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Speaker System choice for moderately small rooms

Crane

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Hey everyone, so in a few months I'm moving to LA for work/study. I'm most likely getting a two bedroom apartment and as such have to consider room acoustics and sizing for a new speaker system. I've been fortunate to have a friend in the area who is getting rid of their revel gem2 and voice2 speakers for a very decent price. I'm looking to build a living room area for both home theater and music stereo listening and so I'm considering getting a salon2 (if I can find a decently priced used one) to add to the mix for front speakers in a 5.2.4 setup.

My question is would the speaker be wasted in an apartment living room environment/setup with it being three walled and open to a kitchen/dining area in addition to the room size being around 20 L x 10 H x 10-15 W. I'm looking to get something I'm most likely gonna live with for long time and while I'm only there for two years, I would like to purchase "end-game" systems when I move to a house. Also, I would be interested in opinions/recommendation on systems and places/stores in the area to check out for gears.

Thanks,
 

andreasmaaan

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Hey everyone, so in a few months I'm moving to LA for work/study. I'm most likely getting a two bedroom apartment and as such have to consider room acoustics and sizing for a new speaker system. I've been fortunate to have a friend in the area who is getting rid of their revel gem2 and voice2 speakers for a very decent price. I'm looking to build a living room area for both home theater and music stereo listening and so I'm considering getting a salon2 (if I can find a decently priced used one) to add to the mix for front speakers in a 5.2.4 setup.

My question is would the speaker be wasted in an apartment living room environment/setup with it being three walled and open to a kitchen/dining area in addition to the room size being around 20 L x 10 H x 10-15 W. I'm looking to get something I'm most likely gonna live with for long time and while I'm only there for two years, I would like to purchase "end-game" systems when I move to a house. Also, I would be interested in opinions/recommendation on systems and places/stores in the area to check out for gears.

Thanks,

Which side of the room opens up onto the kitchen/dining area? It would be better if the front or back of the room were open, rather than one of the sides, since that would create lateral asymmetry, which would be more of a problem for imaging.

If you're going to get a large system in there, it may as well be a good one :) A better room in future will only improve it.

Alternatively, the Gem 2 is designed to be suitable for placement against a wall (it has a shallow enclosure and a bass contour control). You could start in the new apartment with those as your mains, placed against the front wall, and then add additional speakers only if you're not happy with the sound. You wouldn't have a 5.2.4 setup though in that case of course. But I'd imagine such a configuration would work very well with subs for stereo music, or with the Voice 2 as the centre channel for movies.
 
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Crane

Crane

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I could have the back/front open to dining/kitchen area in the setup but the main issue I would guess that it would limit the area to work with for speaker placement of salon2 as front speakers. if the width is closer to 10 ft or at most 15 ft that would limit spacing between the two tower speakers. As the length is typically 20ft or more for the apartments I've seen compared to the 10-15ft width it seem it would be easier to use those for front walls for tower distancing.

I was thinking that even with one of the sidewalls open, I could place diffusers on the other side and hope room correction software take care of the rest.

You're right through I am aiming for a good large speaker system for the future :).
 

Blumlein 88

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I think the Salons would be a very nice choice. With that much space don't skimp on amp power, but otherwise I think you can do what you want with Salons and GEMs in a system like you describe.
 
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Crane

Crane

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I think the Salons would be a very nice choice. With that much space don't skimp on amp power, but otherwise I think you can do what you want with Salons and GEMs in a system like you describe.

I was planning on getting a benchmark ahb2 for each salons tower and possibly the voice centers. Then use a hypex NC502 for all the other speaker setup so a 6-7 channel one for the rest.
 

andreasmaaan

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I was thinking that even with one of the sidewalls open, I could place diffusers on the other side and hope room correction software take care of the rest.

There are lots of theories on room treatment and no need to go into detail here, but my view is that if you have it open on one side and a wall on the other, wideband absorption will work much better than diffusion. This is because good absorption will remove most of the reflection (at mid and high frequencies anyway), which is more equivalent to having open space there as you will on the other side.

(There's also a case to be made against diffusion at first reflection points in general FWIW.)
 
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daftcombo

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I was planning on getting a benchmark ahb2 for each salons tower and possibly the voice centers. Then use a hypex NC502 for all the other speaker setup so a 6-7 channel one for the rest.
o_O why do you need so much power?
 
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Crane

Crane

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There are lots of theories on room treatment and no need to go into detail here, but my view is that if you have it open on one side and a wall on the other, wideband absorption will work much better than diffusion. (There's also a case to be made against diffusion at first reflection points in general FWIW.)

i'll look into that, thanks for the recommendation.

o_O why do you need so much power?

I don't really but whats the downside of using the hypex 502 vs 252. Most assembled ones like from nord for 6-7 channels have minimal price difference for the headroom. Never know when you use the amp for something else :p.

Unless there is a benefit to using the 250W ones i'm missing?
 
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