Big room, small room

[Fretless]

Pondering room size and acoustic properties.

My system is tailored for use in a relatively compact space - effectively about 10'x 10' x 7'6". And mainly used at low to medium volumes.
So how would it sound in a larger room?

It is quite possible that my installation might become quite bright and 'shouty' in a larger space as the current confined acoustics would tend to accentuate bass and mids - maybe I might even dislike the sound of the system that I now enjoy thoroughly.

Anyone with experience or insights into the correlation between room size and sound character?

[Tony Moore]

I rented a property that had a large lounge while renovating the house we live in now. At the time I had IPL S5TL Gold speakers and WAD 300B PP amp and the sound was fantastic. Bass was deep and consistent, sound stage was amazing. Then we moved into the "new" place with it's suspended floors downstairs and oh what a difference. Sounded terrible, bass all boomy, HF muddled. So in the end I commissioned a pair of Colin Topps built Frugel Horns and these speakers just work so much better with the house acoustics now.

At Owston and before that Eggborough we heard all sorts of systems that perform fabulously when matched to the owners room and listening level but when moved into the different and less than ideal environments at the meetups there are many disappointed owners. I was one of them at one of the events. The room is a huge part of the equation, plus listening levels and music tastes, not to mention hearing.

[Fretless]

Most enlightening, thanks for that.

[antonio66]

I'm no expert here, but I also think the listening position plays a part also. In a larger room you have more leeway to move the seating position closer or further away from the speakers. It will be interesting to see what the doc says about cubes. Are you thinking of moving the system Fretless?

[Daniel Quinn]

In order that the doc can continue to wear is hat and stay in the sea , I will paraphrase what he will say . The doc will say the cubes work with the room given the bass driver fire upwards . Thus room will be unimportant as the cubes will integrate with the room

----

Obviously you cannot overcome physics . So the size of the room will effect loudness and spl and clearly you cannot have a large sound stage in small room .

I moved from a very large room to a typical bay windowed box room with high ceilings . It took new speakers and a while but other than the soundstage , the sound is the same if not better.

[Fretless]

What began to become apparent to me was that several of the (non-NVA) components I use are perceived by others as having thin bass and treble emphasis, which is a quality I personally dislike, preferring a softer warmer sound.

Knowing the tonal neutrality of NVA reproduction I started to see that it is the small-volume room I listen in that determines much of the perceived character of the audio system. Might be time to check the positioning of the Cubes as several things have been altered which may have impacted on the tonality.

Are you thinking of moving the system Fretless?

That is not an option at the moment - however if I have the place to myself for a day then I might put the system in a larger space just to see what it does.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

In order that the doc can continue to wear is hat and stay in the sea , I will paraphrase what he will say . The doc will say the cubes work with the room given the bass driver fire upwards . Thus room will be unimportant as the cubes will integrate with the room

----

Obviously you cannot overcome physics . So the size of the room will effect loudness and spl and clearly you cannot have a large sound stage in small room .

I moved from a very large room to a typical bay windowed box room with high ceilings . It took new speakers and a while but other than the soundstage , the sound is the same if not better.

Exactly, it doesn't matter much with Cubes, all you need is change the position of the speaker.

How many time do I have to say the same thing. Do not judges Cubes by other peoples standards.

[Fretless]

Did some minor Cube-shifting last night and that resulted in a more finely-tuned soundstage with better balance and imaging. Seemed to make the bass a bit faster and more dynamic as well.

I think the sharper resolution on the Metrum DAC over the previous Hegel asks for more accuracy from the speaker placement - and changing the tonal balance of components can mean adjustment of speaker positioning.

Still on the learning curve.

[antonio66]

I'd be interested to know what fine tuning you did to the speaker placement.

[Fretless]

An inch or 2 further from the back wall and slightly more toe-in.