New system in smallish room

[billnchristy]

Hi everyone!!

I have read many reviews lately and have seen many very nice speaker choices though they seem to be for large rooms.

Here is what I am working with.

Right now it is a 14.5 x 24 room but it will be partitioned into a 9.5x14.5 theatre and the rest a bar.

Current system is:

Yamaha HTR-5790 reciever
Sony 400 disc DVD changer
Infinity Reference 2000.4 x4 (think these are old, read further)
Infinity Primus C25 center
Mitsubishi M-SUB10 (wow!)
Sony 32" tv

Upgrade tv will be 50+" Samsung LCD or DLP have not decided.

This room has carpet floors and currently has paneling and a drop ceiling. I have a 5 gal bucket of acoustic paint that will be applied to the floor above the drop ceiling and then heavily insulated, the panelling may or may not go depending on budget and may just get covered with curtains or something to give the theatre ambiance.

I would like to replace the infinitys because I am sure I can do better and one had a x-over go bad and I temporarily replaced it with a JL audio one from my car.

This system used to be in a room around the size it will be going back into, as of right now its a bit muddy but I think that has a lot to do with the soft floor and ceiling with hard walls and the large size of the space.

Oh yeah, room size was right around 1000 cf.

Any suggestions would be welcomed.

 

[ScottMayo]

Curtains on the front half of the room, side walls, will help a little with both acoustics, and diminishing reflected light off the screen. You should get decent bass absorption from your planned ceiling. The results won't be acoustically glorious, but they should be reasonable. Try to make the rear wall (bar area) somewhat uneven (lots of bottles, art, stools, anything) to break up the acoustic reflections as much as possible. Avoid setting glasses and bottles on hard shelves (stone, glass), or they'll likely clatter when the sub gets going.

 

[billnchristy]

Thanks, the bar will actually be in a seperate room, that is why the theatre is shrinking to such a small size, but yeah it was going to be on the adjoining wall and I didnt even think of what a terrible mess could be made!!

 

[ScottMayo]

Actually, think about keeping it one room. The short reason is that larger rooms are just better, acoustically, than small ones. Also, it's less fuss to pop back for a drink or a nibble during the movie.

 

[tbewick]

Here are some set up suggestions from a book.

ref: Loudspeaker and Headphone Handbook, 2nd edn, J. Borwick ed., Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd 1994. Images 1 and 2 - p328, p329, G. Adams/C. Bean. Images 3 and 4 - p476, p473, F. Toole.

 

[ScottMayo]

Here are some set up suggestions from a book.

I'd get my money back on that book. Having someone avoid "center of the room" modes by putting their head against the rear wall, is a little like sticking your head in a burning oven to get it out of the hot sun.

Granted there aren't many good choices in most living rooms, but some curtain on a rear wall isn't nearly enough treatment to account for the problems he's inviting.

 

[tbewick]

I'd get my money back on that book. Having someone avoid "center of the room" modes by putting their head against the rear wall, is a little like sticking your head in a burning oven to get it out of the hot sun.

Granted there aren't many good choices in most living rooms, but some curtain on a rear wall isn't nearly enough treatment to account for the problems he's inviting.

Don't worry, it's a library book . I've found it quite a good book, with contributions from people at Celestion, B&W, JBL, and a really interesting chapter by Stanley Kelly.

I thnk the suggestions are fair, because toward to back of the room, you'll get more bass boost in the lower end. This can help with systems that aren't truly full-range. What I was interested in was that in that chapter, revised by Colin Bean at B&W, (Images 1 and 2 - p328, p329, G. Adams/C. Bean., previous post), there was a 'reverberation time characteristic' for a listening room at Decca. This shows that at least Decca used to try listening to their recordings in a room that replicated the bass elevation that most people have in their homes. By placing yourself and the speakers a reasonable distance from the walls, you can keep the bass elevation in the low bass region, which shouldn't be that problematic.