Tips for a SQUARE room?

[AzN_plyR]

Hey guys, is there any tips/techniques I should know about for a small probably 10x11x9 square room..... Where should the fronts be located? Any tips for the bass... my subwoofer seems to be tooooo powerful where I sit.. against the wall.....

 

[ScottMayo]

Hey guys, is there any tips/techniques I should know about for a small probably 10x11x9 square room..... Where should the fronts be located? Any tips for the bass... my subwoofer seems to be tooooo powerful where I sit.. against the wall.....

A small, squarish room. Oh boy.

The first question is, is there a different room you can use. Anything bigger would be better.

If there's nothing else available, move the sub about a 3rd of the way into the room, and find some setting in your system to turn it down. If your system has any built in equalization, set the sub to handle from 45Hz down. You don't want it handling 50Hz and up, not in that room. Also get speakers away from the walls, as much as possible. I know there's only so far you can move speakers in a room that size, but even inches may matter.

Also get your seating off the wall if possible. Walls are where bass is reinforced the most, that's not where you want to sit if you can help it.

If you're planning to listen to music, look into "nearfield listening" and speakers with side firing woofers. If it's for movies, point the sub so that it fires *into* a chair or sofa, as a way to cut down the excess energy that movie makers like to pump into the sub channel.

Good luck!

 

[gene]

If there's nothing else available, move the sub about a 3rd of the way into the room, and find some setting in your system to turn it down. If your system has any built in equalization, set the sub to handle from 45Hz down. You don't want it handling 50Hz and up, not in that room.

This is bad advice for someone doing home theater, especially if you are using a processor that truncates the LFE channel when setting the crossover below 80Hz. A better solution would be to place 2 small subs in the room and follow our subwoofer placement guidelines. While square rooms aren't perfect, they are still manageable.

 

[AzN_plyR]

well, I am gonna stay away from near fielded speakers, my logitechs are near fielded and they do not do my small room justice

Anyways, I just tried moving the subwoofer out from the corner and wall a few inches... about 5.. and it smoothen the bass bump in the 50-60 range a bit. I am thinking about moving it to the side also, but there's just not enough room right now...

I already had the front speakers move away from the wall as much as possible... they are almost 2 feet away .... which IMO gives them plenty of air to breath.

And I already have the sub pointing towards me

Thanks for the help, anything else is appreciated.

 

[ScottMayo]

This is bad advice for someone doing home theater, especially if you are using a processor that truncates the LFE channel when setting the crossover below 80Hz. A better solution would be to place 2 small subs in the room and follow our subwoofer placement guidelines. While square rooms aren't perfect, they are still manageable.

OK, yes. If the processor is going to delete the low bass entirely if you mess with the crossover freq, then you need to find other solutions.

With the sub moved out, you can look at putting something absorptive behind it - try a bunch of wadded up quilts and blankets as an experiment. Don't expect miracles. If you can hear a clear improvement, though, you can start to think about corner bass traps. You can try absorption behind your seating, too - though, again, it won't do miracles.

I'd have to know a lot more to offer any useful advice, like the range of your main speakers, if you plan to do music or just HT, and so on.

 

[AzN_plyR]

Well, I do HT and music, HT is fine IMO, but it could be better. Music on the other hand isn't as good. But it improved a lot when I took it out a little bit from the wall.... My main are Polk R30's I dont think there's anyway I can move my sitting anywhere than by the wall. Here are some pictures..


















and dont mind the cheap surrounds and center missing, I am not done with the system yet

 

[AzN_plyR]

Also, what is gonna be the benefit of stuffing it? will it improve since the port is in the back... I am gonna try the blanket thing behind it right now




well, hanging the large blanket behind the sub was troublesome, so I didn't try it at all. BUT I did stuff the port in the back with a T-Shirt..... and listened to the O-so-boomy song MY DECEMBER from Linkin paRK'S reanimation cd.. and the extension is now very clean compared to before..... But, I am afraid sealing the sub might make the bottom end suffer... so I am gonna try placement first.

 

[ScottMayo]

Also, what is gonna be the benefit of stuffing it? will it improve since the port is in the back... I am gonna try the blanket thing behind it right now




well, hanging the large blanket behind the sub was troublesome, so I didn't try it at all. BUT I did stuff the port in the back with a T-Shirt..... and listened to the O-so-boomy song MY DECEMBER from Linkin paRK'S reanimation cd.. and the extension is now very clean compared to before..... But, I am afraid sealing the sub might make the bottom end suffer... so I am gonna try placement first.

Wadding cloth up behind the sub is to try to absorb the reflections you get off the wall behind the sub. These reflections are what make the room go to pieces at 55Hz. Plugging the port is a whole different thing (and yeah, it might help.)

I think I have those same fold-out sofas in my house. They make good quick beds, but one of the things furniture is supposed to do is help absorb bass. (That's likely news to furniture manufacturers . And those sofas don't. It looks like nothing in the room gives you any absorption. If you want the sound to improve, cover the walls with anything that will either absorb sound or break up the reflections.

You can try turning the sub 45 degrees, but in practice subs radiate in pretty much all directions and turning them doesn't help much. Getting the mains another foot or two father apart would probably help with imaging and not hurt the bass.

Experiment.