Problem with Small Room

Whats your budget for the low power amp ?

there is usually nothing wrong with more power . if you have budgeted something for an amp, migh be a better idea to use that also in your speaker purchase !


whats your budget for a speaker like ? if you do like the KEZ sound moving up to a better bookeshelf by them may not really be a bad idea.

Pardon my asking but have you tried foam bungs in your speaker ports ? They do work many a time.

Secondly if the room is the issue I don't think bookshelves maybe the answer. They may boom as well.
It depends on which freq's does you room amplify.

Manek

mars_visa schrieb:

Hi Last year, I bought a Marantz + KEF setup after a long discussion in this same forum. But since my room is small (14 X 9) the setup sounds booming always. I tried various positions but of no use because of (100W X 2) and iQ5 floorstanding speakers. Now I thought its better to replace with bookshelf speakers. I have posted the same under 'Buy and Sell' column as there is no other go

Visak,
small rooms have always been a challenge for audio setups. There are many bass reinforcement room modes that create boominess.
One more thing you can try (in addition to what Manek suggested) before you give up: change the location of your seat - move it back a little, move it front a little. It is entirely possible that you are sitting exactly at the spot where the bass reinforces. If you move a bit front/back you could improve your situation. OTOH it might not help. Try it.
One other person who can help you is the master of small room setups - Deaf. Several members here have visited the samll room he setup at Lamington Rd using Monitor Audio speakers & really enjoyed the music thru them. I believe that there was no boominess. I hope that Deaf will chime in here & also agree to advise you. PM him - he's a nice fellow to deal with.

mars_visa schrieb:

Could anyone please let me know if I need to change amplifer as well? (100W X 2 looks over kill to me)

No, you do not need to reduce your amplifier. A lot of you think that higher wattage is for higher listening volumes. For the most part it is not! Yes, higher wattage helps in higher listening volumes but what you really get from higher wattage is dynamic headroom - when you get that sudden cresendo in the music or when the drummer hits the drums hard or a loud cymbal crash. The amp needs a sudden burst of energy to reproduce that sound. If you do not have power/wattage on tap/reserve the sound will be muted/restrained & will detract from the overall enjoyment. So, like Arj wrote, your amp wattage is fine. A little overkill is better.

mars_visa schrieb:

Is there any good low power amplifier for my room? Thanks Visak

indeed there are plenty depending on the size of your pocket-book!
IMHO you are OK with your amp for now.



AND................one more thing: TREAT YOUR FOR BETTER ACOUSTICS (if you can i.e wife allows & it is not unsightly for your living room overall looks) . Abhi Pani started a thread on this called "Tips for deeper Soundstage". There is a lot of good info that we all suggested to Abhi to make his music sound better. Much of that discussion also applies to you. Do take time to read that thread.

In any room, there are 'nodes & antinodes'. Strong possibilities seem that both the speakers & the listening seat are sitting right on the nodes of the room, hence great room reinforcement in 2-dimension and a big boost of low freq to the ear. 14' x 9' isn't a bad/terrible room size and to make things work here, one needs to "chart" the room to size in order to find those nodes & antinodes. Moreover, iQ5 has only one 5-1/4" woofer with a front port so this will work to your advantage in this sort of a sized room.

PM me your contact details & I'll try to help.

As far as 100watts being overkill, NEVER !! Funny that once the acoustical positions are sorted out and the setup placement close to perfect, you may even find 100watts not enough (if your speakers are upto it.....).

Cheers!

Well its true that I also have similar issues though my room is not as small. I currently use a bookshelf speaker and am able to control the bass to a decent extent (all through placement, no room treamtents so far).
But then I have tried a couple of floorstanders at my place and I have noticed that things go horribly wrong and almost gets unlistenable with those bigger speakers in my room. One of the reasons I see is most floorstanders have their bass port very low and close to the floor which boosts the bass to atrocious levels. Even my bookshelf speaker when I place it on a stand shorter by say about 6-8 inches, there is a significant increase in boominess. Floorstanders in that respect are just wicked. Their ports are hardly about a feet from the ground and sometimes even lower (I remember Cadence Avitas in my place)....it just gets uncontrollable. In that respect going with a nice pair of Bookshelf speaker will actually make life simpler, easier and more entertaining. You may still require to play around with positioning and room treatments to get the best out of it but your basic problems of boominess would be addressed drastically IMO. Just place it on a stand which is about 3ft high and you should be happy with this first level of correction. Floorstanders in a small room...I would stay away from it unless things are exceptional (may be something like Deaf has achieved).

