Floorstanders and room dimensions? (1 Viewer)

[fletcherS]

Is it okay to use floorstanders (150w max) in a 10.5 x 11.5 feet room? Will a 150w subwoofer sound boomy and crass? What exactly are the dimensions of a small, medium or large sized room for HT? I keep reading these terms but haven't found the exact agreed upon figures for the dimensions. Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[Aaron Gilbert]

Floorstanders may be ok, subwoofer could be marginal. Your nearly square room doesn't help matters, and it's also quite small. I used to be in an apartment whose main room was also more or less square, though it was 16'. A corner loaded subwoofer which sounded great in larger and/or more rectangular rooms, did nothing but boom in that room, and unfortunately there were no other placement or listening position options. However, two floorstanding speakers with similar low frequency extension sounded FAR better than the subwoofer. They were not boomy at all and much more articulate than the subwoofer, and very smooth.

Your small room will likely have quite a bit of gain in the 10-40Hz region, perhaps even higher. So, if your subwoofer has remotely decent low end extension, it may be just too much and give you very peaky low end. Spreading the bass to two different sources in such a case can help smooth out the response, and the (presumably) slightly less deep extension of the floorstanders could help as well.

All that said, the only way to really know for sure is to try it out. Good luck!


Aaron Gilbert

 

[fletcherS]

Thanks for the reply. Will a sub/sat system, like energy take 5.2 or Infinity TSS750, be better for the small room? Or will the floorstanders still work if I lessen the output from sub, and make some soundproofing?

 

[Aaron Gilbert]

I think you misunderstood, or I just wan't communicating well enough. In your room, I suspect floorstanders will work _better_ than a subwoofer. Soundproofing won't help for bass frequencies unless you get quite drastic (and expensive). Now if the sub is small, say a sealed 8" or so, with not that great extension, it could work out ok, but then you will run into issues of overdriving the subwoofer, whereas if you have floorstanders each having an 8"-12" woofer, you will have a lot more headroom.

Or, you could do as you suggest and get a subwoofer AND floorstanders, such as I have, and then just tweak the level of bass as needed by adjusting the subwoofer level control on your receiver. That works great for me, but my room is comparatively huge, and I just doubt your room will need that kind of output ability if your floorstanders are halfway decent.


Aaron Gilbert

 

[GregBe]

Aaron is right about the square room being difficult to get the bass right with. You will have increased peaks and nulls, but don't let that scare you away from getting a sub. Although my room is much larger than yours, it is just about square. It took some time to place the sub correctly, but I found a spot that I get great results from. I think in your situation (especially with a small room), you could do very well with a good sub/sat system). If you have to make compromises (as we all do), I would be in the camp of spending more money on a good, non boomy sub, and get a really good center channel, and match the speakers around these two pieces.

Greg

 

[ChrisWiggles]

First off, it's not soundproofing, so immediately disconnect that idea (sound isolation) from in-room acoustic treatments such as diffusors and absorbers. These are two TOTALLY different things that people confuse often, and loose and poor terminology like "sound insulation" used by companies makes things even more convoluted. Bottom line is bass absorbers can be relatively simple to construct and have decent results for minimal investment. Read in the HT builder forums, etc.

 

[fletcherS]

Thanks to all for your reply. Currently my set up is in a large hall, and I find that the highs reflect too much causing plenty of noise and sharpness. Also, I sit far away from the speakers, etc. I was thinking of using one of the unused rooms in my home to build a dedicated hi-fi room, with sound insulation and all. I really wanted to use floorstanders because I believe they sound the best with greatest range and dynamics. I was afraid of the boom from the bass tho. Seems like if I turn on the volume at low levels, and since I'm really close to the speakers anyway, I can create that enveloping sound that's pretty hair raising. Currently my set up doesn't do much for me. So I guess I will just move the speakers and play around with it.