Which room to choose ?

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

Hello everybody on this thread.

I understand that I am very lucky to be able to have
a room for music all to myself.

We bought this old house in the French Pyrénées, 09100 Pamiers,
170M2 ! and here houses are cheap,
about 1000 dollars per 10,76 ft² (1M2).
Only an hour away in Toulouse it costs 4-5 times as much.
I have always read that the bigger the room,
the bigger the sound !

However,

The bigger room is on the second floor,
with a big marble stove on one end,
lots of tall windows on one side,
some closets,
and neighbors on each side of the room.

It measures :19'8" x 16'5" feet
with the ceiling at 9'10" feet.

The smaller room, on the third floor
"above" the neighbors, so no direct wall to the neighbors,
it has smaller windows and not furnitures.

It measures : 13'1" x 14'9" feet
with the ceiling at 8'6" feet.

Both rooms have wooden floors.

I would prefer the smaller room, except if the sound
will really become bigger and nicer in the bigger room.

Today I have 2 x 4'11" feet high DIY line arrays

One swedish pair of Chaconne someone gave to me for free,
because one speaker is broken that I will try to repair.

I also bought for 300 euros a pair of PHONOPHONE G1
with new speakers.

I am going to buy to start the WiiM Ultra with 2 Fosi V3 mono amps.

Thank you for any input. Raymond.

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

I also picked up a pair of Cabasse, probably according to somone here, Antigua MT360R for 100 euros that are in great shape

 

[Chrispy]

I'd go with the smaller room personally. The larger one sounds like it is more reflective and perhaps the small one is better on the neighbors thing, altho sound can go thru floors too (and floor coverings are probably needed in either case).

 

[CapMan]

Try both and measure with REW.

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

Thank you. The bigger room has more space for damping materials and I could cover the fireplace but this will make me loose 3 feet.

The smaller room also has a back room, 3 feet deep, behind the listener, with a door in the middle, I suppose that this is a good bass trap if I understand rightly.
I can also make this opening bigger and fill the back room with woodfiber isolation.

I can put a carpet on the floor, and whatever I like on the walls to dampen.

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

REW, never used this but I do have a microphone and I saw some posts that help learning how to measure a room

 

[Chrispy]

Thank you. The bigger room has more space for damping materials and I could cover the fireplace but this will make me loose 3 feet.

The smaller room also has a back room, 3 feet deep, behind the listener, with a door in the middle, I suppose that this is a good bass trap if I understand rightly.
I can also make this opening bigger and fill the back room with woodfiber isolation.

I can put a carpet on the floor, and whatever I like on the walls to dampen.

I'd just go with typical furnishings for a room to start before using traps or panels etc, plus you'd still need to measure to implement such. Normal furnishings can go a long ways. I was thinking more about covering windows than fireplace, tho

 

[Axo1989]

Hello everybody on this thread.

I understand that I am very lucky to be able to have
a room for music all to myself.

We bought this old house in the French Pyrénées, 09100 Pamiers,
170M2 ! and here houses are cheap,
about 1000 dollars per 10,76 ft² (1M2).
Only an hour away in Toulouse it costs 4-5 times as much.
I have always read that the bigger the room,
the bigger the sound !

However,

The bigger room is on the second floor,
with a big marble stove on one end,
lots of tall windows on one side,
some closets,
and neighbors on each side of the room.

It measures :19'8" x 16'5" feet
with the ceiling at 9'10" feet.

The smaller room, on the third floor
"above" the neighbors, so no direct wall to the neighbors,
it has smaller windows and not furnitures.

It measures : 13'1" x 14'9" feet
with the ceiling at 8'6" feet.

Both rooms have wooden floors.

I would prefer the smaller room, except if the sound
will really become bigger and nicer in the bigger room.

Today I have 2 x 4'11" feet high DIY line arrays

One swedish pair of Chaconne someone gave to me for free,
because one speaker is broken that I will try to repair.

I also bought for 300 euros a pair of PHONOPHONE G1
with new speakers.

I am going to buy to start the WiiM Ultra with 2 Fosi V3 mono amps.

Thank you for any input. Raymond.

I also picked up a pair of Cabasse, probably according to somone here, Antigua MT360R for 100 euros that are in great shape

Both loudspeaker pairs are on the small side (although you didn't specify the Chaconne model) which suggests the smaller room.

The REW suggestion is good. As both rooms are rectangular, you can also use REW to model each room in advance, and position your speakers accordingly. If you like the position in one room better than the other, that may also be an influence.

Seems a shame to have a large-ish room and not acquire loudspeakers to match. But that depends on your available budget and priorities for all sorts of things outside audio.

 

[Chrispy]

And, fwiw, both rooms are relatively "small" in the bigger picture of audio.

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

Thank you, and yes, it is true, my speakers are not yet found, but I will have some fun to start with these and the line array do not sound so bad, only they only have mediums, no bass.

I believe that it is more fun to find old speakers or to build your own than to spend 10.000€ on a pair of new speakers that I will anyway want to change one day and lose tons of money, because this is what I see happening, the perfect speaker does not exist so we keep looking.

I am also looking into DIY open baffle in the future, and that is not expensive either. However, thank you for this input. I shall have to learn REW, that will be when I get back home from work in April.

Five years ago, I had a friend who was studying sound engineering and he measured my DIY line arrays and found out how well they sounded, and this makes me think about that room back then. I used our bedroom which measured 20 x 22 feet, but only . Behind the speakers there were hanging and on shelves with lots of clothes. Behind the listener were our double bed. And there were very few windows. So what you say Chrispy makes sens. Thank you and everyone else here.

Both loudspeaker pairs are on the small side (although you didn't specify the Chaconne model) which suggests the smaller room.

The REW suggestion is good. As both rooms are rectangular, you can also use REW to model each room in advance, and position your speakers accordingly. If you like the position in one room better than the other, that may also be an influence.

Seems a shame to have a large-ish room and not acquire loudspeakers to match. But that depends on your available budget and priorities for all sorts of things outside audio.

Dear Axo, here is the model :

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

Dear Axo. You say : Seems a shame to have a large-ish room and not acquire loudspeakers to match

Actually I will probably buy some speakers later on.
The ones I have is more like, my old line arrays, and the 300 euros
a pair of PHONOPHONE G1. But when I listened to these, they sounded awfully good to me
and the bass drivers are new.

What kind of budget would you think is necessary for the bigger room ?