2. home-theater
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Room size

You read so many loudspeaker and subwoofer specifications and how they're rated for small, small to medium, medium to large, & large rooms. Would someone finally define for me what these sizes are dimensionally? My listening room is 23' x 13' x 8' high with two exits to other areas (uncloseable openings). Is this a small or medium size room? It's on a first floor slab, no basement (oversized family room). I am using a pr of B&W DM601 S3's, an ASW300 Subwoofer, and two B&W M-1 satellite speakers powered by a Marantz A/V receiver at 90 watts RMS/channel x 7. I got to tell you the system rocks !! Yet these speakers and sub are rated for "smaller" rooms. This sub is considered small and mediocre in power but I've got to tell you, it has one helluva a punch. You can feel it in your bones!! Please someone clear this up. Many thanks.
pdn
unsound
7,311 posts
 
medium?
jimburger
104 posts
 
In THX parlance, a large room is defined as anything larger than 4500 cubic ft. I think the parameter for small is anything smaller than 3500 cubic ft.
jimburger
104 posts
 
I should add that if the room is not enclosed, you need to add in all of the open cavaties as well. The basic cubic volume of your room is less than 2400 cubic ft, so it rates as a small room. The additional openings suck up some power, but I doubt you would notice it in your listening area.
flrnlamb
508 posts
 
Basically, your space is a typical small/medium domestic space, regarding the main listing/viewing area. However, as Jimburger mentioned, the adjoining open areas need to be considered as the ovearall space. These spaces act somewhat as a bass trap that sucks up more of the bass energy, all though not quite the same. The kicker here is that if your subwoofer is close to the wall boundaries in a given space, it reinforces the bass output somewhat, maximizing the output for frequencies that have quarter wavelengths greater than the distance between the woofer/port and the boundaries! Basically, making your sub more powerful sounding, with tradeoffs. If you have a large space, and only a modest single subwoofer, this is often the best way to get closer to proper bass output for your system. Of course, that also means reinforcing the bass modes in your room, which needs to be delt with really. So there's trade-offss.
The ideal way to do it, is to have the proper amount of woofers and power in your system, have the woofers properly placed for more accurate/flat response, and get even more efficiency and impact from your system. Todays digital subs however, and basic analog as well, have parametric EQ's on board, which allows you to dial out the bass mode peaks from your listening possition(s?)! This greatly affects accuracy, and is a very valuable addition these days...very effective! Another route is using an onboard eq from some of these new pre/pro's and outboard processors, like the Audyssey stuff in the Denon.
Still, everything depends on setup, acoustics and calibration. If you like what you have, I wouldn't sweat it.
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