Starting recommendations for 13x15 room, speaker placement, DSP treatment, and acoustics

[jontheinstaller]

Hey everyone, been a long-time lurker but posting for the first time. I’m moving to an apartment with a 13x15 foot living room and I’d like to open a dialogue on some placement recommendations.

I was gifted a pair of JBL 4313B studio monitors that I plan to utilize in that space. Now, the room has an open wall towards the kitchen and the opposite wall has sliding glass doors (see attachment). I’m considering putting the speakers (not completely) against the wall with the glass door; would consulting GIK for panels to absorb those immediate reflections behind the speakers be good?

My DSP is a Biamp TesiraForte (amp is a LabGruppen 2.2, plan to replace it with an Extron XPA2002 or 4002, or the Crestron variant) so I have tons of filter options; long term I want to pick up a Smaart License as professionally I’m working in the general AV installation industry and want to fully understand and graphs system tuning.

The full microphone and SPL Calibrator from Rational Acoustics is tempting but there’s also an iTest Mic system competitively priced (I own multiple audio interfaces so XLR isn’t a problem)…

Circling back to the title: I do trust my ears to experiment with placement and I do know that once I get furniture in the space the room will be more controlled. However, any recommendations on hardware/software for measurements and filter creation? DIRAC seems to be commonly recommended but I’m less interested in it since it seems to have limited use in a professional environment?

Thanks in advance!
Jonathan

 

[mcochris]

I would definitely consult with GIK, their room treatments made a significant improvement in my room. Music City Acoustics is another company that offers similar products. You might also want to check out REW software to measure your room and help develop your filter plans.

 

[jontheinstaller]

I played around with placement and found nothing that removes all room nodes; My listening room is closer to 13x13 with the left wall open. I ended up bringing the speakers a foot and a half out of the wall to help with imaging (Creating an equilateral triangle to my listening chair). I also used AudioTools to find the room nodes (some of which I already knew based on previous tuning attempts).

I would describe the JBL 4313B as "Fine" but am looking into the JBL HDI-1600 or 308P MKII with a sub as I prefer how my previous apartment's 305P MKII + LSR 310S sounded. The Aluminum dome tweeters no longer match each other sonically, one I think has less high frequency detail and/or is 2-3 DB quieter. The friend who gifted them to me did say he repaired the crossover in one speaker so I'd imagine the lesser-performing speaker is using the older components.

Bass performance is... fine; I'd say there's good detail down to 40-50hz but below that I think the woofers protest too much. The JBL LSR 310S played lower. The little Extron amp I have attenuated to 15w iw more than enough to drive the speakers to ~75-80 dB(c) which is comfortable listening volumes for me. The Lab.Gruppen was too much wattage for my room, and the little cooling fan was too loud (Same thing that Amir found in his review).

I may be interested in the Kali 2nd wave 6" speakers and a Kali sub instead of the JBLs although I think I prefer the JBL house sound (To think that I once enjoyed the Klipsch house sound of the R14m...). I do, however still prefer a waveguide over simpler dome designs.