What speakers for a small room ?

I'm hoping to have a dedicated music room soon, roughly 12 feet square (3.5 metres) and think my current speakers, ATC SCM 40s are going to overpower the room.

Any suggestions, am open to floor or Stand mounted, budget up to £2K UK.
Music mostly Rock/Pop/Jazz/Blues/World, very little classical.
Mostly Vinyl and I like a good bass, not overly bright sound.
Totem Mani 2 would be great but can't afford em !

System is in my signature.

 

Keep the ATC, spend half that budget on acoustic treatments. Seriously...

 

The room size may present a problem with bass as it is square. Room treatments will help big time.
rollo

 

Got a bit more time to reply now so..

If I were in your shoes I would indeed keep the ATC, but I would get a Behringer DEQ2496 to sort out bass problems below 200Hz. This can be used with a digital input and output to a DAC of choice, or you can have it modified (by my business!) so you can use the analogue outs. Not that you can't use the analogue outs otherwise, but they sound a ton better with the mods and without they are not ideal.

Then, I would use some acoustic wall panels at first reflection points and behind the listening seat to control the mid and high reflections. I'd also get a very thick underlay and carpet fitted. Hair felt underlay is the best, don't use foam or rubber as they don't absorb sound very well.

 

Remembering back from my physics days a cube room is the worst room for sound that you can get. Digital tweekery or not you will still have standing waves and you cannot get away from the physics of the situation. As it is will be a dedicated room then I would suggest treating the room and consider contacting a professional studio designer to treat the room. A friend did this many years ago and it was not that expensive to add some panels. One of the things that he did was to change the shape of the room by having a large panel made that was attached to the ceiling in the shape of a wedge. Panels on the walls were also added and it sounded great afterwards and only cost a few grand. Once you have had the room done I would then consider speaker changes.

David

 

In a cubic room like that you are going to have a VERY strong room mode pile up around 55Hz. It would take a huge number of bass treatments to correct it, hence I suggested the digital correction. A combination of digital correction for the main mode pile-ups and broadband bass treatments to lower the over-all decay rate would be ideal and is what I use.

I can't over-emphasize how important a thick heavy underlay and carpet is though. In my room I had a very thin carpet and it sounded crap. I added acoustic treatments and that bought it up to acceptable sounding. Added the carpet, and then the addition of acoustic treatments bought it to superb

 

My physics is rusty as it has been 25 years since I was in that field but my friend's room was 10'x10' and without electronics it sounded great after treatment. The problem that he had was that depending on where you were in the room the amount of bass varied enormously and this was cleared up with the room treatment. I am clearly no expert but if your gadget works then I wonder why recording studios do not rely on these things rather than spend tens of thousands of pounds on physical room treatment rather than a few hundred pounds on your gadget? David

 

Most modern studios use both DSP and acoustic treatment in the control room. Though most good studios also don't have such bad modal pile-up in the first place, since the rooms are designed for sound reproduction specifically. They can get away without DSP more easily than a small domestic room with almost square proportions.

 

I've done some tweaks to the room and the size is no longer square, i'll post the new room size here in a day or so.
Thanks for the ideas so far, i'll read up on the Behringer DEQ2496.

 

Do you have one of those houses where you can re-arrange the walls?

 

Wait till you have built the room first and then see what it sounds like. The Behringer is a very good device for controlling room modes as it did for my Epos's and does save you putting panels and the such about the room which probably you dont want. The other option is change the speakers if they dont work in the room as i did and i dont need the Behringer now.

 

I think I am missing something here. What do you mean by acoustic treatments? Who supplies them?

The Behringer box of tricks [that adjusts the bass levels as I understand it] might be the answer. My system has an Opus21 CDP going to Classe monobloks, using the volume control in the Opus21. Hairshirt yes but I like the sound. So that option is a non runner for me. Thanks in anticipation of your reply.

 

Hi,

Acoustic treatments are physical items that have certain acoustic properties of sound absorption or diffusion. My business actually makes some very nice ones that look good for a domestic environment. There is a wall hanging panel that can have an absorptive or diffusive internal and there is a free standing bass panel that is designed to absorb bass and go in the corners of the room (bass collects here).

Don't be fooled in to thinking that absorbing the bass means it will sound bass light though, because the reflections from a bare room can cancel out the sound from the speaker as much as they add to it. By absorbing those reflections before they mess up the sound from the speaker you get a more accurate sound.

Try some general reading on room acoustics.

Also worth mentioning... the Opus 21 has a digital input doesn't it? So you could feed the digital output from the transport in to the DEQ2496, do the room correction processing and then feed the digital output from that on to the Opus21 digital input. Basically just loop through the DEQ2496 on the way, all in digital still.

 

Is it possible, that you did not consider Totem Model 1 Signature.
It should be well inside your budget.

 

Room is...4.2m x 3.9m, so almost square.
Speakers 1.2m from rear wall, as central as possible within the 3.9m width, 1.6m apart, near field listening.
Due to doors etc, this is the only position they will work in.

 

A pair of Reference 3a loudspeakers will do the job nicely.

 

Opus

Hi Tenson

"Also worth mentioning... the Opus 21 has a digital input doesn't it? So you could feed the digital output from the transport in to the DEQ2496, do the room correction processing and then feed the digital output from that on to the Opus21 digital input. Basically just loop through the DEQ2496 on the way, all in digital still."


The Opus has a digital in - but no digital out - so I don't think that would work.

cheers philip

 

Hi,

I'd try some front ported standmounters - old dynaudio Foccus / sonus fabers etc

 

This seems to be the part where everyone recommends their favorite speaker.

Mr. Carbon, you need to put an absorptive acoustic panel on the left hand wall at the first reflection point. You and the speaker seem to be very close to that wall and you will have a strong reflection introducing all sorts of nasties. You would also do well to put some bass traps in that corner behind the speakers. It looks like you are quite far from the right hand wall so that may not be as important to treat.

Thats really the minimum you should do. If its a dedicated room though, and you have £2k to blow, honestly, hire an acoustician and let him have free rein to get you the best sound possible.

If you want to change speakers you might consider the Linkwitz Orions or the Jamo R909 (not sure of its price, probably more than £2K)