- RE: How can the room be too large? - tube wrangler 12:03:43 11/21/09
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- In Reply to: RE: How can the room be too large? posted by gusser on November 02, 2009 at 13:29:22
Hello, Gusser!That large room still has me wondering-- here's why:
(1) We ran, in past years-- in our old smaller demo room-- about 1 to 3 o'clock on our attenuator.
(2) In the larger room, we had to run it-- with the exact same speakers, amps, and input levels to the attenuator-- at 10-11 o'clock.
(3) In the old room, we peaked out at about 8/10 watt per side, in the new room, it is about 1/3 watt per side-- or less. That's all the room will permit-- as it is.
(3) If you're thinking "they had power to burn, then what went askew?", you would be on my own wavelength.
Oh, I have plenty of theories on this-- here's one that is possible: The old smaller room is much more absorptive, and allowed the use of more power (true), and the new, much larger room MIGHT have room gain-- quite a lot? (That's only speculative at this point, Gusser-- the fact is, I don't yet know that).
I do know that we could not run as much power in there as we could with the smaller room. Crank 'er up in the large room, and you will really excite that room, and it will throw things back at you. Those would be side-wall kickbacks and reflections, and possibly ceiling-bounce, and maybe even the room's volume, size, and shape allow a sort of internal amplification.
Now, all of this is just theories so far. The room DID NOT display any easy-to-spot echoes, and the back wall seemed pretty substantial-- that is, it did not tend to "ring" when speakers were close to it-- so it must have been of fairly good construction.
I had brought along some Pendleton Indian-Style blankets of differing sizes, but alas, people were coming in, and that was the end of the setup time we had.
I know that my use of a wide video panel caused the speakers to be too widely separated for this room, despite its large size. Interestingly, these speakers have performed very well in homes with even larger rooms, but they were not as "square" as this one was.
The room is about 26 feet X 25.5 feet, and has some cavities, alcoves, and etc., which do not make it a true square.
The room didn't have a "Hall-Effect", and it didn't really ring, but you could not use any power in there without getting VERY loud-- in the entire room!
If that was done, clarity was good, as was dynamics, but the side walls really got excited, and the entire room sort of "lit up".
Late on Sunday, I finally got time to do some tire-kicking, and what I kicked around was the speakers. I finally got a smaller area inside the giant room-- performing fairly well. One guy said we had finally gotten the better sound at the show, but that he didn't consider that a compliment.
He said we were "too late" (Sunday evening), and that we hadn't come up-- even then, to what he normally expects from us-- judging from past shows.
He was right. Gusser, if you or others here have some ideas on how to use large Hotel rooms for audio-- I'm all ears-- maybe I can learn something here... those large rooms bring in people, smaller rooms don't--people shoot right ny them. Nevertheless, I'll go back to smaller if I can't fix the monsters. Jim Smith "Get Better Sound" book-- mentions in his book that large rooms don't cut it, yet I have speakers in large rooms IN HOMES that really work.
Oh yeah-- the video! THAT was fun! On Sat. night, we invited people in, and no one left until the DVDs were finished. One guy said, "this is by far the most fun I ever had at an audio show".
Don't blame the room for the audio-- just yet-- blame me!
---Dennis---
Edits: 11/21/09
- It might be able to do that with MY speakers... - Ivan303 14:43:52 11/02/09
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- In Reply to: RE: How can the room be too large? posted by gusser on November 02, 2009 at 13:29:22
at 106 dB...
But not these.
99dB speakers (100dB before you add a crossover) sitting close together against the BACK WALL of a LARGE room...
With a Flat Screen TV in between them. :-(
These same amps in a smaller room with these same exact speakers were GREAT sounding at RMAF 2007 and 2008.
Boats and Fish!
- RE: It might be able to do that with MY speakers... - Cut-Throat 15:48:22 11/02/09
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- In Reply to: RE: It might be able to do that with MY speakers... posted by Ivan303 on November 02, 2009 at 14:43:52
With all of the attention in the room given to cable lifters, and an Anti-static CD "pulverizer" and mostly very poor music choices, I am trying to figure out what this guy was thinking. If the speakers were too close together, moving them around would have been more productive than all the fidgeting he did with the cable lifters.
I still think his speakers were the weak link. Those Altec 604s in those huge boxes were Slow and lumbering. They rumbled like a distant thunderstorm and pretty much 'clouded' over any high frequency detail from any following notes.
Cut-Throat
Edits: 11/02/09
- Could be... - Ivan303 17:09:49 11/02/09
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- In Reply to: RE: It might be able to do that with MY speakers... posted by Cut-Throat on November 02, 2009 at 15:48:22
But as I said, that same system had sounded better a couple years ago.
Same exact speakers, IIRC.
Boats and Fish!
- Could be... - Ivan303 17:09:49 11/02/09
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- What was the TV for? - gusser 14:52:45 11/02/09
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- In Reply to: RE: It might be able to do that with MY speakers... posted by Ivan303 on November 02, 2009 at 14:43:52
God help us if Dennis starts getting into video! Just think a Serious Stereo 4x1 passive HDMI swither with really, really, high transfer efficiency for video!
Edits: 11/02/09
- They were sharing the room with a guy who was doing... - Ivan303 15:04:31 11/02/09
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- In Reply to: RE: What was the TV for? posted by gusser on November 02, 2009 at 14:52:45
computerized vinyl transfers, or something like that.
It was an OK sounding room, but nothing like 2007 or 2008.
Boats and Fish!
- They were sharing the room with a guy who was doing... - Ivan303 15:04:31 11/02/09
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- RE: It might be able to do that with MY speakers... - Cut-Throat 15:48:22 11/02/09
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