Speaker/room size

Is there a general rule of thumb for when a room is too small for a typical floor standing speaker, or too big for a typical stand mount? I have a feeling that my 10ft 6" wide 8ft high 22ft long living room is borderline for floorstanders.
And having witnessed some small speaker cones going beserk trying to drive a largeish room I wonder what the combined wisdom of you lot reckons.

 

If you like bass then you would probably need some largish floorstanders or a subwoofer with standmounts. I don't think standmounts would have a problem filling the room, they would just be light on bass.

What sort of price are you thinking of?

 

Would agree with Tenson, my room isn't much bigger and I've always preffered the sound from floorstanders.

 

I've used floorstanders very successfully in smaller rooms than that. My current listening room is 14'5 x 13'2 x 9'4, although a fair bit of work needs to be done to get the best of the system.

 

Just a general query, I've got floorstanders already and I'm very happy with them. With judicious positional tweeking I've minimised bass resonance, but at higher volumes you still know about it. Not coplaining mind you.

 

I don't see any way in which 'floorstander' and 'standmounter' can be generalised into typicality.

Paul

 

I'd suggest you look into some room conditioning then if bass resonance is the problem. You will find the whole sound improves leaps and bounds, not just the bass, so it's very worthwhile in my opinion/experience.

 

Thats nice you are entitled to your opinion too

 

That room sounds big enough for sensible conventional floorstanders to me, assuming you're listening down the long dimension of the room.

 

My room is 14 X 26 X9'6" and I use pretty hefty floorstanders. Someone posted a room modes spreadsheet on here and I used it to set up the speakers. It worked very well indeed but obviously I can't find the bloody thing on here now.

The outcome involved my speakers being far further into the room than I'd expected but I now have nicely balanced sound from top to bottom.
I think the vast majority of average floorstanders could be made to work well in your room. Although I'd say they will have to fire down the long axis, I've tried mine accross the shorter one and frankly it was pants very, very boomy.

 

I've no idea what you're talking about. Do you?



The floorstander is the one on the right.

Paul

 

That's what makes you so clever, Paul, these powers of observation, saying that, i'd probably still have the floorstander, of course you make a point here, but I'm sure even you knew that these behemoths were not the standmounts he was reffering to.

But hey if scoring pedant points rather than being helpful floats yer boat, then you must be in line for a prize by now.

 

room acoustics is the key
my room is awful as far as resonance goes 19x13x8 with wooden floors.
it doesnt seem to matter how big or small the speakers are (and ive had a lot).
i managed just fine with roksan darius and ojan which are quite big. also all the royd and rega but could not get any epos, jamo concerts or rear ported acoustic energy to work.
ive got sick of changing things so have settled with ae1s now which is a good speaker but a compromise if deep bass is your thing.
interesting thing is, my mate has a room measuring about 13x8x8. he listens across the shortest distance to a huge pair of tdl ref4's, is so close to his mf a370 that it keeps his feet warm while listening but is one of the best systems ive heard. go figure?

 

My speakers are slightly larger than the Isobarik, and are also standmounts, as are their bigger brothers, the 150s, 200s, and 300s. Paul is right, it's a meaningless classification.

These are the 300s, with twin 15-inch bass drivers:

 

Very nice James, see my post above in answer to PR, or are you just being pedantic too?

 

And the floor mounts in my photo above are quite happy in small rooms.

I suspect that whether and how the speakers are ported is more significant.

Paul

 

How about cabinet volume? Or the size of the bass driver?

 

Carpet or hard floor? I seem to understand what is meant by a 'typical' floorstander, but nowadays with the fashion for tall thin 2 way speakers its not clear. My preference is to listen along the length - you can always move closer when it suits, tho you will get a lot of side reflection and a narrow image at a distance. Narrow speakers make it worse with a wide dispersion. Get [or make] some old fashioned squat 3 ways. Try Heybrook HB3 [the original, not the new kak stuff]

 

I reckon (and I'm probably wrong) that speakers using a resonance to bloom out their bass are more likely to be sensitive to room. I don't see the size per se of the bass driver being significant and the large speakers I pictured above are often found working well in relatively small rooms.

Paul

 

Hey Bub, do you always listen with them so close together