room size?

[dugd]

Hi there,another newbie here. I've pretty well decided on a B&W 601s3 speaker system with the centre ch and sub.It will be powered by a denon 2307ci reciever (100w per ch).I listen to 2ch music as well and my concern is that the speakers may be too small for the room.Its 15x22'.Its a condo,so the kitchen area is in the back of the room.The visual distances and sound area will be about 14' from the front wall and surround speakers will be in this area as well.I know I can experiment with speaker placement after I purchase the equip. but my concern is that it is too small to begin with.What is the general opinion out there on speaker size for a given room.... thanks dug

[dyazdani]

Do you have any pictures or an approximate floorplan?

15x22 is a pretty good ratio in terms of dimensions. Sounds like you can have the speakers 2-3 feet from the wall and still have plenty of room between them and your listening position, not bad.

Also, what options do you have for room treatments? i.e. are you married?

[dugd]

Thanks for the reply.I can take a picture of the room but have no idea how to get it on this site.All I've ever done is email photos.I'm single so I have nobody saying I can't do that or that or that.Placing the speakers away form the wall is not a problem.I have wall to wall carpeting with sofa and love seat as main seating and sound absorbers with cupboards in the kitchen area at the far end of the room.All in all I think it would be an average room as far as sound bouncing around etc.

[John Holmes]

Welcome to the Guide dugd!

Your room IMO, doesn't fall into the "hard to fill" catagory. I am not one that believe small speakers (at least small monitor types) lack the punch to give you solid sound. I think that proper placement is far more important.

I think the only speaker that requires one to think about room size is the subwoofer. So I would concentrate more on having ample power to make the speakers"fill" the room, placement and as dyazdani pointed out, treatment (does not have to be in that order).

I buy speakers from two stand points:

a) I like the sound they produce
b) The theory behind the design works for my application

Of course, I like good looking speakers too! I just try not to make that the big part of the equation. As you can see in my avatar, my speakers are very spartan. :B

[dyazdani]

You can upload photos on to an image hosting site like PhotoBucket and then link the photo to you post using [img] tags...

[dugd]

Thanks John The salesperson assured me that the denon avr was powerfull enough to drive the system so I guess I can only take his word on that point.As I said before my main concern is that the speakers can handle the voume of the room.It sound as if they can. thanks again dugd

[Chris D]

That's not too small at all. My current theater is 12x22, and I have a full 7.1 (and more) system in it that works great.

[Burke Strickland]

This past weekend, I heard a presentation by a prominent certified calibrator, whose clients range from "entry level" hobbyists whose budget limits them to "HT in a box" for under a thousand dollars, to multimillionaires who shell out a half million or more for their HT. He stated two things that go against the conventional wisdom on these forums. 1) The room is NOT the most important thing in getting good multichannel sound (since the processor "creates" the sound field rather than depending on the room's acoustical properties), and 2) it is easier to produce a cohesive surround sound field in a small room than in a big one. He stated that great results can be achieved in a room 12 feet by 15 feet.

Of course, it is easier to achieve good surround sound in a room that is not too lively (reverberant/reflective) than in one that is, but simple home furnishings can do an adequate job of taming the reflections without resorting to the elaborate and mostly ineffective "treatments" that many HT hobbyists are enamored with. He said that most standardly furnished living rooms (carpet, upholstered sofas, etcetera) are not all that bad acoustically, and usually have better sonic characteristics than the stripped down "dedicated" HT rooms. A lot of people pride themselves with spending a lot of money to overcome the sonic disadvantages of a bare room that could be overcome just by making it more "livable".

Likewise, in a big room, it takes a lot more power and, sometimes, more speakers to fill the space, and placement is more of an issue -- there can be big gaps or "holes" in the sound field because the speakers are so far apart or too far away from the listener to provide a convincing presentation.

So count your blessings if you are "stuck" with a smaller room, and maybe the significant other's decor / design suggestions for the room aren't so far off base after all. :>)

Burke

[Chris D]

Agreed that "small" rooms can work fine. It's just that you need to make sure you're staying away from the boundary layer near walls or too near speakers so that the sound from them is highly directionalized. It's easier to do this with larger rooms, or at least include more useable/sweet spot seats in them.

A small room may still sound great, but only for 2 seats instead of acceptable for 6. (you can always fit more, but it may not sound good)

[dugd]

Thanks for all the responces.I posted the same question on the B&W site and I guess they deemed it not worthy of themselves to give any advice.I think I'll go with the B&W system as it was great sounding and you can drive yourself crazy listening to all the different makes and prices that go with them.thanks again dugd