wgb113
Active Member
Hey Everyone!
Looking to start a thread for those of us that find ourselves with tiny rooms and to discuss the approaches we've taken trying to get the best sound out of them. A lot of the research involving room acoustics seems tailored to "small" residential rooms when compared to commercial spaces and around getting the sound "right" over a broad area for multiple people.
I'm interested in rooms like I have where they're so small that multiple people aren't really even an option. I wouldn't say closet-sized but not far off. My room was designed to be a home office and it's what I consider tiny at 121" wide, 140" long on the left wall, 164" long on the right wall with 108" ceilings. It necessitates a near field speaker/listener setup and it's a challenge to get nice, even bass.
Shortly after converting it to my primary listening space I installed some DIY acoustic treatments. I built wooden frames to house Roxul Safe & Sound and made floor-to-soffit trap "super chunk" style traps in the front corners and soffit traps around the entire room. The front wall soffit traps are 20"D x 17"H and the soffit traps on the side and rear wall are 20"D x 10"H. The super-chunk corner traps are 18"x18"x25" with a depth of about 14".
These helped a lot with flutter echo as well as some broadband absorption but with a Schroeder frequency of 280Hz things still get quite lumpy. Speaker and Listening positions measuring to tweeter are: 33" from side walls, 38" from front walls, 30" from floor. Speaking of the floor, it's suspended hardwood with a thick wool area rug covering 50% of it. My chair is situated so that my ears are 54" from the rear wall, forming an equilateral triangle with the speakers.
The rear wall is completely covered with floor to soffit CD storage. The first side reflection point for the left speaker is a bookcase holding vinyl, for the right speaker a set of double doors to another room. The FRP for the ceiling is (currently) untreated.
Recently I've been experimenting with Dirac Live but I'm still unsure whether I can live with it long-term. On my to do list is to run some MMM measurements with REW to see what the filter/curves are actually resulting in from a response standpoint.
Speaker & Listener positioning is a big challenge as there's so much conflicting advice out there. From what manufacturers recommend to general recommendations that may or may not be taking into consideration just one listener in a tiny room.
Then there's the issue of bass. I wonder lately at just how far I'd have to go to get satisfactory bass and whether or not it's worth the effort and expense. It's not likely that I can fit much more from a treatment perspective and running multiple subs gets expensive as does placement options in such a small room.
So I'm curious as to what approaches others have taken with similarly tiny rooms in an effort to get good, if not great, sound.
Bill
Looking to start a thread for those of us that find ourselves with tiny rooms and to discuss the approaches we've taken trying to get the best sound out of them. A lot of the research involving room acoustics seems tailored to "small" residential rooms when compared to commercial spaces and around getting the sound "right" over a broad area for multiple people.
I'm interested in rooms like I have where they're so small that multiple people aren't really even an option. I wouldn't say closet-sized but not far off. My room was designed to be a home office and it's what I consider tiny at 121" wide, 140" long on the left wall, 164" long on the right wall with 108" ceilings. It necessitates a near field speaker/listener setup and it's a challenge to get nice, even bass.
Shortly after converting it to my primary listening space I installed some DIY acoustic treatments. I built wooden frames to house Roxul Safe & Sound and made floor-to-soffit trap "super chunk" style traps in the front corners and soffit traps around the entire room. The front wall soffit traps are 20"D x 17"H and the soffit traps on the side and rear wall are 20"D x 10"H. The super-chunk corner traps are 18"x18"x25" with a depth of about 14".
These helped a lot with flutter echo as well as some broadband absorption but with a Schroeder frequency of 280Hz things still get quite lumpy. Speaker and Listening positions measuring to tweeter are: 33" from side walls, 38" from front walls, 30" from floor. Speaking of the floor, it's suspended hardwood with a thick wool area rug covering 50% of it. My chair is situated so that my ears are 54" from the rear wall, forming an equilateral triangle with the speakers.
The rear wall is completely covered with floor to soffit CD storage. The first side reflection point for the left speaker is a bookcase holding vinyl, for the right speaker a set of double doors to another room. The FRP for the ceiling is (currently) untreated.
Recently I've been experimenting with Dirac Live but I'm still unsure whether I can live with it long-term. On my to do list is to run some MMM measurements with REW to see what the filter/curves are actually resulting in from a response standpoint.
Speaker & Listener positioning is a big challenge as there's so much conflicting advice out there. From what manufacturers recommend to general recommendations that may or may not be taking into consideration just one listener in a tiny room.
Then there's the issue of bass. I wonder lately at just how far I'd have to go to get satisfactory bass and whether or not it's worth the effort and expense. It's not likely that I can fit much more from a treatment perspective and running multiple subs gets expensive as does placement options in such a small room.
So I'm curious as to what approaches others have taken with similarly tiny rooms in an effort to get good, if not great, sound.
Bill
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