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My Home Speakers, My Car, and Me...The Ballad of What's Going Wrong?

Okay, so tell me what's going wrong.

My new dedicated room is 13x12x8. It's small. Bare walls. Hard tile floor. Windows on the front wall.

I have some loaner speakers in there at the moment while my other speakers are on order. Right now I have Dynaudio Focus 340s. They are 7ft apart from one another, 29" from the side walls, and 19" from the front wall. I am sitting 9.5ft from the speakers with a glorious center image.

I have ran room correction via my Linn KDS/3, called "Space Optimization." It works very well.

Yet, here I am listening, and verything I put on gives me anxiety. Literally a vibratory feeling that sucks.It's maybe half of a song in and I'm feeling this way.

And I think to myself, "When I'm in my car, cranking my music, why don't I feel the same?" I feel fine in the car. Perfect, even.

So, why would I be feeling this way in my room?

I question if I naturally need to sit further back from the speakers (which I can't do: I'm out of space/room). It seems my best speaker experiences are when I'm at a friend's house and either I'm a really good distance away from the speakers, or the room is very large and/or the speakers are much further apart. All of this, of course, is contrary to what I experience in my car.

Then I think, well, let me try some near field listening with my speakers, and I end up with the same anxious feeling. 

There's really only one more thing I can try, and that is to move all of my gear into the parlor, which is a much bigger room. I couldn't leave my stuff there, because the wife wouldn't want it, but at least I could experiment to see if a greater distance from the speakers will be better. However, that doesn't answer my question of why I feel fine in my auto with the music blaring in such a confined space.

Could it be that a sealed up listening space, full of soft stuff, is optimal?

Here is a diagram of my room (if it matters).

http://imgur.com/PC8LyVX


Thanks for nay thoughts. It's driving me batty.
evolvist
auxinput
2,920 posts
 

I would first look at putting in the absorption panels.  Twelve 1' x 1' panels are not a lot.  A standard size 24" x 48" panel is equal to about 8 of those.  It's better then nothing, though.  It may help cut down some of the slap echo.  Check out GIK Acoustics if you are interested in larger size absorption panels for a very economical price.

Once you have the absorption up, be very careful with diffusion.  Certain types of diffusion panels, such as QRD or skyline, can cause cancelling of some frequencies and boosting of other frequencies, especially when they are mounted very close to you in a very small room.  If they are just generic reflectors (such as the pyramid style diffusion), then it may be less of a problem.

Also, I noticed that your room is almost perfectly square (12 x 13).  A square room is actually the worst acoustic situation because of the equidistant walls creating standing waves in both directions.  A better room would be more of a rectangle shape.  :). Though sometimes we have no control over this.

asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,266 posts
 
Standing waves....MHO.

You can change the EQ, but ultimately not how the room responds to certain frequencies.  As noted, 'damping' the room's surfaces will help but not change the fundamentals and the resonances they create.

If possible, run some test sweeps with a generator, running a calibrated mic on an RTA.  Find out where those peaks are, and adjust eq to trim response 'down' slightly at those fundamentals.

The cheaper alternative is to 'do the math' based on the room dimensions and experiment with the results.

It'll beat doing drugs or alcohol in the long run...one tends to forget what and why you're there, and where did I leave that.... :)
handymann
380 posts
 
I had a similar room at one time.  It may be out of the question, but can you reverse your room where your listening position is in front of the windows?  You really need at least a few feet between you and the back wall.  Of course, as has been mentioned, room treatment is of paramount importance.  I would find a way to cover the glass. Maybe you can make it portable.  A soft surface on the floor and absorbers for side wall reflections.  Diffusers and absorbers work well in breaking up the sound. If you place absorbers/diffusers in back of you, it will make your room "sound" larger. Maybe some QRD-11's or 13's. Check for room nodes and try to compensate.  It will take a lot of experimenting.  Don't forget the ceiling.  You need something up there to break up the sound.  
shoresaudio's avatar
shoresaudio
20 posts
 
Keep in mind that "room correction" software only fixes one single point in your room.  Move a few inches, and the sound is now *more* out of whack there, and all other places in the room for that matter.  It does nothing to cure any standing waves, reflections, etc.  It should be used as an absolute last resort, not as a crutch to take the lazy way out from treating a room properly (as many owners of typical home theater receivers do).  
ethiessen1's avatar
ethiessen1
61 posts
 
I would echo Handymann's suggestion of inverting the room with the speakers where you now have your sofa and the sofa where you have the speakers..
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