Speaker Placement

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Penthouse-D

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Hi folks, Just moved into a new place. I’m having trouble with boomy bass. I’ve been shuffling these Harbeth’s around for weeks. Suggestions please.... Thank you.. oh.. the room is about 14’ deep....
 
Sure, A basic NYC apartment with a rectangular living room that is 20’X14’. With bachelor furniture, couch tables area rug, etc... 8’ ceiling height.
 
At amcoustics.com they have a room calculator called AMROC. You can load in your specifics and it will show you your room nodes, frequencies and pressure zones.
Reading thru the information might help you to better understand what is occuring in your room.
I had a similar room and the only way I could get it to work was to pull the speakers WAY out into the room and far apart and with a great degree of toe-in. Basically nearfield listening.
Don't give up, keep trying different and unusual positions.
Perhaps others can also chime in with their experiences.
 
consider that along the middle line of the room (as you move forward or back relative to your speakers) you will have peaks and nulls.

likely the boomy-ness will exist regardless of where you put your speakers (small room acoustics), but you might find a listening spot where the balance is acceptable. also consider a diagonal set-up into a corner. try raising or lowering your speakers, sometimes the bass driver/floor relationship is critical and a few inches can be significant.....costs zero to try. and if you sit with your back up to the middle of a long wall sometimes that is the place with the least bass reinforcement.

lastly; buy an RTA and walk around the room and see if you can find a spot where the peak is the least prevalent.

i have an old one like this (Phonic PAA3);

Access to this page has been denied.

good luck.
 
Mike Lavigne said:
consider that along the middle line of the room (as you move forward or back relative to your speakers) you will have peaks and nulls.

likely the boomy-ness will exist regardless of where you put your speakers (small room acoustics), but you might find a listening spot where the balance is acceptable. also consider a diagonal set-up into a corner. try raising or lowering your speakers, sometimes the bass driver/floor relationship is critical and a few inches can be significant.....costs zero to try. and if you sit with your back up to the middle of a long wall sometimes that is the place with the least bass reinforcement.

lastly; buy an RTA and walk around the room and see if you can find a spot where the peak is the least prevalent.

i have an old one like this (Phonic PAA3);

Access to this page has been denied.

good luck.
Click to expand...

Some great recommendations.
For an RTA you can download the AudioTools app on your phone for $19.95
This can be used with disc like "Audio Check" on Tidal which provides sweep tones, pink noise and more.
 
In addition the good suggestions above, if so inclined, you could download Room EQ Wizard (REW), buy a UMIK-1 USB microphone and measure your room/configuration. While you may not have a ‘regular’ eg Clean rectangular room (nobody does), I have found the room modeling function of REW helpful in finding good positions for speakers and listening positions.
 
I used REW, with a uMik-1 to help my 9.5x14 foot room. Boom at 40hz, pretty standard for a small room, I hear. I have lots of treatment, but truly treating that boom is a problem, as traps that actually trap 40hz are voluminous, and I would need several. The corner wedges, and large back wall bass trap do help, a lot.

One day I am going to put my sub back in the system and use the PEQ to try and actively lower the 40hz area, but I would need to trim that off the main speakers that go down into the 30s. I am just not that into putting a mini-dsp board, and convert my vinyl, and DSD playback to 24/96 in the middle of things in a dsp equalizer. Several other options, of course.
 
Thanks everyone. Much appreciated. I thought all I had to do was spend the $ and plug it in!! This the most challenging set up ever.... I’ll keep you posted....
 
Penthouse-D said:
I thought all I had to do was spend the $ and plug it in!! .
Click to expand...
Unfortunately true. That said, speaking of plugging, have you tried plugging the ports on your Harbeths? That will definitely reduce the overall LF output.
Unsure if they come with those foam type plugs ala KEFs, etc, but, temporarily, you could stick a sock in it. No kidding.

cheers,

AJ
 
crwilli said:
In addition the good suggestions above, if so inclined, you could download Room EQ Wizard (REW), buy a UMIK-1 USB microphone and measure your room/configuration. While you may not have a ‘regular’ eg Clean rectangular room (nobody does), I have found the room modeling function of REW helpful in finding good positions for speakers and listening positions.
Click to expand...

Excellent suggestion by Craig.

Here is the REW Home page: REW - Room EQ Wizard Room Acoustics Software

Here are links to videos on using REW:

Room EQ Wizard For Beginners: A Simple Overview of How To Measure Subwoofers In A Home Theater - YouTube

How to Do Room Measurements Using REW Software - YouTube

Room EQ Wizard: REW Room Measurement Tutorial - YouTube

A very good video by Dr. Roland Hoffman at Dynaudio on speaker placement:
Room EQ Wizard: REW Room Measurement Tutorial - YouTube

Another good video by Hans here:
https://youtu.be/gXohzklfwPs
 
If you have done all that you can adjusting your furniture and are limited by room size, if I were in your shoes I would seriously consider digital room correction.

It is not clear to me what kind of set up you have. If you have a digital set up, it is possible to use REW with a calibrated microphone to obtain your system/room response. Then you can send the data to a company and they can develop room correction filters for your system.
At a fraction of the cost of adding Expensive room treatments, you can get absolutely amazing results.
 
There have been some interesting solutions offered.

IME, none of them will really unlock your music - in fact, some of them will keep it locked up for certain.

I'd say if you do anything from them, I'd go with Mike Lavigne's suggestions and/or A.J.'s.

Room eq/dsp, etc. will not help nearly as much as it could until you find the best seating position for the smoothest bass, then address speaker position, etc...

In fact, having successfully voiced over 1,000 systems to rooms in my career, with one well-known and well-reviewed (TAS & 6Moons - Stereophile Show in S.F., 2003) exception, I have never used any form of electronic correction, other than slight adjustments on the built-in controls in the recent Avantgarde Acoustic bass units.

IMO, IME of course.
 
Jim Smith said:
Room eq/dsp, etc. will not help nearly as much as it could until you find the best seating position for the smoothest bass, then address speaker position, etc...

In fact, having successfully voiced over 1,000 systems to rooms in my career, with one well-known and well-reviewed (TAS & 6Moons - Stereophile Show in S.F., 2003) exception, I have never used any form of electronic correction, other than slight adjustments on the built-in controls in the recent Avantgarde Acoustic bass units.
...
Click to expand...

Agree that first step is finding best seating position and speaker location.

Of the 1000s of systems that you have voiced, what percentage (ballpark) allowed you to do room correction/DSP?

A side note, the ability of today’s DSP software goes far beyond what was possible a mere 10 years ago. Even some of the best concert halls use DSP processing today.
 
Entirely too often, DSP is seen as a sidestep/short-cut/band-aid for acquiring proper acoustic wave-launch into the room and receiving it properly at the listening seat, and it simply is not.

I have had only had a few sessions with requested DSP for clients (requested prior to my arrival), but after all the work was done on delivering Dynamics, Presence, & Tone, everyone chose to go without the DSP.
 
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