Moving out of my cave

[Floyddroid]

Well, after a lot of thought and numerous problems with room acoustics i have decided to move out of my man cave into a much smaller room. Not an easy decision to make i have to admit. As mentioned elsewhere my cave was starting to resemble a hi-fi shop and i was starting to get on my own nerves. My penchant for vintage turntables and duplicating the paraphernalia to have two turntables at one time has begun to overtake common sense.
So, i am at the planning stage. First thing to do is make some storage space for unused vintage turntables etc. In addition a clear out of unused equipment is in order, something i have already made a start on.
Hopefully by reducing the amount of equipment at my disposal will cease so much confusion too. I will give you updates of how i get on as and when it happens and what the results are. I thought when i moved my gear into such a large room i'd have it cracked but to be honest there's nowt the matter with smaller rooms. I always remember reading an article many years ago about Ken Kessler's listening room. He actually built his room a lot smaller than you would think. I am actually looking forward to down scaling things. Watch this thread for updates (If you are remotely interested of course)

http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n621/Progmeister/edingdales.jpg (http://s1143.photobucket.com/user/Progmeister/media/edingdales.jpg.html)

[brian2957]

:D:popcorn:

[Floyddroid]

Be patient Brian, it's gonna take a canny while.
:D:popcorn:

[Macca]

Steve I don't know if you have tried it but If I had that room I would have the speakers backing on to what I am guessing is a wall to the right, firing down the room, and the couch just before where the fireplace starts. Get the speakers about one fith (of the total room length) in to the room and the couch will be about the same from the other end excluding the bay. Then tweak from there.

If you have tried that already or you can't back the speakers onto that wall for some reason ignore me ;) But that should be a really good room.

[Floyddroid]

The room is a b.....d to get right Martin. I have had it set up as you have said and all manner of other ways too.
Steve I don't know if you have tried it but If I had that room I would have the speakers backing on to what I am guessing is a wall to the right, firing down the room, and the couch just before where the fireplace starts. Get the speakers about one fith (of the total room length) in to the room and the couch will be about the same from the other end excluding the bay. Then tweak from there.

If you have tried that already or you can't back the speakers onto that wall for some reason ignore me ;) But that should be a really good room.

[brian2957]

You'll get there mate . Just needs a bit of experimentation . What size is the new room BTW ?

My room is only 3m wide but is 8m long , however I'm only around 3m from the speakers and I absolutely love it . Not much room for other pieces of hifi so no decisions to make :D

[Firebottle]

Looks like we have the same taste Steve. That material that you have draped over the table in front of the sofa caused me to do a double take.

It is identical to some material chosen to cover a couple of occasional chairs :thumbsup:

Now I've just got to match your taste in speakers ;)

[jandl100]

Good luck, Steve.

I prefer to listen up close in a fairly near-field position. I even do that in larger rooms, as it stops the sound being swamped by its own long term echoes.
I've been to other audiophile folks' homes where the music was just a vague billowy cloud. They seemed to like it, but I wasn't impressed! :D
Seems kind of a waste spending ££££ on hi rez gear when you just smooth it all over by listening from too far away. :scratch:

Nowt wrong with a small room as long as the bass isn't overblown by speaker proximity to walls.

[awkwardbydesign]

Looks like we have the same taste Steve. That material that you have draped over the table in front of the sofa caused me to do a double take.

It is identical to some material chosen to cover a couple of occasional chairs :thumbsup:

Now I've just got to match your taste in speakers ;)

Fabric from Dunelm Mill? I nearly bought some too, but in the end used up what I already had.
As for turning the room around, wouldn't that ruin the atmosphere, and usability of the fire? Sometimes a room has to be used only one way round; mine is like that.

[Reffc]

Good luck with it Steve and probably quite liberating and sensible to down scale the amount in the collection as it can become quite obsessive! (says the man who had 7 pairs of speakers here at one point!). I think that your approach is probably the correct one for you, given the problems acoustically you've had getting things to sound acceptable. The only other suggestion is to keep the larger man-cave for the set up but invest in some acoustic treatment as just about every space benefits from some treatment which can make a huge positive difference. I'd only keep one deck, but perhaps have a few headshells for different cart choices to allow you to have a play. Best of luck with it anyway.

[zanash]

I see a number of hard edges ...fire place fire surround etc .....try less toe in so that none of the drivers are able "to see" these reflective edges...or maybe bring speakers about 150mm further out. I'm guessing its a suspended floor too ? so you want to reduce vibration getting into it ......try isolating the speaker from floor ...a quick and dirty method is to use bubble wrap under speakers ...but a lot depends how heavy they are to what you use. I also assume the wooden cones are for under the speakers .....? this will just improve vibration transmission into an unwanted area ....

[Floyddroid]

Mmm. Food for thought. Thanks Paul.
Good luck with it Steve and probably quite liberating and sensible to down scale the amount in the collection as it can become quite obsessive! (says the man who had 7 pairs of speakers here at one point!). I think that your approach is probably the correct one for you, given the problems acoustically you've had getting things to sound acceptable. The only other suggestion is to keep the larger man-cave for the set up but invest in some acoustic treatment as just about every space benefits from some treatment which can make a huge positive difference. I'd only keep one deck, but perhaps have a few headshells for different cart choices to allow you to have a play. Best of luck with it anyway.