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My (planned) listening room

babel

babel

New Member
My living room as listening room

Hello everybody, I plan to step into hi-fi hobby and want to buy decent speakers for listening to music in this room pictured below.
What general comments / recommendation can you give me regarding room acoustic and speakers choices?
Speakers will be standing next to the wall (as close as cables will allow - see drawing in first pic), so rear firing boxes are no option for me I guess (I really like KEF XQ 40 based on what I have read, I plan to listen to them soon in a studio, so far I have only Rotel RB-1552 amp)
Room HxWxL is 2,64m x 4,42m x 3,15m
Walls are made of concrete.
 

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Welcome to AK.Where you located?I see 220volt euro outlets halfway up the wall. And a euro style heat radiator.
 
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location

Thank you and yes, it's in Frankfurt, Germany.
Based on what I have read so far, it would be good to cover rear wall (facing TV and speakers) with 1-1.5 inch thick rigid fiberglass sheets (some Knauf or Rockwool insulation will do) to use it as absorber and reduce ringing (which could be problem with that reflecting rear wall, btw walls are concrete)
 
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Welcome Babel. Make sure you don't overdampen the room: some reflection/refraction of the sound should be allowed for best results.
 
Thank you.
Sure, some amount is needed, but with those 3 concrete walls and one being even glass/window wall, I'll get plenty for sure. Maybe even too much...
And being small room at the same time, for sure I'll get problems with lower frequencies too, so maybe this will require some bass traps in addition.
I just wonder, if my specific "open corners" are any help in this or not, maybe this openings will function as "bass traps", when doors are not shut.
Some very good usefull info on this topic that I've read can be found here:
http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html
 
Welcome to AK, babel. You're wise for making room acoustics a priority and it's my opinion that if anyone is serious about fidelity and hearing what their gear can really do then room acoustics must be addressed first.

The sectional sofa will certainly help with some absorption (good) and you have some diffusion (good) in there from the furnishings. But you're correct in having concerns over all that concrete and glass surface area. One thing that comes to mind wrt killing all the reflection you're going to be getting from the wall of windows (and if you've been studying Ethan Winer's pages you've likely read this already) is treating the opposite wall with absorption and deflection. You may not be able to get much in the way of absorption panels on that wall of glass, but get some up on the opposite wall and you kill much of the reflection back to the center of the room. A deflector panel (easy to make) will send stray soundwaves to any absorption panels you can get up on the front and back wall (yes, the rigid fiberglass or rockwool works best). And if you can get them in there, some broadband corner traps/absorbers sure won't hurt and if you find the bass weak in the listening spot but strong in other areas of the room they will be crucial.

These are pretty fundamental treatments I think all rooms can benefit from and if you start here you may find the improvement in acoustics sufficient that you won't need much more or anything else.
 
Thank you for opinions and welcome. There's plenty of good info on that Ethan Winer's web page. Kudos for creating and sharing it.
I wonder if my door openings in as much as 3 corners can function partly as bass traps (no reflection, but letting all waves pass through to the next room when doors are kept open, some are not even installed :thmbsp: - works as absorbtion, doesn't it?)
Deflector on the wall against windows is another great idea, thanks.
I have so far no experience, so I would appreciate any comments from more experienced users.
Any ideas on loudspeakers config/design/choices/positioning?

Can I use back-firing speakers or is it a bad idea (placing them right against the wall)?
It's really hard to find speakers that don't use any rear bass-reflex ports.

Also what is your opinion on KEF's Uni-Q driver and is it any better for wider stereo image than any other?
I will be listening not only sitting on the sofa, so I would prefer to get the so-called sweet-spot as wide as possible verticaly and horizontaly. And I thought KEF with Uni-Q driver could be good candidate and deliver in this area... just a thought.

I'm evaluating this selection of speakers (some have back-fire design, i.e. Klipsch RF-7, AC Melody):
Mission 794 (Rear port)
or
Acoustic Energy Radiance 2
or
KLIPSCH RF-7 (Rear port)
or
KEF Q900, KEF XQ 5, KEF XQ 40 (no rear bass-reflex port)
or
Dynaudio Focus 220 II
or
JBL LS 80 (Rear port)
or
Aurum Cantus Melody M-103 (Rear port)
 
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I went to Toom Baumarkt and Hornbach today, no luck, they don't stock RIGID rockwool/fiberglass sheets, only loose :(
So far, I went for KEFs Q900 and they sound amazing. :music:
 
babel said:
Thank you for opinions and welcome. There's plenty of good info on that Ethan Winer's web page. Kudos for creating and sharing it.
I wonder if my door openings in as much as 3 corners can function partly as bass traps (no reflection, but letting all waves pass through to the next room when doors are kept open, some are not even installed :thmbsp: - works as absorbtion, doesn't it?)
Deflector on the wall against windows is another great idea, thanks.
I have so far no experience, so I would appreciate any comments from more experienced users.
Any ideas on loudspeakers config/design/choices/positioning?

Can I use back-firing speakers or is it a bad idea (placing them right against the wall)?
It's really hard to find speakers that don't use any rear bass-reflex ports.

Also what is your opinion on KEF's Uni-Q driver and is it any better for wider stereo image than any other?
I will be listening not only sitting on the sofa, so I would prefer to get the so-called sweet-spot as wide as possible verticaly and horizontaly. And I thought KEF with Uni-Q driver could be good candidate and deliver in this area... just a thought.

I'm evaluating this selection of speakers (some have back-fire design, i.e. Klipsch RF-7, AC Melody):
Mission 794 (Rear port)
or
Acoustic Energy Radiance 2
or
KLIPSCH RF-7 (Rear port)
or
KEF Q900, KEF XQ 5, KEF XQ 40 (no rear bass-reflex port)
or
Dynaudio Focus 220 II
or
JBL LS 80 (Rear port)
or
Aurum Cantus Melody M-103 (Rear port)
Click to expand...

Babel,
Treating your room is an excellent idea. The use of open doors can work very well and you can even use the doors to "tune" the effects. If you have your speakers on a movable stand you could move the speakers around, or even out into the room (put them back later, when you finish listening) However, if they must be against the walls, don't use any back-ported speaker. The KEF Uni-Q drivers are pretty good as a point source, although I don't believe that their directivity is much different than a conventional speaker. I'll let others make additional suggestions on possible speaker candidates.

Best Regards,
TerryO
 
so far very good results

Thank you all for your kindness and all your comments, opinions and recommendations.
So far I enjoy my KEF Q900 setup very much, there's no nasty artifacts in room acoustics , even bass is vital, maybe not so extended and sometimes little bit resonating, but overall I can live with my setup in my room and quite enjoy it. VERY MUCH ENJOY IT.

I've struggled to get rockwool sheets localy, no one stocks that kind of stuff in Frankfurt area. I'll return to room tuning at a later point in time, for sure (need to work out my girlfriend first :scratch2: )
 
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