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Help define my listening room size for speakers

Hello,

I have read some information online and in books that talks about the importance of room size when shoping for speakers. I have attached a schematic of my current listening room at the bottom of this post which shows its current layout, dimensions and volume that I am working with.

Currently I use a pair of Legacy Audio Signature III towers powered by a PASS Labs x250 amp which does a fine job of delivering the goods in terms of SQ and SPL output in this room. My dilema is that I am stuck with what I would consider a fairly close seating postion and probably a less then ideal speaker positioning layout in regards to wall boundaries. At the end of the day I guess it is what it is and I have no plans of moving so I must make due with these room dimensions.

The part that I am stuggling to understand is how to properly categorize the size of my listening room for the purposes of choosing an ideal new speaker size and type. The immediate listening area is fairly confined but does open up to a much larger room which increases the total volume of the area in general.

How would you categorize the size of this listening room based on the dimensions and information shown in the drawing? I would like to upsize my current Legacy towers to something bigger if I can get away with it but at the same time i don't want to overload the room I sit in to the point of it being detrimental to potential SQ.

Does the fact that the room opens up to a much larger area buy me anything in terms of being able to upsize or am I still limited due to the fact that I am stuck sitting 7ft away at best from the front plane of any speaker I decide to purchase?

To put this question in better context I have listed a few of the larger speakers I have been eyeballing lately:

1. Legacy Audio Focus SE
2. Eggleston Andras
3. B&W 802D
4. Kef 207/2
5. Thiel 3.7

My initial thought is that if I stick to a speaker of somewhat similar dimensions to the Legacy Sig III's (12x12) I may be OK upsizing but any of the deeper dimensioned speakers may put me too close to the drivers as may be the case in a speaker like the deep KEF 207/2's

Thanks for any input you can offer

ListeningRoomPic
eniac26

Showing 1 response by rgs92

rgs92
974 posts
 
Gee whiz, my room is similar to yours and I also sit at about
7-8 feet from the plane of the speakers that are about 2 feet at most from the wall in back of them (except I have more room to the sides, as they speakers are on the long wall).

I had major boom or lower midrange overload with big VSR 7s and also Piega P10s and had to sell them. Wilson WP6s worked just fine with no booming (sold them because I didn't like the
vocals, but that was true of the WPs anywhere for me).
The speaker I had longest and worked fine there were Aerial 10ts, along with Apogee Stages. Now Harbeth SHL5s work perfectly there. I still may move on from the Harbeths because I want more resolution. Oh, I also had Kharma 3.2s there for a while, and they were fine with no boom or other room-related issues. Long ago, I had little Celestion SL6s there with no problem.

I used a Pass X350 with the Aerials, now an Edge NL12.1.

So I think your room is OK for a lot of speakers, don't worry too much.
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