12X15 too small?

[adamt]

I'm setting my living room up as Home Theater as it can possibly be. The dimensions are aproximately 12'X15'.

My main questions are about the audio of the system in comparison to my room size. I'll try to keep this as simple as possible since this thread is probably in the wrong section.

What kind of limitations for speaker selection am I looking at with a room this small. I have a complete system right now, but it lacks in a lot of areas. My plan for the immediate future is to replace the center channel speaker and the subwoofer.

I am really eying the Dayton RS WMTW center in the missions accomplished section on this page, but I fear that it would be over kill for my room. I kind of like overkill, but sometimes I push it too far.
I would also like to know what size of sub would compliment this room. I want to go as big as possible.
I am in the diy market for whatever seems the most reasonable.

Sorry if I didn't put in enough info. I can add drawings and pictures if it would help.

Thanks
Adam

[digital]

Diy?

.
Drawings and pictures would help alright, but in a nutshell: pretty much any room can be treated and tweaked to be a decent listening space.

Have to admit, I actually got the tape measure out and got a better idea of how small your room is - damned man, thats tiny! That said: it wouldn't stop me from dragging in just about any loudspeaker you can think of though! 8O You can always do your listening near-field (like you have a choice there...)

Do you want to do the whole speaker system DIY or just the subs?

Andrew D.
cdnav.com
.

[kgveteran]

My room is 13X15.It is treated well and I have no problem using three of the RS WTMW's as my LCR.Also no problem using four Tumults.

Having clean output above and beyond your normal listening is what you are looking for.This is known as headroom or "Gas in the tank". The mistake most guys make is finding the perfect sub and mains to "Just" reach their goal.This is also why you see alot of people upgrade often.

Choosing a three way design will ensure that during demanding playback levels the critical midrange will stay intact.Two-ways are a fine design, and I have heard many that do their job well.The problem I see is that the bass driver has double duty.It has to reproduce critical midrange and bass frequencies.Once you over load the woofer with bass frequencies you loose the clean sound and inteligibility of the center.The RS WTMW is a fine example of what a center should be.Plenty of bass capability,individual midrange, total overkill XO design (which ever one you choose).Three drivers from the same family with a great synergy ( the tweeter is sweet).

From a HT/music stand point I would be hard pressed to find a better system for the money than I have now.It will play well above what I usually listen(85-90db). I think there is no other place to build a design like this and get the type of support you will find here.I have sung this song before and it is still the same, these guys will take you from step #1 and stay with you until the end.Under one roof you will be able to talk to the XO designers and find the best way to exicut your goal.It becomes much more than "Building speakers".You will build friendships here, without the usual "Flaming crap" you see at other sites.The information will be straght forward and concise.

I hope you choose to build the RS WTMW.You will enjoy for years to come!

KG....I am now stepping off my soapbox

[Karma]

HI adamt,
You do have a rather small room and you will pay an audio price for its size. Don't fool yourself.

That said, my 5.1 HT system is set up in my bedroom which measures 16 X 12 X 8. That's very close to your room size, right? The system is Krell/B&W 805S mains and dual B&W SW800 subs based. The hardware is good.

The good news is the system sounds really good both for music and movies. The down side is the you do hear the effects of the small room. The soundstage lacks scale size and the bass, while very good, would be much improved in a larger room.

I would encourage you to go ahead full steam. You will end up with a high quality, enjoyable experience if you do a serious job. Your room size is not prohibitive to really good sound.

Sparky

[Ovation]

I have my gear in a 11.5 x 24 room, but the usable space is 11 x 15 (the rest is curtained off as a storage area--can't avoid it). In that space I have modest, mid-fi gear but with careful placement (I try to approximate an ITU configuration with my Boston Acoustics VR-M stand-mounts) and some bass traps, I get very good sound. Your space can certainly afford you an enjoyable viewing/listening experience (though, depending on the size of your speakers, your seating furniture might be limited a bit).

[adamt]

Thanks for the responses guys-

It makes it all worse because I have huge leather furniture. It's really nice but it should probably go.

Can somebody point me in the direction of a good diy sub thread?

