Large living room Speaker suggestions

[gorfeas]

Hi everyone,
I need suggestions for a built given the following room & equipment parameters.

SOURCES
Luxmann PD-272 TT & Nagaoka MP-110 Phono cartridge
Crappy budget sony cd-player
HTPC with SB Audigy 4 soundcard (playing FLAC on foobar2000/win7/WASAPI)

AMP
refurbished McIntosh MA6100 integrated amplifier

CURRENT LOUDSPEAKERS
DIY Ariel Mk5. Detailed description here (greek only, sorry)
DIY BLH with Fostex FE103 with suggested fostex enclosure. Detailed description here (greek only, sorry)

ROOM - DIMENSIONS
Our living room is an open large space. As you can see in the attached floorplan.gif, the distance between speakers is 3m, and the distance from the listening point is about 3.9m. There is NO back wall were the speakers are located.

FAVORITE MUSIC
I listen mainly to classical chamber music, acoustic and vocal jazz, traditional arabic and oriental. In general I prefer small groups than large orchestras. Some classic rock albums as well. In general you might say I don't need a Boombox machine.

I haven't been able to tame my pair of Ariels. I have tried tweeking the chamber, the x-over, positioning, height adjustment etc. They just won't deliver the bass and midrange is too present. However I absolutely LOVE the Scan-Speak D2905/9500 tweeter. It is super smooth and vocals come out really nice. I also find the 3d imaging of the Ariel quite satisfactory.

As for the pair of Fostex BLH, they are a great achievement for the price, however the space is way to big for the poor fe103's. They do excel when playing acoustic guitar or trumpet solos. Their imaging is amazing, however the sweet spot is very narrow.

CONLCUSION

• I need/want to build a pair of speakers that will address the following issues:
• Lack of deep bass from the Ariels
• Smooth vocals and winds as in both the Ariel and the Fostex
• Greater 3d image
• and perhaps the ability to listen to music while dinning at the opposite side of the listening position

Considering all the above I was thinking maybe of trying to find an omni-directional solution. I am open to your suggestions and consider complicated woodwork fun.
thanks in advance

[pski]

budget?

[ScottG]

Greater 3D imaging will be difficult, both designs you are currently using are rather excellent in that regard.

My suggestion: Multiple (mono) subs with digital eq. and a very good high pass crossover to filter out the lower freq. content of the speakers you have.

This should marginally improve the mid and treble band (via the high-pass filter) of your speakers.

The subs should dramatically improve the soundstage (in size), provide more dynamic capability, etc..

[mayhem13]

magnepan 1.7s and a pair of sealed subs.

[mdocod]

I'm sure you'll get lots of great ideas, but I did want to point out a possible misconception based on what you have shared thus far...

Vocal are not generally reproduced by tweeters in a significant way. In fact, the highest vocals in the most extreme opera scenarios rarely exceed ~1500hz. With that in mind, if you like the way the vocals sound on your current system, you may want to explore what specific component it is that is doing the right stuff for your ears in this particular application. You're saying the system has "too much mid" but then saying how wonderful the vocals sound, which is generally handled at the mid-range.

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Having taken a quick glance at the 2 speakers you have linked to there. I would say based purely on driver surface area alone, that there is just not enough displacement available in either of those speaker designs to fill out the bottom end in such a large room, especially if they are placed out in the middle where they get basically no half or quarter space loading advantages.

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I would be the type to start from scratch. Pick some drivers, build some boxes, then make adjustments to the crossover as needed to get them to sound the way I like. Most here will probably tell you to build a proven design. It's up to you Based on the speaker placement in the room there, I would be building a pair of bi-amped 3-ways with the mid-highs pointed either straight up, or a set on both front and back of each box, then a low-range driver mounted on the side of each box.

I also like the idea of simply adding a pair of subs to the current system to a limited degree.

Eric

[fabel]

Hey gorfeas,

may be something like this:



NaO Note preview

Click yourself through here:

Ultimate OB GALLERY

or here:

OMNI Gallery


Cheers Fabian

[Radugazon]

Hi Gorfeas, just an opinion :

Your room is not symmetric, one speaker is close to a side wall, the other one is close to a big pillar but far from the reflecting boundaries. In these conditions, if you try an omni you will be deceived, the right channel will always have more presence.

Considering this and the huge volume that stays behind your speakers, I think that trying a dipole is the best for bass and midbass ( the figure of 8 radiation will not illuminate too much the right wall and you will not be troubled by the back wave). This could be better than the cardioid of the Note pictured up there. With the same logic, for the highs, maybe you have to think Horns (or why not bipolar horns ?).

a lot of inspiration can come from gainphile's works on the subject

[Pano]

And here is yet another opinion. Get the sofa away from the wall! You need space behind you. You have all the space you need behind and to one side of the speakers, maybe too much for some (like open baffle) but you need more space behind your head.

The room looks very hard and reflective (thanks for the photo) and that can't be helping. In fact, you may have a very long reverberation time in the mid-range. That can skew the tonal balance. I would look long and hard at speaker placement and acoustical room treatments before getting new speakers.

If it were my room I'd flip the position of the sofa and speakers, do a good bit of acoustic treatment in that part of the room and get a very heavy curtain to pull over the glass for serious listening sessions. That should go a looong way to better sound from the same speakers.

[lduarte1973]

I would do what Pano said and then cant you ask someone to lend you a active subwoofer before descarding your speakers ?

if you feel there are too much mids that means there´s not enough bass maybe all you need is some low end , that happened to me.

[fastbike1]

My thoughts as well. The easy start is to exchange the position of the sofa and speakers.

Originally Posted by Pano

And here is yet another opinion. Get the sofa away from the wall! You need space behind you. You have all the space you need behind and to one side of the speakers, maybe too much for some (like open baffle) but you need more space behind your head.

The room looks very hard and reflective (thanks for the photo) and that can't be helping. In fact, you may have a very long reverberation time in the mid-range. That can skew the tonal balance. I would look long and hard at speaker placement and acoustical room treatments before getting new speakers.

If it were my room I'd flip the position of the sofa and speakers, do a good bit of acoustic treatment in that part of the room and get a very heavy curtain to pull over the glass for serious listening sessions. That should go a looong way to better sound from the same speakers.