I can't win .... Speaker Placement.

My room is about 14ft x 13ft x 8ft and I cannot get any damn bass in it with a layout that I can also live in.

Primare I30 amp , CD21 CD and Quad 22L2 speakers with Qunex Silver Sprial IC and Anti-cables/QED Silver XT cables

I had the same problem with my old hi fi , I actually thought the bits weren't compatible and sold the lot but I've now realised it's actually the room.

I've been off work today and decided on getting this sorted once and for all.. I've had the hifi on 3 different walls and nearly every position near/away from walls/sides etc and none give me "good" bass. I know it isn't the hifi as when I first got the thing I demo'd it in the store and if anything, the bass was overpowering - in this room however, all what I'm left with is this sharp high frequency music with what sounds like a steep roll off at about 160hz. Male voices sound tinny , drums don't have punch and hi hats hurt.

someone please help me before I break something (Just packed in cigs) as my new hifi as just cost nearly £3.5k and it's not supposed to sound like this.



PS sorry about the mess

 

PS sorry about the mess

looks pretty good to me..

If it was me I'd sart by putting your speakers on (isolating)granite slabs.

That should give you approx about another octave of bass.

You have wooden floor boards though (?). I'm really not sure on how those are going to affect the sonics.

Siimon??

 

yeah, get some paving slabs - I git some nice slate ones for 6:49 each...maybe the speaks could be closer to the wall too?

plus - if it's all brand new kit - then it will take time to break in... 100 hours plus

 

If break in is real then surely the main change in audio will be in the first 20 hours or so, I just can't see the bass vanishing and then returning all of a sudden once it's reached its quota of hours. Have you ever experienced bass to suddenly return after a time out ?

I will try the slabs under the speakers - I can try one right now as I have a huge one in the kitchen (yes I'm using one as a chopping board the way they're intended )

I'm in a rented flat so can't start throwing acoustic tiles all over the walls and my experience with them has been that you need to spend big money or it's not worth it.

re: speakers closer to the wall... too close to the walls and it just smudges the mids , loses detail at gives me very uneven slow bass.

grrrrr

 

well, hopefully the slabs will work out...

I've just won some dali ikon 5's on fleabay for 335 froma dealer... 7 monhs old too...

 

ha ha nice one , I do like the look of them but never heard them.

 

yeah, same here...

just won them literally 10 minutes ago...

wastempted by some suite 2.8 a while back - was some bargains on fleabay too... these ones are quite small at 85cm tall..!

 

what are you going to do with the focals , keep them just incase ?

 

Allow me to show you the problem in graphical terms. You don't have too little bass, you have too much mid and top due to your highly reflective room where the energy of the mid and highs take a long time to decay. I assume you know how to read a frequency response graph?

This is quite a bare room room like yours. In fact it has a thick wall to wall carpet and a fabric covered sofa, but little on the walls. This means it absorbs little energy in the mid and highs so that energy keeps bouncing around the room and effectively builds up. Note the level of the mid and high frequencies comapred to the bass below 150Hz. Mids peak around 94dB.



Now this is the same room with some mid and high frequency sound absorbent panels attached to the walls. One behind the sofa, and one on each side wall. About 1m square.

Note that by removing a lot of this messy sound energy bouncing around the room, the relative level between bass and mids has changed by more than 3dB. That's a big change, and it will sound like you have a lot more bass right across the range.

Not only will the mids be more proportion to the bass now, but with less reflected energy in the room you can hear more of the direct sound from the speakers and everything will be more detailed, clearer and less fatiguing to listen to.


I'd point out as well, the big peak in the bass at about 50Hz is also due to the room, where it resonates in the bass. I correct that with EQ. You could position the speakers to reduce that if you wanted.

Don't just put curtains up and add another rug. Those will only absorb at the very high frequencies and give an unbalanced sound. You want something that absorbs down to the lower midrange. You want something with some 'bulk' to it. You can get panels designed for the job. Check out GIK and Advanced Acoustics. They don't have to look ugly. Adding shelfs, bookcases and CD/record storeage with lots of stuff in them helps too.


P.S. don't waste your time on equipment supports, it isn't the cause of the issue. EQ could reduce the mid and high levels to get a better balance but it won't give 'better' sound quality like fixing the room will.

 

You can get panels that can simply be hung like a picture. It shouldn't be a big problem. 'Big money' depends on your point of view. Having just spent £3.5k on your system you would be mad not to think it worth spending say £500 on the room acoustics to actually hear the system you have bought! Room acoustics are not a tweak, they are the bread and butter of a good system so don't skimp.

 

yeah, I'll sell which ever ones I don't like...

 

How weird... The solution was to "untwist" the QED I/Cs that I twisted earlier for neatness. As soon as I untwisted them the bass filled the room??!!??!!

Thanks Tenson for the info , I'm a little bit skint after spending all my dosh on the system so £500 is a bit much for me at the moment (we need to pay for beer habbit too)

 

That effect is simply not possible under any circumstances.
There will be another reason.

 

If it was due to the cables, then I would suspect a damaged cable, you might want to get it replaced. Perhaps the conductor was shorted to ground, just a barely, and it loaded the source with a nasty impedance?

 

Small speakers in a small room, and no bass. A most perplexing mystery.

 

yeah, I was thinking that I should have warned you against saying cables had made a difference - as I knew you'd get slated!

 

Why do you say that his time would be wasted on equip supports?

 

Brilliant post/s by Simon (Tenson) I have to say.

Nice one Simon.

 

David, he was saying not to waste time with supports as they're not the cause of the issue. Maybe if you read posts properly before jumping the gun....

 

hi

Did a few tests my of room with frequency sweeps of sine waves , I have a rather large suckout at 60hz and another at 120hz with a guesstimate of about -15 to -20db

Tried the usual pulling speakers out , pushing them back in and it just moved the dip a couple of HZ either way.
I'm not sure how I can fix this to be honest as it seems it's the natural room node dip and effective 30hz rockwool is around 1ft deep if I'm reading it right.

Simon?

hmmm