (pay attention that the monitor doesn't over heat).
 
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Lilith

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My room is not really rectangular what makes it a bit more complicated:

7gUL9hg.jpg



Concerning the 100 Hz dip I think this got worse with more bass traps in the front. It gets better when I move speakers to the front wall, but I like the sound more when there are absorbers on the front wall. I couldn't measure a huge difference between front wall treated / front wall untreated, but subjectively (?) it sounds less boomy and more defined when there are absorbers on the front wall. The alternative would be to put them to the side and leave the front wall untreated.

The first reflection points (FRP) on the table are almost exactly at half distance of the table depth. Moving the speakers lower will move the FRP to the back. Moving them up will move the FRP towards me. I think highest priority has phantom mono center / stereo separation, which at the moment is quite good at my listening position and with the speaker distance. When moving the speakers closer to the wall I must also move them further apart and then they almost stand in front of two windows.

When I measure the SPL at the listening position at 100 Hz it gets louder towards the floor and lower in volume when I move the SPL meter toward the ceiling (doesn't this proof that it's floor bounce already?).

100 Hz
listening position ear heigt: 72 dB
listening position floor: 82 dB

150 Hz
listening position ear heigt: 78 dB

It get's also lower when I move back (maybe just because of distance?). It's also by ear a very narrow dip and it might look worse in the measurement. The 800 kHz dip is not noticeable at all.

Just brainstorming.... What sub would you recommend for the KH120 and how can I manage to leave it off when it's not needed? Heard good things about the Presonus T10.

Also uploaded the REW file: https://e1.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZa7MRZ4oXpCn6Lwl7MURyCrIk8F7x2wPek
 
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dasdoing

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Moving the table closer to the front wall is boosting the 130 Hz mode a lot

you are EQing right? so take boosts (modes) over cancelations (notches).
when I integrated my sub I took 50-ish meassurements moving it around (3d - in a small place).
play around with positions and take the free boost.
look in my graphs in post #52. 75Hz is more boosted in orange, but it is the right choice....I eq it down anyways (and loose no headroom doing so)
 
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Lilith

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you are EQing right? so take boosts (modes) over cancelations (notches).
when I integrated my sub I took 50-ish meassurements moving it around (3d - in a small place).
play around with positions and take the free boost.
look in my graphs in post #52. 75Hz is more boosted in orange, but it is the right choice....I eq it down anyways (and loose no headroom doing so)

That would mean I have to completely move close to the wall with the whole table and (worst case trough my GIK panels out again :eek:)
Yes, I'm EQing with drc-fir. (as Sonarworks dropped Linux support again)
 

dasdoing

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That would mean I have to completely move close to the wall with the whole table and (worst case trough my GIK panels out again :eek:)
Yes, I'm EQing with drc-fir. (as Sonarworks dropped Linux support again)

If monitors almost touching frontwall gets rid of the dip, you might not need those panels there anymore and can put them at the back (freestanding). that could get rid of some ringin from the first longitunal mode.
but I din't say you should do it like so, I said you have to play around more with positioning. I know it sucks since moving stuff around is a lot of work, but you can find some nice improvements (for free)
 
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Lilith

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If monitors almost touching frontwall gets rid of the dip, you might not need those panels there anymore and can put them at the back (freestanding). that could get rid of some ringin from the first longitunal mode.
but I din't say you should do it like so, I said you have to play around more with positioning. I know it sucks since moving stuff around is a lot of work, but you can find some nice improvements (for free)
I'm a wheelchair driver which complicates things :) That's why I was looking for lightweight speakers. Maybe I would have chosen the IN-8 otherwise. But maybe it's worth a try to put one panel to the side and make a test with just one speaker.
 

dasdoing

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I'm a wheelchair driver which complicates things :) That's why I was looking for lightweight speakers. Maybe I would have chosen the IN-8 otherwise.

no local audiophile friend or relative? or just call a normal friend and buy him a beer lol
 
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Lilith

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no local audiophile friend or relative? or just call a normal friend and buy him a beer lol

My parents are around but they don't have much patience with such things (maybe because they don't hear any difference :facepalm:) My father built all the bass traps which was quite a lot of work. I think the best place for the GIK panels would be the ceiling, but I think I would be afraid that these crush on my head one day.
 

dasdoing

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I think the best place for the GIK panels would be the ceiling

I moved in the same building (up two floors), so I kind of moved into the same room twice. down there I had a big ceiling panel. while I was removing stuff down there I left it for last to meassure it's real impact. it was very limited, and now I am not using it anymore my room is more alive. I also moved most of my material to the back-wall since the first mode is very energetic in my 4m x 3m room. the rest is providing a "reflection free zone" at the front half
 
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