Hello, I would greatly appreciate it if you guys could give me examples of your listening / HT room sizes, and the corresponding speakers from DIYSG you are using. What would be the 'optimal' speakers for my room of 20ft x 20ft x 10ft? Thank you very much!
My room is 20ft x 30ft x 10ft and I have a pair of the 88 Specials (LR with phantom center). I didn't measure what the DB level was at my main listening position, but I had my amplifier (100 watts per channel) at half volume playing some music to see how loud it got and it hurt to leave it at that level. When I run Room EQ Wizard (REW) sweeps at 75 DB my volume is set at 2 out of 10 (I have an old AVR before they measured with 0 being reference). I would say budget, space, and WAF are as important as size of the room. The only issue you might have is if your main seating area is on the short wall, i.e. you are sitting 20 feet away from your speakers/TV. My MLP is about 10 feet. Most recommend a subwoofer, although I am using mine without one currently. For music it isn't too noticeable (after a couple weeks to break in the woofers), but for movies you definitely would miss some of the low frequency effects since most of the fusions and cinemas only go down to 40-70 Hz. Although if only comparing to cheap TV speakers you will be way ahead! I am working on adding a subwoofer soon for movies.
Your question should be more about listening distance and SPL rather than room size. If you like 105db reference level and sit 15ft back then you need a speaker that is about 98db effecient with 100 watts of power. That's theoritical. Most of the DIYsoundgroup speakers can do this. Some better than others though. You also have to consider that the room may suck out some sound and if you use audessay or something it'll try and EQ it back into shape. This will require more power and sensitivity to do properly. People always want a bit of "head room" for this.
Thank you both for your replies. Tux: I understand that my question may have been too generic and vague, apologies for that because I'm very much still new to this. I asked if there was an 'optimal' speaker size for my room because I have heard passing comments about how a large speaker can sound funny in a small room. My question would be this: Given a small room that has been properly treated, can you have too large a speaker? What are the possible negative repercussions of having a 1099 in a small acoustically treated room?
I don't really think 20x20x10 is a small room. I think a 8-10ft listening distance is a small room. The 1099 does fine up to about 8ft. Maybe even less. Depends on the center channel mostly. Something like the 1899 probably is to big for a 10ft listening distance though. In your room pretty much nothing is to big unless you have your seats really close for some reason.
Hi tux, once again appreciate your replies. So a 1099 would be good for at least 8ft from the speakers, as well as provided that the listening position is not in the centre of the room (from what I understand, because of room modes). What do you mean by "Depends on the center channel mostly."? I intend to use the 1099 with a musical paradise MP-301 in stereo, with a subwoofer that I have not decided on yet. Is it important for me to use a centre channel at a distance of 8-10ft? Cheers, Keith
Ok I wanna make sure we're on the same page. The 1099 can be used a close as 8ft. Maybe even closer. That doesn't mean you have to sit that close. You could use it 20ft back if you wanted. Usually the center of a square room is a bad spot to sit, but it won't affect the 1099 much. The subs will be affected the most. The center channel has a narrower horizontal listening window than most speakers because it's laid out horizontally. It's a heck of a lot better than most horizontal center channels, but not quite as good as the vertical orientation. So I always suggest the seating be within +/- 30° horizontally. Roughly, this would be 5.75ft to the left and right of at a 10ft listening distance. You can figure this out by going Listening Distance times tan(30). So 10*tan(30) = 5.75ft. If the distance were 13ft it would be 13*tan(30) = 7.5ft. If you wanted to play it really safe you could do +/-20° so that at 13ft it would be 13*tan(20) = 4.75ft to the left and right. A 9.5ft wide sofa Does that make any sense? Sometimes I can't communicate my engineering thoughts very well.
You communicated it very well tux, appreciate it. So in conclusion the 1099 is great for my room size, provided that the listening position is at least more than 8-10ft away and within a 20-30degree arc. If I may veer slightly off topic.. I intend to do a mix of 50-50 music and HT, paired with the MP-301. How important is a dedicated center channel if the listening position is a 10ft long couch about 12ft from the mains? I have heard of something called a "phantom center", which if I am not wrong comes with some AVRs, and not integrated amps such as the MP-301. So this gives me 3 possible scenarios, which are: 1. Use the current (planned) 2.1 setup 2. Get a dedicated center channel (requires AVR that supports this) 3. Use an AVR that supports phantom center Again, sorry if these questions are basic or have been addressed, it's just that I'm trying to understand how all these components fit together. Cheers, Keith
Personally I like a center. But I've gone without and it's just fine. If your current receiver is playing movies fine it IS doing phantom center. It's not a special feature. Just what we call stereo movie listening.