One more simple question. Should the sub be on the inside or outside of the mains? I've looked at the dolby speaker placement page that everyone seems to link to around here and it shows the sub on the inside of the mains. In most of the pictures I've seen around here, people put their subs on the outside of the mains. Which is better?

I can't figure out how to post a picture of my cad drawing of the floor plan.

I bought the MDF for the WMTW center channel yesterday and almost started building but thought I better check to see if it that speaker was good for me. I'm going to go start cutting on it right now.

Thanks again
Adam

[kgveteran]

What is you budget for the subs ? To give you an idea, I did an IB at a friends for $1600.00 .http://www.htguide.com/forum/showpos...6&postcount=32


This is just an idea of what you can do in a small room.This is in his living room.12"X19".His desire was bass into single digits with enough headroom that he wasn't reaching for the remote when the action got hot.

I would encourage either IB or sealed.Look around here.Do some searching.

[David Meek]

Can somebody point me in the direction of a good diy sub thread?

Adam, check just about anywhere in our Mission Possible DIY forum. You can't turn around without bumping into a good sub thread. The Missions Accomplished sub-forum in there would be a good starting point.

[adamt]

I feel super retarded now. I looked at the DIY subwoofer showcase for like an hour last night. I totally forgot about the little links in most of the posts for the build threads on each sub.

This website has a ton of information and it doesn't help that I have like really bad A.D.D- Too many blue underlined words aren't good-
Somehow, last night I went from looking at subwoofers to ordering a honeywell whole house humidifier. It's that bad.

Anyways-KG I saw the pics of your setup in the Dayton RS thread. I really like your system. It looks very attractive and very doable for the amount of space I have. I think I have decided that I'm going to go with two 15's in a similar setup.

Thanks for the replies
Adam

I started building a Dayton RS WMTW speaker today!

[kgveteran]

I feel super retarded now. I looked at the DIY subwoofer showcase for like an hour last night. I totally forgot about the little links in most of the posts for the build threads on each sub.

This website has a ton of information and it doesn't help that I have like really bad A.D.D- Too many blue underlined words aren't good-
Somehow, last night I went from looking at subwoofers to ordering a honeywell whole house humidifier. It's that bad.

Anyways-KG I saw the pics of your setup in the Dayton RS thread. I really like your system. It looks very attractive and very doable for the amount of space I have. I think I have decided that I'm going to go with two 15's in a similar setup.

Thanks for the replies
Adam

I started building a Dayton RS WMTW speaker today!

Sounds like a plan.Are you going to do a sealed system ? What drivers are you looking at.I'm sure the SS 15's would do you fine.

I have heard some talk about sound stage in smallish rooms. I threw in Polar Express the other night and it was as big as I could ever want it to be. Just concentrate on your center for now, the rest will fall into place.

Alot of the sound stage has to do with treatment.There are alot of demons in first reflections and reverberations.

My video room in my last house was 10' X 13' X 8'.Talk about small.The advantage is smaller amps, smaller speakers, and a smaller subwoofer system.

I think you are doing it right! Keep us updated.

KG

[adamt]

I'll probably put the subs in a sealed box 4' long. Would that be long enough for two 15's?
I would like to build two cabinents on each end of the sub box for components and what not.

Would putting the amps in an enclosed cabinent be a bad idea?

I did alittle more work on my cc today. Building a box that is square is tough. I'm getting ready to go take some pics of my progress. I'm going to post them in my build thread, but I will link to them from here in case anybody is interested.

[kgveteran]

I'll probably put the subs in a sealed box 4' long. Would that be long enough for two 15's?
I would like to build two cabinents on each end of the sub box for components and what not.

Would putting the amps in an enclosed cabinent be a bad idea?

I did alittle more work on my cc today. Building a box that is square is tough. I'm getting ready to go take some pics of my progress. I'm going to post them in my build thread, but I will link to them from here in case anybody is interested.

I'm not following the subwoofer design.Give me more details about the amp and the cabinet.

