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In Reply to: Re: Should the door be opened when listening music instead of closing door with acoustic panel? posted by michaelv20850 on March 18, 2007 at 18:13:22:
The bass response you hear in a room is going to vary considerably depending on where you sit, as you have found out. There are high pressure areas in the room where bass sounds stronger, and low pressure areas where it sounds weaker. It may only take a shift of a few inches to move from a high pressure area to a low pressure area, and you're seeing that too in your room. I can remember auditioning a pair of speakers in the showroom, sitting in the shop's preferred sweet spot. I was playing a disc with a pronounced low frequency percussion tone and the sound of the drum was totally absent. I decided the speakers didn't have particularly good low bass and started walking forward to swap discs. I'd taken one step forward when the beat came around again and the bass was wonderful. I stood there, rocking one step back then one forward, for 30 seconds or so in time with the pulse of that tone, listening to great bass/no bass/great bass/no bass… The variation you can get when you move only a few inches can be absolutely staggering at times.Bass traps will definitely help but you may still want to consider moving your listening position to a point where you're happy with bass response and then playing with speaker placement in order to get back what you lost in other areas when you changed the listening position.
Note that moving the listening position is going to change the location of the first reflection points and they will then change again each time you change the speaker locations. Those changes in location won't be large for small changes in listening and speaker positions and your current acoustic panel locations may still work reasonably well, but you should fine tune them again after any change in the room setup.
David Aiken
Follow Ups:
By the way, what do you think if i move the gears to the the other side of the room where the current listening position is and move the seat to where the gears are? I don't know if this won't change anything, then i will not try as it takes me time to detach cables and stuffs..:)
thanks again.
Thanks, David.
Your explaination is exactly what i tried last night. Unfortunately, it gets more than a feet or so to enter the high pressure zone where i can hear more bass. I can live with a few inches, but with more than a feet, the listening position is in odd position. I mean, i will have to sit in 1/3 of the width of the room.I know my room is in bad shape (12' x 14'), so i don't have much space to move around. I read somewhere that sit in the diagonal line of the room would help both reflection point and bass.
I don't mind moving the first reflection point, but i just want to nail the bass first and then i can figure out where to hang the trap.
So, if i move to different room (12' x 24') would help? If so, then i will need lots of moving since there are furnitures and stuffs..:)
Thanks very much
You asked about moving gear in your other post and I'll cover that here too.All other things being equal, a bigger room is better than a smaller room. All other things are rarely equal. A smaller room with good proportions may be better than a larger room that has bad proportions. A smaller room with more absorption may be better than a larger room with lots of hard, reflective surfaces. A smaller room with no restrictions on where you place the listening position and speakers may be better than a larger room if you can only place the speakers and listening position in bad spots, and so on. You haven't said anything about your rooms apart from measurements so I can't comment other than to say what I've just said. Bigger rooms have more potential but if you can't realise that potential, a smaller room can be the better choice.
I don't know what you mean when you say " i will have to sit in 1/3 of the width of the room" but let me say that there are all sorts of mathematically based methods for deciding where to place the speakers and listening position. All have their good points and all can generate absolutely crazy positions under some circumstances. Many of them seem to work better with rooms of particular proportions. Try them in a room with very different proportions and the results are just unworkable. My view is the best method is the one that suits your physical requirements for the room and sounds good in the process. If you try one of these methods and it puts the speakers and/or the listening position in an unworkable location, forget that one and try a different method. There is a setup that will work best in a given room but finding that can be very, very difficult. There are probably several different setups that will work reasonably to very well in a given room. Find one and work at fine tuning it. You can waste a lot of time obsessing about achieving perfection. Find a position that works reasonably well and fine tune things a bit at a time from there and you will find that you're getting better sound than most people get anyway.
You can sit right up against a wall—look in the FAQ for the Audio Physic method and see what it says about doing that. I've used it and sat against the wall and had good sound. I use a modification of that method in my current room which is L shaped and I have an open area behind me where the room makes its bend. If that open area wasn't there, I'd be up against the wall. If you try against the wall and have problems with reflections close to your ear, place a blanket or two behind your head to reduce the reflections. Every setup has its problems and every problem can be worked with. There is no one, single, perfect method that suits everyone.
While you're looking up the Audio Physic method in the FAQ, look up the other methods as well. If you have a spreadsheet on your computer, set up a spreadsheet to calculate the speaker and listening position locations for all the methods you can find. Discard the ones that don't work for you, such as any method that places you too close to your speakers. You do need to be a certain distance away from the speaker if the sound from the different drivers is going to integrate properly. How far away you need to be depends on the speaker. The greater the distance between the centres of the top and bottom drivers, the greater the distance you need to be. Usually you can sit closer to a 2-way than you can to a 3-way but there are exceptions. If you're going to end up sitting close to the speakers, look at near field setups because they're designed around sitting close to the speaker. Near field setups can also work better in smaller rooms because they help minimise the impact of some room problems so they can help make a virtue out of a necessity.
Different setups tend to have different strengths and weaknesses to their sound. You may have a distinct preference for the sound of one sort of setup over other sorts of setup. It's worth experimenting to see what you like and don't like and the easiest way to do that without having to keep moving your gear is to visit some other audio people and look at how they've set up their systems and listen to those systems. It's a great way to get a lot of experience and hear some good music in the process. That experience can be invaluable in helping you choose between trying one system or another.
The basic process is to first find a setup for speaker and listening position location, then worry about the location of any acoustic room treatment devices apart from bass traps which go in corners if at all possible.
Apart from not placing equipment where it will be subject to strong vibration. I tend to believe in placing it where it's convenient. Placing it between the speakers helps you to keep speaker cables short and there are usually no access problems or problems with remote controls. I wouldn't play with moving equipment until I was happy with the location of the speakers and listening position.
All of the above is general advice. You need to experiment a bit and decide what sounds best for you. As I said above, there is no one perfect answer that will suit everyone including you. You can get lots of different advice and suggestions here but, in the end, a few of those suggestions will work for you and a lot won't. You do need to work a little to find out which ones suit you but what you learn in the process is invaluable and makes it much easier when you have to go through the process again after a shift or the purchase of new equipment. The results when you find something that works for you really are worth the effort involved.
David Aiken
Thanks, David. Great explanation.
38% of 24' feet long room equals to 9'. So that means you can sit around 9' away from that short wall. the other 38% spot from the back wall would put you at 15' from the front wall.
Hope that helps.
_______________________________________*Analog fans may be blind-but digital fans are deaf*
http://www.flickr.com/photos/82495693@N00/
I've tried this...It's better . Soundstage, image are good. Bass is more defined...The only thing i realize that how close i am to the speakers...:))) and i don't need to turn up volume much. Only at 10 o'clock causes my ear bleeding..:)
Basically, i sit about 9 feet from front wall. L/R speakers are 7 ft apart, and my seat is 5 ft from back wall. I'll give a try for few days to see what's going on.
i was just wondering whether all audiophile use 38% rule? as sitting too close to speaker in small look kind of funny..
thanks a bunch.
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