struggling with small room setup

[Vansloneker]

I think this will fit very well in the Room For Improvement sub-forum.


For the sake of my health I had to make an urgent move and for the time being will have to do with a much smaller house with a much smaller living.

For now I came up with this setup:


Note: my drawings are not accurately scaled.

The 103cm from the wall is about 1/5th of the room's 508cm. Toe-in now is 4cm.
Putting the speakers at the opposite wall is not possible because of the back door that has to be frequently used.
Putting the speakers in front of the windows as I understand is not preferred but it would have the benefit of having more sound to the kitchen what I do enjoy during cooking.
The sideboard on the left wall has the TV-set on it.

The house came with laminated floors and that combined with concrete walls is good for horrible acoustics to start with. I have put down carpets in the seating area and under the dining table and a couple of pieces of Styrofoam I had at hand at the wall behind the speakers. This improved the situation.
The two windows will get net curtains.

There are low frequency problems. Particulars tones are very emphasised. Like the bass on J.J. Cale's 'Cocaine' and I also had the issue with a Jimmy Smith recording, a particular tone from the Hammond organ.

On the other hand, there is no real low bass. Even when crancked up the sub-woofer is not heard. It does work, I can feel the cone vibrating. I have the same with a less refined sub-woofer connected to the TV-set: no low.
I can only suppose the wave-lenght will not fit inside the small room.

In the highs, I miss a sparkle. I had first connected the big amp, then the Advance that does sound fancier but I still miss a sparkle from the highs.
Not sure if it's me or something else.

Good thing about the house is that the division walls to the next houses are double and separated.

[Zardoz]

Sorry to hear you had a need for a move. Hopefully, some experimenting will help your bass and high end, not to mention the addition of rugs and wall covering.
Good listening,
Z

[Vansloneker]

Thank you for your kind words, Zardoz.

I've never been very aware of room acoustics, but suddenly it all dropped into place.

[Vansloneker]

I have moved the Centaurs several centimeters more away from the wall and apart.
On the amp I replaced the pre-out to power-in jumpers for a pair of Audioquest jumpers.
And I discovered on the subwoofer the fool-proof Neutrik connector wasn't connected properly somehow the cone would vibrate but not from a proper music-signal . Now it actually produces notes again.

All this has lead to at least some kind of a sound. There still is less low, the Centaurs lean much more on the sub as they used to.

[Vansloneker]

Sitting on the floor in front of the speaker, approximately the distance as from the speakers to the wall gave a good experience. Not a full sound stage, but strong vocals and left/right experience. I have experienced this only once before, with Calipers (not mine) in what was a reasonably sized room.

So moving back the listening seat to twice the distance wall-speakers did something but not quite "it".
I plan to move them a little more apart.

I went back to Big Amp. Switching on Class-A with this amp is really an on or off experience compared to "AB".