I would agree with Abhi...but only after trying everything else as Bombaywala suggests.. I have had a floor-standing speaker in a small room with superb sound and the same speakers in a larger room with terrible boom. At that stage I tried everything and then shifted to stand mounted speakers.
Jeeves

don't forget, 100Watts is not 100 acoustical watts..

100Watts is only the electrical rating...this power is converted into acoustical power by the speakers, but also lost as heat (the magnet, voice coil, cables and basket case get hot) and also heat dissipation in the amplifier itself.

The rating on the speakers and the amplifier are all electrical ratings..just keep that in mind...
don't think 100 watts mean 100 watts acoustical output at the speaker..

Hi, This is mars_visa who posted this thread...

when I login with 'mars_visa' I can't see any english threads but now with different ID I can..I don't understand why its like this..

Thanks a lot for your responses. I'm thinking that if Floorstanders needs to be replaced then I would like to go for B&W 685 bookshelf speakers.

Could anyone please let me know regarding this speaker and how it will sound if I pair with Marantz PM7001 bi-wire?

Also I would like to know if Sub-sat a considerable option?

Thanks again

Regards
Visak

The iq5's are not reputed to be bass monsters, rather they are reviewed to be rather light in bass. They are also rated at 43-45hz. The b&w 685 would go around 50hz or near abouts.

I think positioning and foam bungs would do the trick.btw the iq5 is a fine speaker.

If you must change the speaker then try the new one in your room before you buy otherwise there are good chances that you will face the same issue.

I have bookshelves and I still have some bass boom in my room.

Manek

Manek schrieb:

The iq5's are not reputed to be bass monsters, rather they are reviewed to be rather light in bass. They are also rated at 43-45hz. The b&w 685 would go around 50hz or near abouts. I think positioning and foam bungs would do the trick.btw the iq5 is a fine speaker.

I'll second that!

I think positioning and foam bungs would do the trick.btw the iq5 is a fine speaker. If you must change the speaker then try the new one in your room before you buy otherwise there are good chances that you will face the same issue. I have bookshelves and I still have some bass boom in my room

I have two things to say at this point:

1. Bookshelves are not the absolute solution to remove every boom in the sound. But it drastically reduces the same due to the reason I have mentioned in my previous post. Achieving the same level of reduction in boom while using a floorstander can be extremely painstaking. iQ5 may not be a bass monster but if the ports are closer to the ground then its bad in this situation.

2. I have tried using foam bungs in my speakers and the thing that pissed me off was the drastic reduction in extension. There were bass tones which I was no more hearing at all once the ports were plugged with foam. Those tones were not mid bass tones but low bass tones and they were missing big time.
I dont think thats a neat solution. Getting clean bass is definitely high on priority but you just cant miss tones which your speaker is capable of producing. And I am not talking about tones in the region of 30hz and below, most speakers produce decent 40+hz tones and even that is severely compromised with foam bungs in my observation so far.

In fact when bass gets cleaner one should hear even those very low frequencies very clearly which was otherwise getting muffled in the boom .

Port bungs are an adhoc solution. First of all the speaker is designed with the port and hence a large part of the speaker's low end frequency response comes from the output of the port. Additionally because of this the port also reduces the distortion in the low end response of the speaker. With the port closed, the speaker will have significantly more distortion in mid bass.

Placement of the speakers has a lot to do with the boom problem. Placing speakers properly can alleviate the problem significantly.

i also am not a great fan of foam bungs as basically it is playing around with the design of the speaker in the first place.

the best wyy is as many folks mentioned playing around with the placement. in my room a diagonal placement actually reduced the boom...the cardas method unfortunately does not work in small rooms.

although doubt if it will away without room treatment and/or equalisation.

could you try this link to see which frequency the boom is coming up ?
http://www.rivesaudio.com/CARAquick/CARAframe.html

lets have further discussion based on facts

reignofchaos schrieb:

Additionally because of this the port also reduces the distortion in the low end response of the speaker.

