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Hi all.
Have any of you heard or had personal experience listening to the big Maggies in smaller rooms - like 12x14 - w 10' ceilings? I'm curious what happens to the sound - more bass/less...soundstage ... Tweets in or out in this small arrangement.
Follow Ups:
Surprised noone has chimed in regarding the Limage setup; look it up if you are not aware.
I tried it and my 3.6R in my 10.5 x 19 x 7 foot room create a huge soundstage. I am sticking with it for now. I am now just trying to even out the bass in the room, which is surprisingly good even without treatments. The more treatments I add the better it gets.
I always preferred tweets out when listening to them on the long wall, but this Limage arrangement requires them to be in.
Hope you are able to work out something great timm.
Yes, that is small. :-((
I think you would have to have your 20.7s:
* on the 12' wall
* and with ribbons in, as they sound better with lots of space around them.
You will be restricted as to how far off the front wall you can place them - so I would say some diffusion treatment on the front wall (between the inside edges of the panels) will be necessary.
Andy
Thanks Andy. Tim
My listening room is roughly 12' x 15' with a 9' ceiling. The MGIIIs are 69" off the front wall, 92" from the center of the speaker to my ears, about 4" from the side walls, tweeter in, listening position about 2' from the wall behind me. They are biamped with upgraded mid/tweet crossovers and I use Mye stands.
Sounds great to my ears. This arrangement sounds better than when I had them in bigger rooms, but the layout is very different, Limage in the small room vs. Cardas in the big room, better DAC now, etc. Good depth to the soundstage, width goes a little beyond the edges of the speakers, overall nice spatial presentation. The sound is balanced, again, to my ears. Having the bass panels close to the walls helps bring out the lower frequencies. Bass traps in the corners behind the speakers helped even out the balance. I don't have any wall treatments and haven't played much with toe in. The books on the shelves behind the speakers are arranged randomly in an effort at diffusion. One of these days I'll run REW...
Regards,
Steve
I've heard both 3.7s and 20.1s in HP's 12x16 Room #2. They worked pretty well considering the smallish size. I think having the bay windows and irregular dimensions helped make the bass smoother than if it were a box. There were open doorways in the back corners and he kept the speakers a considerable distance from the front wall for them to breathe.
The only gotcha is that especially with the 20.1s, I was aware of the separate drivers being that close to them. The dot seven series, however, was better in that respect. He ran tweeters inboard.
So do you recall the approx seating distance from the 20s in that room?
Thanks. Tim
the chairs were close to back wall so I'd say about five or six feet.
Arguably, one of the smaller Sound Lab models would fare better in that space.
Oh my I can't imagine being 6' from the panel. But he obviously thought the room behind the speaker was paramount.
I'm likewise convinced that distance to front wall greatly affects apparent soundstage - along with bass linearity.
Ideally, he was all about the "Rule of Thirds". Start by placing speakers at room dimension thirds both laterally and longitudinally. Sit at the opposite third. Fine tune from there. I experimented moving both speaker and listening position using measurements to find the most linear bottom three octave (so called Schroeder frequencies) response with a slight tilt.
The optimum location in my 25(+)x16 room is darn close.
Ah. I missed the chair. Yes .. right now I am in a 17x30 room - but there may be plans ahead - and getting that kind of dedicated space away from everyone is nearly impossible. So I could be relegated to a smaller room. A way smaller room. I may like it - the immediacy and dynamic improvements.
What I'm hearing is - it is doable. This has been very helpful for me.
I've used Tympanis in a room that size, and they're immense.
You'll get more bass, but that's a good thing, if you tone it down a bit you'll have more bass slam than you would in a larger room.
Hey josh. What do you mean by 'tone it down a bit'? Thx Tim
Just EQ the bass down a little to restore flat response and give yourself more headroom.
Ooh. There is hope for me Obi Wan Kenobi
I have 3.6Rs in a dedicated 14'x 13' (with 8'-10' vaulted ceiling) and I'm very happy with the sound. There's sometimes a bit of noticeable unevenness in the bass, but not to an excessive extent.
Overall, it's better than in my large open-plan living room/kitchen.
Tweets are inboard.
Mark in NC
"The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains" -Paul Simon
Edits: 12/29/21
Room 12 x 16, maggies 3.5R biamped
Yep, plenty.
Over here small rooms are standard compared to you guys, most set-ups end up in a "near field" arrangement.
Big Maggies can sound great in that size room.....BUT, it all boils down to "freedom of placement". Is it a dedicated room where you can go all out with speaker, chair placement + acoustic treatment? then you can achieve great results. If it's a fully furnished family room then it's a different story, chair + speakers can't be anywhere near front or back walls.
Tweets in or out isn't a big game changer, just something to play with once you're set-up is pretty much dialed in.
Yes this would be completely dedicated room. So I can do whatever I choose. Thanks Tim
I have 3.7i (and one DWM) in a room that is small and large. :-)
It is W:8.5 L:21 H:7.1The speakers are all placed approx. 4.2' from the wall behind.
Main-speakers approx. 6" from the side-walls, tweeters inside and therefore quite toed-in.
The DWM (low-passed at approx. 100Hz with series-coils, very damped higher frequencies i.e.) is placed directly at the inside of the left-speaker.
The books at the sides are arranged in tapered/angled rows for re-direction of the first side-wall-reflexions.I have no comparisons to other rooms or other (but very minor differing) placements in this room, but the percieved stage-width, soundstage-depth, bass-quality (clean-ness as well as substance and depth) is very satisfying. I think that the fact that the high resolution makes it sound that there is much space beyond the speakers - and NOTHING AT ALL seems to sound as it is in front of the line between speakers - makes the percieved width of the stage much larger than the seemingly narrow arrangement may suggest.
The arrangement is nearly as on this photo. But the DWM is now placed directly at the left speaker and even fully vertical (and some other minor changes done since the photo was taken).
Edits: 12/28/21 12/28/21 12/28/21
Wendell Diller at Magnepan saw your photo and liked it so much he was wondering whether they could use it on their site?
I have used the same set of Tympani IIIA, before and after modification, in two different rooms. The small room was: 380x305x215 cm. The large room was: 600x400x240 cm. The smaller room gave the better listening experience, a more intimate sound with a powerful bass despite having the speakers close to room boundaries. The large room let more than one person fit in the sweet spot but with a little less bass weight and lacked some intimacy. In both cases the speakers were in front of the long wall.
My current setup is a pair of 3.6 (with an active crossover and bi-amped) in a room measuring 515x411x255 cm with an opening to an adjacent room. The speakers are in front of the short wall. Comparing this with a friend having 20.7 in a very large room with acoustic treament, the same thing seems present, there is a weaker bass in that large room and some intimacy is missing. The 20.7 is a bit cleaner/less distorted at higher levels.
Wendell Diller at Magnepan saw your photo and liked it so much he was wondering whether they could use it on their site?
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