New music room - What to do and what to build?

[HiFiNutNut]

I have just bought my new house and will be moving in next month. The contract was signed and confirmed yesterday. This will be my dedicated music room. It is a pity it is smaller than the one I currently have.





I don't have sound measurement equipment. I did not feel any echo of sound in the room when I was inspecting the house. I believe it is quite a well damped room due to the construction materials of jig blocks and it is fully carpeted (it looks like wool carpet).

So what do you think? Does it need any room treatment? What would you do? Add in curtains? replace the carpet with timber floor?

I will build a pair of speakers for the room. I currently have a pair of WWMTMWW and the NaO. My old pair of Rogers / BBC Studio Monitor 1A are not up the job comparing to the other two. The NaO sounds very fine but I love really HIGH SPL. In my current 7.5m x 9.5m room the NaO does not deliver the thunders I want although perhaps it delivers most other things.

What would you consider the -3dB point of the woofer box for this room?

Would you use a closed box, dipole or hybrid?

Bill

[tktran303]

G'day Bill,

Have you considered the NaO in sealed box guise?

I've got a 6x9m room, opening into another side room, and decided to opt for the sealed 10" XLS NaO for higher SPL.

As for when it'll be completed?

It'll be done when it's done.

[Scottmoose]

Dipoles like JamesD's Quasars. http://web.mac.com/scress1958/iWeb/S...gFest_4_2.html

Or a pair of compact horns with a couple of small subs to handle the LF and super-tweeters for the top end. www.frugal-horn.com The Spawn double horns would be ideal given the space you have to the sides and rear.

[HiFiNutNut]

Hi, Guys, I have just come back from my Easter break.

I think the tricky bit is what sort of bass box I should have as I am worried that the bass can be lost in such a room.


Scottmoose,

Dipoles like JamesD's Quasars would be something for a small room I think. I can't see any photos in the Frugal's site. In any case, I have not had experience with horn speakers yet. According to many literatures I read horn speakers are generally coloured.

I like dipoles but unless I have measurement equipment I dare not to build something like Jussi's 4 way.

TkTran,

I have made some significant improvements over the NaO. I found that I did not wire it 100% correctly. I also tuned the passive XO to my own taste. It now can play louder and it is truly a remarkable speaker. The NaO is very accurate. Only if I play it at really high SPL the sound would not get compressed too much. You can work out the maths that at the XO point for the original NaO the woofers are boosted 9dB. You may find it suitable for your 6x9m room provided your room is not too damped. I would get 2x10" or 1x12" though. If space allows (I don't think so) I would have 2 x 12" at the bottom and change the XO point to be at 120Hz - 150Hz in which case there would be no issue with high SPL.

Regards,
Bill

[Scottmoose]

James's Quasars & their variations actually work pretty well in large halls as well as small spaces... I well remember listening to a pair of very fine ML TQWTs on one side of the Eggborough hall, and nearly having my head taken off by James firing up his Quasars on the other side with some ZZ Top -about 120 feet away. It's more the concept I'm suggesting than the speakers themselves. Ditto the horns.

Horns coloured? Yes & no. It depends on the design and also, probably, what people call colouration. Bad horn designs certainly are coloured -and a real problem with horns is there are lots of bad ones, and very few good ones. Balancing the QW & horn action is what makes it tricky. In a sense, they are colored, just as reflex & sealed cabinets are too, in their own ways. Some people can't stand them, (even the good ones) which is understandable enough as their presentation is rather different to most other speakers. Same goes for dipoles for that matter. Other people can't listen to anything else (apart from dipoles, oddly enough, considering they're diametrically opposites). As ever, YMMV

The Basszilla or Linkwitz Orion are also ideas you might want to explore, with your own take on them.