Big speakers and small rooms

Diapason said:

It seems like conventional wisdom that big speakers and small room is a recipe for problems, but outside of "it's just common sense" I'm trying to find a good answer as to why? My room is an awkward size (21' l, 9.5' w, 8' h) so the question applies to me specifically, but I'm also interested in a general sense.

Straight off the bat, there's the obvious question of bandwidth. Common sense would suggest that boundary reinforcement will come into play, and it's much harder to damp lower frequencies than higher frequencies. However, if you have a small room but want genuinely deep bass (like 16Hz for organ-music lovers such as myself) then do you have any options? Does a subwoofer/subwoofers make the job easier? It would seem so, but why? I guess I just don't quite understand why a sub playing 16Hz will work differently in a room than a speaker playing 16Hz. Well actually maybe I kinda do, it just feels right somehow, but I can't quite explain why.

The wider question is, if you live in a city/country where big rooms are rare, is there much point in looking at SOTA full-range speakers? Will all full-range speakers overload a small room by definition?

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Subs give you more placement options. Also, using multiple subs, you can have one sub placed in a position where it fills in a null (cancellled out frequency) from the in room response of another sub. I personally went to other direction and am using massive speakers with 2x 15" woofers on each channel in a relatively small room. I may be missing out something in my low frequency response, but i don't sweat it as long as the end result sounds like music to me (which is does).

Diapason said:

It seems like conventional wisdom that big speakers and small room is a recipe for problems, but outside of "it's just common sense" I'm trying to find a good answer as to why? My room is an awkward size (21' l, 9.5' w, 8' h) so the question applies to me specifically, but I'm also interested in a general sense.

Straight off the bat, there's the obvious question of bandwidth. Common sense would suggest that boundary reinforcement will come into play, and it's much harder to damp lower frequencies than higher frequencies. However, if you have a small room but want genuinely deep bass (like 16Hz for organ-music lovers such as myself) then do you have any options? Does a subwoofer/subwoofers make the job easier? It would seem so, but why? I guess I just don't quite understand why a sub playing 16Hz will work differently in a room than a speaker playing 16Hz. Well actually maybe I kinda do, it just feels right somehow, but I can't quite explain why.

The wider question is, if you live in a city/country where big rooms are rare, is there much point in looking at SOTA full-range speakers? Will all full-range speakers overload a small room by definition?

Click to expand...

I would rather have a smaller speaker DSPed to a couple of subs.

bonzo75 said:

I would rather have a smaller speaker DSPed to a couple of subs.

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Or better yet, small speakers with SUBs integrated with digital domain cross-ver and DSP, in particular when using only digital sources.

There is an article in the most recent TAS by Roger Skoff in which he advocates for smaller speakers with subs. My Mch system started with my old stereo fronts which were large. But, if I had it to do over, I would use smaller speakers all around with subs. It is usually cheaper that way with better placement options for the bass for better, more even response. Also, smaller amps can be used all around with the sub amp doing the heavy lifting in the bass power-wise.

As I assembled my Mch system, I placed my new Martin Logan stat hybrid smaller surrounds next to my large ML mains and did some microscopic listening in stereo - sub off and identical signal path except the speakers. I heard no difference whatsoever, except for the lack of deep bass in the smaller surrounds, as expected. With the sub in the system, the bass is even more dynamic and extended with lower distortion than the large mains could accomplish. The sub automatically provides bi-amping in the correct fashion.

DSP Room EQ (Dirac Live) and digital bass management (done in JRiver) provide really superb sonic integration, the likes of which I have never heard with analog sub xovers in previous years in my system. Currently, I find that one excellent sub (JL Audio f113) does the job quite satisfyingly at the sweet spot in my 18 x 13 ft. room. Additional subs likely would offer more even response over a wider area, which is not a big concern for me. I certainly do not need more deep bass headroom.

edorr said:

Subs give you more placement options. Also, using multiple subs, you can have one sub placed in a position where it fills in a null (cancellled out frequency) from the in room response of another sub. I personally went to other direction and am using massive speakers with 2x 15" woofers on each channel in a relatively small room. I may be missing out something in my low frequency response, but i don't sweat it as long as the end result sounds like music to me (which is does).

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Subs give you placement options, processing options, control of crossover frequency and volume. I have yet to see an argument for full-range speakers vs. midrange/hi frequency speakers with subs that made good sense. People love their big rigs. I love my terrier. That doesn't make him smarter than a well-trained border collie.

Tim

Phelonious Ponk said:

Subs give you placement options, processing options, control of crossover frequency and volume.

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Indeed. I have a minimonitor/sub system, and it's pretty flexible when it comes to bass adjustment (apart from the fact that you can adjust bass volume for particular recordings, but that's a different matter than basic adjustment of crossover or sub placement, for example).

In a larger room, full-range may have clear advantages, such as being able to play really loud, which is less easily possible with minimonitors; they are more for medium-sized to small rooms, with seating relatively close to the speakers. And in a very large room full-range speakers, perhaps with extra sub, may be the only option. But for a room with your dimensions, Diapason, I see more problems than advantages with a full-range speaker.

For impressions of my system from someone who has large speakers, Madfloyd, see post # 5 in my system thread:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?17334-My-minimonitor-subwoofer-system

IF one tries to shoehorn a very large speaker into a very small room, I think the results will speak for themselves. The smaller the room, the more difficult it is to get the bass reproduction correct... and the sense of scale as well IMHO. Large speakers can and generally do supply more bass and scale than small speakers...BUT not in too small a room.
The reason I believe has already been touched upon, but to add to that, is the fact that the simple size of the cabinets of large speakers can also impinge too much into the available space in the room. To give a good example of this, would be to try and fit Gary Koh's Genesis Dragons into a 10x11 space.....I really don't think you would have too much room left over for anything or anyone else to occupy, LOL. Never mind the sound quality one would get!!!
Hmmm, now that I think about, maybe I should try this in my room of this size, you up for it Gary...

