Listen to your Room
Many high end audio enthusiasts spend countless hours and a fist full of dollars in order to get the ir stereo system to sound as good as possible. The right source, the right preamp and amplifier all way out to a great pair of speakers. Next the pain staking search for interconnects and speaker wire begins and in most cases it never, ever ends.
Oddly enough when you walk into the listening rooms of most audiophiles you see some very strange things. Big glass coffee tables, bare hardwood floors, high backed listening chairs in rooms that have reflective surfaces like windows to the left of the system and something less reflective to the right like drywall. All this despite the thousands spent on equipment and accessories. The most overlooked component of a stereo system is the room itself. A $10,000 stereo in the right room can easily outperform a $25,000 system in the wrong room. If you don’t address the room you’re listening in you are literally wasting your money!
Ideally you want a rectangular room with the seated position a third of the way into from the rear wall and your speakers a third of the way out into the room. If when you do this you are sitting closer than 7 or 8 feet from the speakers, try towing them in towards your listening position. The only problem with this is that there might be a lack of bass sitting that close. This setup is less than ideal so you can try and make the best of the situation by moving your listening position and the speakers further away from each other. There are two things you’re trying to avoid here. First you don’t want reflections from the wall behind you to make it back to your listening position, so the closer you are to that wall the more of a problem this will become. This is also why high backed listening chairs are a bad idea.The other problem occurs when you back your speakers into a corner. Bass frequencies are not as directional as midrange and high frequencies, when the speakers are too close to a wall they tend to be amplified causing the bass to be boomy and lack dynamics. This is especially true when speakers are right up in the corner of the room. The problem can sometimes be so bad the the extra bass actually masks the midrange and the system can sound dark and murky.
So, what can you do in small room? Well there are quite a few things you can try. A bookshelf behind your listening position will break up the high frequencies and prevent them from reaching you. There are also sound panels you can buy to diffuse the high frequencies as well. If you have too much bass in a room a large cardboard box full of chopped up foam rubber and shredded newspaper. If this works you can either buy some bass traps or decorate the cardboard box to match your decor!
Another problem that plagues rooms both large and small is first reflections. When sound hits a hard surface it bounces off and speeds up. These sounds then travel to your listening position arriving just before or just after the direct sound coming from the speakers. This will rob you of focus and detail. If you were to place a mirror on the side wall and move it to a position to where you can see the speaker while sitting in your listening chair, this would be a good place to put a sound absorbing material to prevent these first reflections from reaching you.
So now that we’ve eliminated reflections from the side walls and the wall behind you, all we have left are the floor and ceiling. Since there’s not often many things we can do with the ceiling lets make sure that there’s carpet on the floor. If there’s no carpet it might be time to invest in an area rug. All this is designed to stop stray frequencies from bouncing around your room and arriving at the wrong time. The overall goal is to limit all but the direct sound coming from the speakers.
Bottom line you can get a much bigger bang for your audio buck by addressing problems with the room you’re listening in!
Oddly enough when you walk into the listening rooms of most audiophiles you see some very strange things. Big glass coffee tables, bare hardwood floors, high backed listening chairs in rooms that have reflective surfaces like windows to the left of the system and something less reflective to the right like drywall. All this despite the thousands spent on equipment and accessories. The most overlooked component of a stereo system is the room itself. A $10,000 stereo in the right room can easily outperform a $25,000 system in the wrong room. If you don’t address the room you’re listening in you are literally wasting your money!
Ideally you want a rectangular room with the seated position a third of the way into from the rear wall and your speakers a third of the way out into the room. If when you do this you are sitting closer than 7 or 8 feet from the speakers, try towing them in towards your listening position. The only problem with this is that there might be a lack of bass sitting that close. This setup is less than ideal so you can try and make the best of the situation by moving your listening position and the speakers further away from each other. There are two things you’re trying to avoid here. First you don’t want reflections from the wall behind you to make it back to your listening position, so the closer you are to that wall the more of a problem this will become. This is also why high backed listening chairs are a bad idea.The other problem occurs when you back your speakers into a corner. Bass frequencies are not as directional as midrange and high frequencies, when the speakers are too close to a wall they tend to be amplified causing the bass to be boomy and lack dynamics. This is especially true when speakers are right up in the corner of the room. The problem can sometimes be so bad the the extra bass actually masks the midrange and the system can sound dark and murky.
So, what can you do in small room? Well there are quite a few things you can try. A bookshelf behind your listening position will break up the high frequencies and prevent them from reaching you. There are also sound panels you can buy to diffuse the high frequencies as well. If you have too much bass in a room a large cardboard box full of chopped up foam rubber and shredded newspaper. If this works you can either buy some bass traps or decorate the cardboard box to match your decor!
Another problem that plagues rooms both large and small is first reflections. When sound hits a hard surface it bounces off and speeds up. These sounds then travel to your listening position arriving just before or just after the direct sound coming from the speakers. This will rob you of focus and detail. If you were to place a mirror on the side wall and move it to a position to where you can see the speaker while sitting in your listening chair, this would be a good place to put a sound absorbing material to prevent these first reflections from reaching you.
So now that we’ve eliminated reflections from the side walls and the wall behind you, all we have left are the floor and ceiling. Since there’s not often many things we can do with the ceiling lets make sure that there’s carpet on the floor. If there’s no carpet it might be time to invest in an area rug. All this is designed to stop stray frequencies from bouncing around your room and arriving at the wrong time. The overall goal is to limit all but the direct sound coming from the speakers.
Bottom line you can get a much bigger bang for your audio buck by addressing problems with the room you’re listening in!
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