Curious about my room and acoustics..what do you guys think?

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gaby95

Audioholic
So this is an unfinished basement with only insulation currently.
For the first time I had setup my theater where my L and R channels are not next to walls nearby. Still I am curious what you guys think of such a layout.
 

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ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
It's a very large open area. It's not too bad in terms of where/how your Speakers are set up, but that much space will eat up your Subwoofer output.
Do you have plans to close off the Theater area at all? There could be some distinct benefits to doing so.
What are your ultimate goals?
How big is your system now (how many channels are you running)?
What does your Subwoofer situation look like?

Cheers!
 
G

gaby95

Audioholic
I am good with the Subs since they are right behind the chairs, the visceral impact is big enough to make us happy. I am running dual HSU VTF-15H and one old MFW-15
I have not measured the extension yet though.
The plans on how to divide it is still not finished and based on pricing materials..will take a while :D
I am currently running 7.2.4 in there.
Just about to recalibrate it all next week now that I got new wire and adjusted speaker distances.
Thanks
 
ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
I think the most important thing you can focus on is getting your speaker placements dialed in the best you can. Having some decent standoff space between your Main Speakers and the Front wall is just as important as not having them jammed up on sidewalls.
Beyond that, it's not really possible to look at a room and judge the acoustics.

For the latter, making certain the listening area is "comfy" is a big help. Having some furnishings, carpet with padding, artwork on walls, bookshelves with stuff... All that naturally helps out.
I would not recommend room treatments until you finish the space. ;)

If/when you begin planning to finish the room, the biggest advice I can give you is to make certain you don't create a square room... but also try to avoid having the length and width share a common denominator, if possible. (So, 17x25' is good, but not 17x34'.)
 
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gaby95

Audioholic
I think the most important thing you can focus on is getting your speaker placements dialed in the best you can. Having some decent standoff space between your Main Speakers and the Front wall is just as important as not having them jammed up on sidewalls.
Beyond that, it's not really possible to look at a room and judge the acoustics.

For the latter, making certain the listening area is "comfy" is a big help. Having some furnishings, carpet with padding, artwork on walls, bookshelves with stuff... All that naturally helps out.
I would not recommend room treatments until you finish the space. ;)

If/when you begin planning to finish the room, the biggest advice I can give you is to make certain you don't create a square room... but also try to avoid having the length and width share a common denominator, if possible. (So, 17x25' is good, but not 17x34'.)
Yes I was recalling something like that from the past about the dimensions. Thanks for the refresher. I always wanted the opportunity to make the room good for my HT and for the first time I have a house where I can hopefully get it done :D

Front speaker placement may vary depending on whether I try to get an AT screen or keep screen I have until I can mount one to the wall.
If there a preferred speaker distance? I am at 10' from LRC right now. I used to do less but the closer I get them the more inside the screen area they will get if I want to keep the 30º angle for the L and R
 
ryanosaur

ryanosaur

Audioholic Overlord
For Speaker placement, I subscribe to sitting further away than the distance between Speakers. I'm in a small room with my setup, Speakers are about 6' apart (on center) and I sit about 7.5' away. I know my speakers are closer together than I would prefer, but that can't be helped in my room... It's just what I've got to work with.

What you've described seems to give you some good room to play with. Screen aside, I would target somewhere between 8' and 12' distance between your mains, depending on what you can fit. 8.5-9' apart, with your LP being 10' away should be pretty good.
I don't worry too much about the angles of the triangle, which I'm guessing is your reference to "30º angle for L and R." I find a little more benefit in my setup from a bit of asymmetry, so 1 Speaker is pulled a little forward of the other. They are pretty close to centered in the room, L-R, but the toe in angle is also slightly skewed. (In the end, I fixed a serious suckout in my FR by doing this, as opposed to keeping them perfectly symmetrical. It only took about an inch closer to me on the L, and changing the toe-in by 1/2" roughly.)
Anyway, depending on your gear and depth of the rabbit hole you want to jump down, you can always play with Room EQ Wizard to take measurements, or Audyssey will show you the raw graph if you have the XT32 App... Dirac is good for seeing the measurement too, I think. Regardless, I was able to fix the worst problem in my room just by tinkering with position.

Going back to your question about distance... this will mainly affect how loud your Speakers are at your LP. For every doubling of distance, you will lose 6dB (outdoors). If your Speaker is rated at 90dB @1m, then 2m will be -6dB, and 4m will be -12dB. Inside, you get help with boundary support to a certain extent and may only drop -3dB at each doubling of distance.
This really only matters if you are trying to get full-on reference level playback at THX levels, say. That would by 85-105dB at your LP, which is pretty loud by most peoples standards.
A rough example would be having Speaker A with an 86dB sensitivity and Speaker B with a 92dB sensitivity.
Speaker A will hit 110 dB with 256w @1m. Speaker B will hit 116dB with 256w. Subtract for the distance from, and you can see the effect. Speaker A, if it can handle 512w, would get to 113dB at 1m, which could be enough to fry some gear. ;) But if you are listening to that Speaker in a large enough room, and you are far enough away, it will not hit reference level.
Dunno if that answers your question very well. :) It is complicated by many variables, as you can see.

If it were my space, I'd be happy sitting about 10' back with a spacing of 8.5-9' (as I gave the example earlier). I'd be happy having ~3' from the front of the Speaker to the front wall, and having plenty of room behind me still for proper placement of my Rears.
In general, it seems that's pretty close to what you have right now. :D How far apart are your Mains?
 
G

gaby95

Audioholic
Thanks for the detailed post!
My Mains are 9'-3" apart measured from tweeter to tweeter and 10'-3" from my ears.
The L and R distance from tweeter to back wall is 3'-4"
The Center is closer to the wall though (by wall I mean the insulation material covered by plastic), in order to keep the same distance to my ears.

Yeah I dont play super loud so lack of power is not an issue. Looks like with my setup I am in pretty good shape then just need some carpet to pad the floor reflections and decide how high i can place my center. :)
 
A

Am_P

Full Audioholic
I am good with the Subs since they are right behind the chairs, the visceral impact is big enough to make us happy. I am running dual HSU VTF-15H and one old MFW-15
I have not measured the extension yet though.
The plans on how to divide it is still not finished and based on pricing materials..will take a while :D
I am currently running 7.2.4 in there.
Just about to recalibrate it all next week now that I got new wire and adjusted speaker distances.
Thanks
Finish your basement if you want, but, don't close off the theater area like somebody else suggested. Some of these guys buy into stupid sht like "room pressurization" to be able to enjoy bass, etc. They also buy into other stupid sht like they'll set some target curves and fix everything up with dirac. Poor advice may cost you a lot. As is, you've got a decent thing going aka minimized side wall issues and lengthwise room modes are a whole lot easier to deal with ( they may fall in the sub range and you will have a lot more flexibility to optimally position your bedlayer speakers for lengthwise modes/harmonics). Get the Harman room mode calc online and map out your room modes for starters.
 
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Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
I am good with the Subs since they are right behind the chairs, the visceral impact is big enough to make us happy. I am running dual HSU VTF-15H and one old MFW-15
That's actually some pretty good subwoofage you got there!

I don't have much to add that @ryanosaur didn't cover. He does his homework and knows his stuff.
 

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