I agree with almost all of your post except the above statement. Ports do not reduce the distortion in the low-end response. In fact they do the exact opposite! IMHO most of the ported speakers in the market are incorrectly designed hence there is invariably bass overhang. I can remember this very vividly at RMAF07 - so many ported speakers but such poor bass response in each of those rooms!
THe port is always 180 out-of-phase with the actual woofer whether the port is in the front or in the back. And, you always have 2 humongus peaks at the low end - driver impedance peaking & cabinet interplay with the driver. hence there is a lot of phase shift that goes along with those dual peaks & the distortion follows.
Also, air flow thru the port is very hard to control. B&W showed that by putting dimples on the port one can control the air flow better BUT............those blasted engineers put the dimples in the wrong place - the exterior of the port that is visible to the user!! At that time the air is out of the port & into the atmosphere & you cannot control it anymore. What's the use of dimples on the port exterior other than to ensure smoother exit? It was a marketing gimmick IMHO. Those dimples should have been on the inside of the port where the air was getting expanded/contracted & was flowing between the port & the cabinet. It would have helped reduce port distortion, I think.
However, you are correct - a ported speaker was always meant to be played with its ports open. When those ports are plugged it does interfer w/ the mid-bass & mid response. However, as Manek suggested, plugging the ports can help identify the issue. When I once used to own B&W speakers I had 2 different density foam plugs - one which was very porous & one which was far more opaque. This allowed me to plug the ports either a little or a lot & that way I could control the bass & not spoil the overall freq response. The porous plug worked really well (I do not think that I ever used the opaque plug).

bombaywalla schrieb:

reignofchaos schrieb: Additionally because of this the port also reduces the distortion in the low end response of the speaker. I agree with almost all of your post except the above statement. Ports do not reduce the distortion in the low-end response. In fact they do the exact opposite! IMHO most of the ported speakers in the market are incorrectly designed hence there is invariably bass overhang. I can remember this very vividly at RMAF07 - so many ported speakers but such poor bass response in each of those rooms! THe port is always 180 out-of-phase with the actual woofer whether the port is in the front or in the back. And, you always have 2 humongus peaks at the low end - driver impedance peaking & cabinet interplay with the driver. hence there is a lot of phase shift that goes along with those dual peaks & the distortion follows.

I agree completely to what you say here. Badly designed ported speakers are available dime a dozen. Its much easier to mess up a bass reflex design compared to a sealed design with port noise always being a significant issue in real world setups and there are really no foolproof solutions to this. In cheaper speakers with small enclosures, the port tuning is badly done causing bass bloat.

However one thing I've noticed with acoustic suspension(sealed) designs in cheaper speakers is at times they seem to overdamp the sound. This can lead to an unnatural edge and kick to the midbass instead of a natural decay. Sealed designs also lead to higher driver excursion for producing bass as compared to the same driver in a ported design. This can cause non linearity in the response and related problems. This is what I was referring. Maybe I wasn't clear enough.

There is a freeware called modecalc

Google it....feed your room dimensions and see what it tells you.

Its may just lead you to the solution to your problems.....

Manek

reignofchaos schrieb:

However one thing I've noticed with acoustic suspension(sealed) designs in cheaper speakers is at times they seem to overdamp the sound. This can lead to an unnatural edge and kick to the midbass instead of a natural decay. Sealed designs also lead to higher driver excursion for producing bass as compared to the same driver in a ported design. This can cause non linearity in the response and related problems. This is what I was referring. Maybe I wasn't clear enough.

good discussion reignofchaos!
I have also experienced the same - that the acoustic suspension woofer needs a little kick to get some excursion otherwise it seems a little light on the bass.
Indeed this is why driver selection is key. One needs to find drivers that are linear for a wide range & I'm told that these sort of drivers are few & far between hence expensive. From whatever I keep hearing ScanSpeak, Eton, SEAS seem to be tops.
Yes it was not clear to me what issues you were referring to so thanx for elaborating.

Hi

Thanks for all of your inputs

I can keep my iQ5 but now I have another problem. I need to shift my system to another room where the size is 12X11 with cots aside. I think now there is no option for me other than going for Bookshelf speakers

Could anyone please let me know which bookshelf speakers would match well with Marantz PM7001?

Speakers that are into consideration are
Mordaunt Short Mezzo 2
B&W 685
Monitor Audio RS1
Epos 12.2

My musical preference -

Jazz (50%)
Classical (20%)
Movie Soundtracks (30%)

Please let me know if you have any other good suggestion

Thanks
Visak

Hi Visak,

Since you are in Chennai,you should get in touch with Decibel.They are located in Teynampet.

http://www.decibel.co.in/speakers

Raghu, the owner is very helpful and can help you find the best speakers for your needs.You can have a home demo of all his products.

Regards
Rajiv

P.S.I have nothing to do with the above company/dealer .I have had very a positive experience in dealing with them.

Rajiv

Epos 12.2...anyday.

I second the Epos suggestion.
But you can do much better if you DIY. Get in touch with corrson if you need the drivers.

My two commercial bit, Amphion Ion or Ion L.
Deaf.

deaf..long time no hear..we need more such bits with you !

Amphion is a brand I havent heard mentioned for a real long time. I have heard their Argon and the Xenon floorstander..used to be very polite speakers !