Swapped long wall to short wall and now I am having some big issues


I have a 14.5 x 27 ft x 8' room (it is narrower at 12 ft (the last 6 ft on the end where I have the speakers)


I had my system aligned on the long wall with the rack in between the speakers.

The speakers were 9' offset from listening position and the side wall were so far away (and had two record cabinets) that they were out of the equation.  I had real traps mondo bass traps in the corners and GIK art panels to handle slap echo.

The sound was excellent - great tonality, dynamics, imaging. The only issues I had were a limited listening area and not back enough for full speaker driver integration.


After listening to a friends system in a 12x23 room - old home with wood construction I was a gasp. His system was short wall and there was great integration with easily 2 rows of 3 people could sit and listen. It was a very relaxing and engaging experience.


Fast forward. I made the move. knocked out a closet in the corner. Removed one of 2 floor to ceiling record racks, a Wurlitzer jukebox, and Victrola.  I placed the equipment racks on the opposite side wall.  The speakers were set up 2 feet from the walls in front of the two corner bass traps. The sound was dreadful.  The once luscious mids were thin and highs (1.2-3khz) were bright and cymbals were brittle, hard strumming acoustic guitars and brass sounded terrible as well.  If the music got dynamic - it sounded terrible.


The vinyl was bad - cd atrocious.


I went ahead and took all the acoustic panels out except the GIK art panels.


I did some research and bought some GIK Impression 2' 2" panels for first reflection  and GIK Impression 1' 4" diffuser/bass panels for the front corners allowing absorption from the back.  This was much better but still way off.  I moved the speakers out from the wall and then the instrument subtle details snapped into place - at 6 ft this was most apparent however it developed a very bloated mid bass.


I am looking for ways to tame the high end and mid bass but bring out the mid range,  I do not want to over treat.

This in incredibly frustrating as I had my sound very refined and the short wall setup should theoretically produced better results.  I would be interested in your comments and suggestions.


Thank You

128x128audiotomb

Showing 2 responses by skywachr

Before you do a lot of radical stuff, try something simple. Here it is. Position your right or left speaker, depending on orientation of the room near a corner as you normally would, preferably elevated. If the first speaker for example is the right, move left in the room from there and skip the corner you come to entirely. Keep moving in that direction until the next corner and place the left speaker there as you would if both speakers were associated with that shared wall. Place your listening position between them approximately on the diagonal of the room. Hope this helps. You may be surprised.
Tom,

So sorry to have confused you in my description. Best way to describe is to label on paper each corner of the room moving clock wise as A and B for the first corner. Moving clockwise again label the next corner of room as C and D and so on clockwise with each corner as E/F and G/H. Let's say right speaker is placed at position E. In that configuration the left speaker would be placed at position B. These assume normal poisoning of the speaker in each case. Once you mark those 2 locations on paper the gist of what I am suggesting should be clearer. Thanks for your patience. I will pm you as well