Panels can work well into such a room.

Even conventional cone speakers can be made to work of course. The long dimension really isn't too much of an issue. Helps with supporting lower frequencies. A controlled directivity design would help with such a narrow room.

With panels you could listen across the short side and put the panels down one side of the room. You end up rather close and with only one good listening spot, but it works well.

Is your question particular to your current speakers or with an eye toward what might work better in that room?

You can make large speakers work in a small room. We see this all the time with large soffit monitors in small control rooms. BUT We are talking here about speakers built for that purpose as well as purpose built rooms. Acoustic work is possible where the room can be made to behave as if it were larger than it really is by mimicking the acoustic behaviour of a modelled larger space. It goes without saying that this type of build can be both difficult and expensive. Whether or not it is worth it would depend on certain considerations. For example if you already have the large speaker that you really like that decision becomes much easier to justify and make.

In my case I bought my big speakers to beat the coming price increase before the room they were meant for was built. I then shoehorned them into the room I had. I went with some room modifications in the side walls where I built on a splayed diffusive design over the wall allowing the speakers to be placed closer to the side walls while minimising deleterious effects in the upper mids and highs. Unfortunately this solution did not deal with lower mids or bass. I was able however to live with this setup satisfactorily over an 8 month period or so but that is more a testament to the human capability to listen past obvious shortcomings. The shortcomings became glaring when the speakers finally moved to the new space and they were allowed to breathe as they were purposely built to do.

Not everybody is fortunate enough to have a space just for themselves much less have access to what's required to build a first class listening environment out of that space. In such cases I do not see the logic of fighting the room instead of simply choosing a speaker that would integrate with that space more easily. When we go to shows we don't bring speakers that are too big for the hotel rooms. Even if we have big speakers in stock, burned in and ready to go we learned that showing them off in sub-optimal conditions did more harm to the brands we represent than good. People won't come in and say the speaker is too big for the room or that the room sucks. They will just assume the speakers suck. Instead we take the same room every year and bring speakers that we can project will work in that room and bring our portable Primacoustics modules. When we don't have suites which are still very small anyway and now have standard hotel rooms the best sound we've ever come up with was with a pair of 2-way monitors paired with two subwoofers. The knock on sub/sats is that mid bass can't compete with speakers that have dedicated mid bass drivers. This is true only to a point. Specifically if the situation is a mid or far field set up where distance conspires to make mid bass levels drop off more perceptively because our ears are less sensitive in that region. If you are seated no more than six feet away there should be more than enough quality mid bass. If your monitor is one of the more robust breed then you might extend this distance another foot or two more.

If you don't measure your room, it's just all guessing and asking someone else is going to be guessing about your guesses. Why don't you do that first?

Boundaries cause both nulls and ringing. These are room features, some of which vary with speaker placement. The bigger the speaker, the closer the speaker will be to a boundary. The the closer to a boundary, the deeper the null (phase shift) from that boundary and the more impossible it will be to use treatments, DSP or speaker position to mitigate.

Knowing which frequencies are the most problematic before you buy a new speaker system will help. It might be possible to use a smaller speaker with multiple subs as Erik mentioned. Such a setup can produce very deep and articulate bass if setup right. But the room will determine where your crossover needs to be and you won't know that simply guessing.

Diapason said:

Lots of interesting points, thanks for the responses. I'm asking partly for my own system (because I'd love deep bass and huge scale and I'm interested in how I should approach that), and partly just in general, since most/many high-end speakers these days are large. I sometimes wonder if guys like me with small rooms and no opportunity to change that have any chance of getting really high-end sound.

To those who suggested I measure the room, I fully intend to do that in due course and I will be interested in the results. At the moment I have neither the time nor the tools to do it properly, but I'll get there.

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From an economical point of view, for high-end speakers, you're better of buying the mid-level speaker in a line-up and adding two JL subs than getting the next model up, which typically just has bigger bass drivers (and cabinet) and goes lower (but sells for $20K more).

JackD201 said:

Not everybody is fortunate enough to have a space just for themselves much less have access to what's required to build a first class listening environment out of that space. In such cases I do not see the logic of fighting the room instead of simply choosing a speaker that would integrate with that space more easily. When we go to shows we don't bring speakers that are too big for the hotel rooms.

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That's an excellent point! It took me some amount of time to realize with my last speakers that they were simply too large for the room. Instead of continually fighting them, I simply sold them and moved on to a speaker that was appropriate for the room size. Which, I am really glad that I did,as the SF GH's are FAR FAR superior to my old speakers and in every way!

Diapason said:

I'm asking partly for my own system (because I'd love deep bass and huge scale and I'm interested in how I should approach that),

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You can't get realistic huge scale in a room as narrow as yours. Sorry, but that's a physical fact. You may get a large, bloated image with certain speakers, but it will never be realistic -- huge perhaps, but not in a believable way. If you want realism, you need to have a large speaker in a large room. I seriously suggest you ask your dealer for letting you audition a mini monitor/sub system in your home. You may be surprised at the relative size of the image, and it will probably not be a bloated one.

And yes, you can get plenty deep bass that way, and of high quality no less. And if the monitors are of sufficient quality, you won't complain about mid-bass output either. In fact, it may be cleaner than with large speakers in a narrow room (large speakers in a large room are a different matter).