[adamt]

I hope this helps. I just whipped this up in paint brush. It's just a general picture of what I'm talking about. I don't really have any dimensions yet exept the overall length of the cabinent will be around 7'. That is about the width of the screen I'm going to use. The amps and the rest of my gear would go in the cabinents on the sides. My mains will be left and right of the cabinent and the center will be on the sub box/cabinent



Also-I posted some pics of my center channel speaker in my build thread. I have to say it is a weak thread because i'm still in the stone ages when it comes to spaker box construction.

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showpost.php4?p=308482&postcount=8

[kgveteran]

Because of vibration, I would encourage you to separate the subwoofer cabinet from your equipment. You could make the sub cabinet and put one cabinet to each side of subwoofer.

I've never been much of a snake oil guy when it comes to vibration reduction devices, but I would think about it.Your DVD player will be most vulnerable to vibrations.

The good point to the subs being on plane with the mains and center is, you can choose a higher XO setting with little distraction from sound eminating from them.I use 100hz and it sounds great.

[David Meek]

12X15 too small?

Adam, looks like you're getting good help on the speaker question so I'll just throw my 2 cents in on your original question. No, 12'x15' is not too small. In our Houston home my dedicated room was 11'-3"x13'-3" and it wound up working out acoustically very nicely - once I changed the orientation and placed the screen/speakers on the long wall. Here's a link to an earlier photo-thread that may be of interest.

[adamt]

That room looks pretty good for being so small. I like the chairs. My room wouldn't be half as bad if my furniture wasn't so big. It was alot worse before I got rid of my RPTV. It looked alot like the one you have there. It was a 70" Mitsubishi.

I'm looking into some sound treatment for the room.

Off topic-
I just remembered how to effectively use the search tool. On a forums page as vast as this one, it's easy to believe that all stones have been turned.
Using the "search titles only" option versus "search entire posts" in the advanced search menu always seems to get really good results. Most of the "ol timers" probably know that, but if you want to see the difference you should try typing "room treatment" into the search menu and see what you get. Then type room treatment into the titles only search and you'll get a lot better stuff. That might be something you guys can suggest to the newbies instead of just saying "use the search tool"

Anyways-
Thanks for all the input and I don't object to getting more

Adam

[kgveteran]

Adam, looks like you're getting good help on the speaker question so I'll just throw my 2 cents in on your original question. No, 12'x15' is not too small. In our Houston home my dedicated room was 11'-3"x13'-3" and it wound up working out acoustically very nicely - once I changed the orientation and placed the screen/speakers on the long wall. Here's a link to an earlier photo-thread that may be of interest.

Great looking room!

[adamt]

Since the uni-cabinent has been ruled out, I'm kind of stuck on designing a layout for the front stage area of the "theater". I am still waiting on my projector to come in the mail, so right now I'm kinda stuck twiddling my thumbs. I have way too much stuff going on right now.

Okay, here's another question based on my room size.
Do you think 100" screen would be too big if the viewing distance is about 11 feet?

Believe it or not-That is the million dollar question. That is the one that got me into all this mess in the first place. Actually it was the woman and her mother. They ganged up on me and said the 70incher had to go cuz it was taking up too much room. Her mom suggested that I get a new high def flat screen like they had just got. They got like a 25" one. Who knows how much they paid for it. Can you imagine what it would be like going from 70" to 20" for monday night football? It was like taking my manhood away from me. When her mom got involved I knew I was beat, so my pea brain got to churning and I came up with the solution to go bigger instead of smaller. I started reading about 720HD projectors dropping in prices because of the 1080i's taking over the market. So I ordered a Mitsubishi HD1000u. That'll teach them.
Anyways, I've seen the calculations and other things about screen sizes and viewing distances, and a lot of people have chosen to go above these recomendations.
Will it hurt my eyes if I do 100" or a little bigger?

[Chris D]

Oooh, ouch, your mother was helping dictate what happens in your own home?

I'll stay out of judging that one, I'll just say that I feel for you.

[adamt]

Not my mother- The womans mother

Which makes it much much much worse

[kgveteran]

No man walks without his cross to bear......we feel ya

[adamt]

I have a 6 month old baby and if they can find a way to claim something as being "dangerous" then I look like an insensitive asshole if I don't do anything about it.