room space


I have a living room in apartment with listening space of 4m (from listening coach to front wall where speaker stands) x 6m wide with the height of 3m.  I am planning to purchase a 2nd hand Dynaudio Contour 3.3. But I am afraid that such kind of not so large space, the bass might cause standing waves which make bass unclear or vibrating the floor which cause down floor inhabitants complain.  Do you have any idea for my condition? Or should  I buy a smaller one such as Contour 1.8 MK II? Tks. in advance.  
faust168
Dear All,  many tks. for your kind response.   To prevent troubles,I am planning to use a smaller one speaker such as Dyanaudio C1 or Contour 1.8 MKII as solution.

"Whitepapers are not sales brochures. They are written by the technical/engineering groups, not the sales and marketing groups."

Pure BS. I have yet to see otherwise. The marketing department gets their hands on everything that comes into contact with the customer. What's the first thing you see on the "white papers" you reference? All the different logo's of brands owned by Harmon, oversized and highlighted in a big box. Its not necessary because the "scientist" clearly identifies who he is and who he works for.

Regardless of all that Bob, we're stopping this right here. I've read several of your posts and I've seen nothing written by you that can even remotely help someone looking for advice. You're the guy that read a bunch of crap and now you're an expert. You go around making definitive statements about components you've never seen or heard. Audio doesn't work like that. If you want people to take you seriously, stop talking and start learning.

You'll no doubt pretend you have no idea what I'm talking about, so I'll do this 1 time, and that's it. 

"Assuming you listen to music that covers the entire audio band and you want to hear the entire audio band, then there will be room effects in the lower midrange and bass regions."

You can't know that unless you have complete knowledge of the room and system. For all you know the bass may be fine and the treble could be off.

"Sure, you can pick speakers that drop off that region of the audio band, but then you miss the foundation of music."

Same answer as before. Without further info its just a random comment.

"Rather than spending so much money on larger main speakers, reallocate the funds to include smaller main speakers and one or two subwoofers. You'll end up with a full range speaker system and the potential for a smoother bass response."

Once again, nothing can be done without a lot more info. These products are not generic and 2 speakers of the same size may preform completely different from each other.

"Keep this in mind as well... We place main speakers in a room for their imaging and sound staging effects. It's unlikely that such locations will also yield the best bass response. That's why some main speakers employ builtin parametric equalizers, .e.g, Vandersteen Model 5."

WE do nothing of the sort. That may apply to you, but I guarantee I set speakers up very different from what you do. 


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You have a good sized room, but I agree with gs556. You may not get the best bass response.
From the review, another situation...

"Had I been able, I would have preferred sitting even farther from the speakers. At 11’, I felt as if I was looking up onto the soundstage, which manifested itself several feet above the floor. This didn’t seem at all unnatural, but I suspect that if I could have sat a little farther back from the tweeter, which is mounted 43" from the floor, the soundstage would have appeared even lower."

I liked these speakers very much when I auditioned them in a very well treated room, so with that said, if you can get a good deal it’s worth trying them. 
Terrific imaging, you may need to play with position to get deep bass.
There's a big difference between reading about something in a magazine or sales brochure (white paper) and doing it for real. 
One thing that would concern me is the height of the 3.3's woofers in that size room. When there are two woofers and their dimensions from the floor are approximately the same as the distance from the side walls, that tends to throw off the in-room response in the upper bass and into the midrange. 


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that doesn't seem like what I would call a small room. I think you should be fine. 
some one else may be able to answer this better but would a speaker designed for corner placement be better suited for your room.

"We have Focal here which might be the another sister brand of JM Labs. The new Focal costs a lot for the high End models. In now days, you can't image why the hi-end is so expensive."

I think Focal is the right name. It used to be JM Labs made the finished speakers you go buy in an audio store and Focal just made raw drivers. I believe the 2 companies merged and they now call everything Focal. In the US they have some very expensive speakers, but they also have models that are very reasonable, and you can often find them on sale and get even better prices. But if you don't have any of these brands available to you, try the Dynaudio as long as you can sell them and not lose much money if they don't work. I would get the bigger of the 2 pairs (the 3.3's). You're less likely to have an issue with them. 

Assuming that your walls are 4m apart room will amplify 42.875Hz  - (about the lowest sound of the bass guitar).

   343/4/2=42.875

where 343m/s is the speed of the sound in dry air, 4m is the distance between the walls and 2 - because sound has to go forth (reflect from back wall) and back to add to sound produced by the speaker.  There would be peaks and valleys at different distances, since it is standing wave, but you can play 40Hz and walk around.  You can always attempt to decouple the speakers from the floor.  I used Vibrapods directly under speaker, but it made my narrow speakers very unstable.  You might want to use something like Vibrapods with large granit or marble plate and then speakers on the spikes.  Vibrapods have weight rating, but there are many others similar.  I placed pods with higher rating in the front (front of the speaker is heavier).  It is easy to measure with weight scale.  Vibration is also a function of speaker construction.  My new speakers are standing on the spikes directly on the floor and I cannot feel or hear any floor vibration (basement underneath).

"Maybe you should consider 2 or 2.5 way speakers to reduce potential overhang bass."

How do you come up with that? Unless you are referring to a specific speaker? A well designed 3 or 4 way speaker can easily deal with bass issues that a typical 2 or 2.5 way can't. The overall design is far more important than generic features.

There is no point is buying a "smaller" speaker. It is about how low the speaker plays. That is the sad truth of it. A smaller driver just moves more than a larger one and will have more distortion (generally) than the larger one at the same volume.  

Now a speaker that does not go as deep would help. 
Maybe you should consider 2 or 2.5 way speakers to reduce potential overhang bass. 
Nice speakers, but may be too much for your room. Possibly may work with the proper acoustic treatments.
Read the review, his room is larger than yours..

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/262/#j68wmTDzE8SOoS3F.97

mgreen 27:

Tks for your response and opinions. In addition to the accomodation to fit the room space with ideal sound, I also need to consider about the speaker's re-sell value.  Dyanudio seems having better re-sale value in my area in the far east. We have audio physics here in Taiwan but the brand awareness and sales is so so. As for the Monitor Audio, it is made in China now.  That is obviously the down point. We have Focal here which might be the another sister brand of JM Labs.  The new Focal costs a lot for the high End models. In now days, you can't image why the hi-end is so expensive. 

You may want to pick a different brand. Dynaudio has always had some issues with bass. Every time I've set them up, I always got that one note type of bass. Some people refer to it as a "hump" in the bass. If I had to choose between the 2, I would get the 3.3 over the 1.8.

If you're open to different brands, a pair of Vandersteen Model 2 or 3's would be ideal. The quality of bass if excellent, and they give a lot of placement and correction options. But I'm guessing you live somewhere in Europe so you may not have access to Vandersteen. JM Labs, Audio Physic and Monitor Audio are brands that you probably have access to and you'll have a much easier time getting the bass right.