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If you have large floorstanders in a small room 10' X 10', properly treated, is that type of near field listning ok? Or are bookshelves preffered and why? Seems like the smaller ones wouldn't have the slam that the bigger ones do. I am trying to determine if it may be time to store my existing speakers and buy a pair of good bookshelves. Thank-you.
Follow Ups:
Thank-you all for the information. Wonder how well Spendor LS3/5's would do mounted on proper stands?
There are bass alignments, both sealed and vented, that will tend to not sound boomy in a small room. What you want in a sealed box is a low Qtc; and in a vented box, I think what you want is called an EBS (extended bass shelf) alignment.You also want drivers and crossovers that integrate well at very close range. The early reflections will be plentiful, so their contribution to timbre will be substantial - one reason to look for speakers with good off-axis response even though you will be listening in the near field (or close to it).
Some northern European manufacturers build very nice small-room systems since in that part of the world rooms tend to be small and very solidly built. I can think of two such brands from Finland, for example - one of which I sell.
I'd personally have to stop short of saying that bookshelf speakers are a better choice than floorstanders for your room - what you really need are speakers that are endowed with characteristics conducive to good bass, coherence, and timbre in a small room, and such speakers aren't limited to a particular size.
Harbeth, Mackie, ATC, JBL so if you want nearfield listening only these may be the best choice.
I concur with Frosty's comments and will add one of my own. Low frequency driver placement, challenging in a large room, can be more difficult in a small room.Floorstanders prevent selective placement of the bass drivers from that of the mid and high drivers. For that reason, some of us prefer to utilize standmount speakers in conjuction with a single subwoofer (often corner located). That arrangement does require experimental phase adjustment of the subwoofer, but the result is worth the effort.
A good subwoofer can be adjusted to work well in almost any room, and there is often not much you can do when speakers excite room nodes...
I would suggest a book-shelf speaker which should more appropriate for the size of your room rather than floor standing. Floor standing speaker may easily come with booming problem in your situation. Give Dynaudio Contour 1.3 SE a try see if you like it (audition first before confirm buying). To me, it has both the features of book-self and floor standing(at least medium scale).
Even I agree that Dynaudio 1.3SE is an excellent speaker (some people find it - arguably - somewhat lacking in emotion department though, but that's another story), I don't think it's a good recommendation for this particular situation.My room's also small - 13x12x8, and I had many different speakers in my room over time, of both floorstanding and stand-mount variety.
Any speaker that extends below 45Hz (at -3db or less) is a problem in my room, which has a nasty double-mode at 45-48Hz or thereabouts.
This happened to (to name a few) Proac Response 1.5, JMR Offrande and Evolution 3 etc.
At the same time speakers with more modest bass extension, such as B&W N805, Cabasse Goelette, Sonus Faber Signum etc did not exhibit bass problems (apart from the perceived shortage of bass).All Dynaudio speakers possess a great amount of bass despite their small size. I used to own a Contour 1.1 and even that little baby was bassy!
And I am very familiar with the 1.3SE which goes down to 35-40 Hz, AFAIK. I heard it once in a small bass-problematic room at dealer's (at this dealer's room virtually all speakers boom) and they sounded really boomy. At the same time, I heard the 1.3SE in a big and high-ceiling room and the bass control was phenomenal.
So, in regards to the 1.3SE I'd rather group them together with small floorstanders - bass-wise, rather than classify them as a typical 'bookshelf', which they are not.BTW, I am in the similar position but at the other side of the fence.
I'm trying to find a suitable floorstander which would not boom in my room, if that's possible at all.
Olpot -The solution to room bass modes might well be a dynamic dipole system, instead of simply avoiding speakers with bass extension into the 45-Hz range.
You see, a dipole's figure-8 radiation pattern will only excite room modes in one dimension, rather than all three. And it is the interaction of room modes that generates large-amplitude peaks and dips. Because dipoles put 5 dB less energy into the room's resonant modes, the bass decays more quickly and naturally, with less overhang and better pitch definition. In addition, a dipole is free from boxy resonances and colorations.
I have a customer who had concluded that he "didn't like bass" because he couldn't stand any unnatural bass muddiness. He now owns a dynamic dipole speaker, and now enjoys bass.
You can read more about the advantages of dipole bass at Siegfried Linkwitz's room acoustics pags, link below. Or you can e-mail me - my familiarity with dynamic dipoles comes from my own experimental systems and from being a dealer for a dynamic dipole system optimized to work well in difficult rooms. Siegfried's commercial designs are manufactured by Audio Artistry, but I sell another brand.
That really depends on the speakers involved. Some "floorstanders" can be small enough that they're essentially tall bookshelve speakers.But in a room that small, smallers speakers are generally perferred by a lot of people. I've heard small speakers put out BIG sound in room that size. And small speakers can definitely have convincing slam in a room that size, but that's my opinion...I don't know what you consider to be good slam.
I can't give you an answer, really, because you don't really give enough info. But the best thing, if it's at all possible, would be to try some smaller speakers in your room. Unless your floorstanders are really slender, the smaller ones will offer more flexibility in placement. Also note that a smaller speaker for the same money may be better because there's much less part and materials involved, and a lot of times they're not meant to play as loud. This could mean that a smaller speaker of the same price might have better qualities. Emphasis on the word "could".
Take care,
Frosty
Frosty Audio - My DIY tweaks
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