Is my room too small?

Hi people, what it is I'm at some time in the near future upgrading my "B&W 303" book shelf's for some floor standers, hopefully the "DALI IKON 6" or "B&W 704" My room measures at about 15ft by 16ft but I'm not sure if my room would be big enough for speakers of this size. What do you think

[majorloser]

In short, NO! You're room is fine for those 3-way towers. You can go larger, too.

Both companies make some nice towers. Might want to check out Canton or Mission speakers, also.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Is that the total size, or is the room fully open to other areas?

All “too large for your room” means is that they’ll have more bass output than you need. (The larger a room is the more it “soaks” bass, so larger speakers are required with more or larger woofers.) However, it’s easy enough to compensate by dialing down the receiver’s bass control.

A good way to get an idea: How are the speakers you have now? If they sound on the “thin” side, you could benefit from some larger speakers. If they sound smooth and balanced, with good extension, then larger speakers will generally have too much bass, and require tone control adjustment.

Regards,
Wayne

Yes thats the total size of the room, with two doors of it. The B&W'S I have now sound good but I feel I need a bit more in the bass department & perhaps a little more detail. Yes I can control the bass output but sometimes large speakers in a room not big enough can sound overpowering no matter what even with the bass turned off, as a friend of mine learned when he purchased a pair of QEF IQ 9's. But he's room was slightly smaller then mine.

I think you should be very careful in choosing floor standing speakers for this room, because as you write its almost square, and as we know, square rooms tend to boom easily
I would suggest that an audition in this room is a must for any floor standing speaker before you decide to buy

[Ayreonaut]

I find that many floorstanders have too much in the midbass for a smaller room.

The DALI IKON 6 is an exception. The fact that they are front ported may also help if they have to be close to a wall.

The shorter distance from speakers to the listening position can make speakers sound a little bright in a small room. -2dB on my reciever's treble EQ solves this easily.

[russ.will]

I run my PMC GB1s in a room of a very similar area (albeit, slightly more rectangular) to yours with no problems. My father runs floorstanders in a room very like yours without problem, although he has to take a bit more care about positioning.

Add the JM Lab Chorus 716v to your list. Just a suggestion.

Russell

[Josuah]

A "small" room has problems with "larger" speakers for a variety of reasons. Not just room gain causing boomy bass. You may be unable to place the speakers far enough from the walls, depending on their port configuration (which might be a contributor to boomy bass) or off-axis response. You may be sitting too close to the speaker to allow for the multiple drivers to converge correctly. So speaker characteristics have an impact. It also depends a bit on your room treatments. Treatments can effectively create a virtual larger room, since sound is prevented from bouncing around.

Lack of "detail" in your existing speakers may be due to bad room acoustics, resulting from the room itself, speaker placement, and listening position. Or just the speaker.

Lack of bass is likely better solved with a subwoofer than with main speakers that run lower. You'll have a lot more flexibility in placement with a subwoofer and also get a lot more bass for your dollar than just speakers. Plus, if you try to run "large" speakers as large, you're probably making them reproduce the non-bass frequencies more poorly.

[khellandros66]

Try auditioning the Definitive Power Monitor 900 and Triad Gold LCRs as well.

~Bob

[drdoan]

My HT room is 11 x 15 with vaulted ceilings. I have my SVS SB-01 7.1 system set up as follows: the center is above my 91" screen and angled down. My mains are on either side of the screen almost at the heighth of my center speaker and are toed in slightly. The surrounds and rears are on the sides and high on the back walls respectively. My SVS PB12/Plus 2 sub is in the front left corner. I have sound absorbing material behind all three front speakers and on the 1st reflection side of the front side walls. Since the SVS's are sealed, I don't have to get them away from the walls. I am using the Denon 2807(?)with the Audessey Multi EQ for speaker settings. I find this arrangement to be very good. I hope to use the Room EQ Wizard to get a graph soon. I will get some pics up soon, also. This room isn't very big, but, it sure sounds great! Hope this helps. Dennis

[Josuah]

Just because the SVS sub is sealed doesn't mean its position isn't creating the same problem a ported main speaker would create if it is too close to the wall. Rear ported having to be away from the wall is for the same reason the front drivers of a speaker would have to be away from the wall if they were facing the wall. It's just that most people don't point their speakers at the wall instead of at their face, so usually it's associated with rear porting. There are also speaker designs that have rear-facing drivers. These also need to be away from the wall to avoid problems.

Oops. I read bad. SVS sub isn't sealed. And he was talking about the speakers being near the walls, not the sub.

[russ.will]

Err?

His SVS SBS-01s are sealed, but his plus2 very definitely isn't, in light of which, you may be forced to edit the above comments.

Please also bear in mind that the average UK room is smaller than the average US room. My room is broadly the same area as the OP's, but my 'floorstanders', inspite of their quality, are little more than a very compact standmounts in a cabinet that goes all the way to the floor. My driver compliment is exactly the same size as the SVS SBS-01s for instance.

It's also worth noting that we don't get many of the US brands in Europe, in the same way that you don't get many of the European brands. We both get each others mainstream brands, but unless you can hunt down real niche stockists, or are prepared to do a personal import (without the benefit of a demo), then a lot of the best products may be well off the radar.

Russell

[rcarlton]

The Cannon Principle: "A room is too small if you can't get the speaker through the door."

"It is important to take into account the directivity of the system. A tightly controlled pattern greatly reduces involving the room. Systems with high/controlled directivity are not as bothered by the size of the room. With low-end gain, a small room can give excellent loading, increasing how low the system will go. A small room can then be at an advantage." (Paraphrased some of the musings of a Klipsch engineer.)

[Josuah]

I have a pair of floorstanding Castle Avon's and yeah, they are a 2-way with two drivers, so basically the enclosure adds some low frequency extension (since they're ported too) but otherwise acts as an expensive stand. My Monitor Audio S8's have two bass drivers, one mid, and a tweeter though.

Note you can still have problems with "wall mounting" or placing monitors too close to the wall if the wall starts acting as a reflective surface. I had problems with my Monitor Audio Sfx surrounds being a little incoherent when they were wall mounted, despite being designed for that. They were better off ceiling mounted away from the wall (and ceiling).

And while a small room can be an advantage in providing room gain, that room gain equates to more (constructive) reflections before the frequency decays, which gives you a low frequency boost but at the expense of accuracy. Based on my knowledge and personal experience anyway.