Would an audio upgrade make sense for a small room?

[gnagel]

Woah, woah, woah!

Gnagel, unless you're prepared to pull those seats in your first photo away from that rear wall by around a couple of feet minimum, much of the benefits you'd receive with room treatment will be wasted. First sort out your speaker/seating placement before thinking about any equipment upgrade.

You'd be surprised what a difference drawing seats and speakers away from walls makes.

I'm coming to the conclusion that it is probably best to stick with what I have for now--at least until I am prepared to do a more major overhaul of the entire configuration.

I am able to move the seats another foot from the wall. The room is only 11 feet from the wall in back of the seats to the wall in back of the television, so moving it any further away from the wall isn't feasible.

Unless I'm willing to move the "home theatre" into a larger room, this might have to suffice for now. At some point in the distant future, maybe I will dedicate a larger room to a home theatre and bring in a consultant to assist with the acoustics and other configuration decisions.

I'm willing to make a reasonable investment in equipment (speakers, receiver, etc.) if the audio would improve noticeably. But, clearly I'm not willing to do that if the room is not configured in such a manner that it will maximize the effect.

I'm beginning to view this room as more of a TV room with a nice set of speakers. For it to be a "home theatre", it seems that more major changes are necessary--and that's not appealing given that the room was completed just a few months ago.

 

[gnagel]

Gnagel, unless you're prepared to pull those seats in your first photo away from that rear wall by around a couple of feet minimum, much of the benefits you'd receive with room treatment will be wasted. First sort out your speaker/seating placement before thinking about any equipment upgrade.

Update:

I've made the following changes to the set-up:

1- I moved the chairs 18 inches from the wall. This seemed to help with the rear surrounds.

2- I placed the center speaker above the screen. Previously, it was on the bottom shelf of the TV stand and was nearly on the floor. This made a noticeable improvement in sound quality.

3- I moved the subwoofer away from the far corner of the room. There was not a noticeable difference.

 

[Nick250]

Congrats, that's a lot of improvement. I could never get my sub sounding really good until I got the bass traps, and I tried placing it every where. The good news was that the improvement with the bass traps was better that I thought possible. It was not subtle. A big wow factor for me.

Nick

 

[nibhaz]

Small thread jack.

Jack Hammer,

Have you found it as amusing as I that Glenn Poor is only two doors down from a Bose store? I mean seriously products from the likes of Wilson Audio and Halcro vs. Bose.