Speakers for your room - it matters!

How can you measure the room? You have to put a speaker in there to begin with and measure it's performance in the room. Which in any case will only be valid below the transition frequency. There's no way to measure without first getting a speaker. And all speakers will measure differently in the same room.

I agree most forum recommendations are worthless, being along the lines of 'Use what I use' or 'Use what I am wanting to sell.'  Plus most people on forums don't have the first clue what they are doing and learnt everything they think they know from reading  what hi-fi and other advertising brochures. I'd rather you didn't lump my advice in with theirs.

I think the point is being made that Macca has given a genuine view that the Yamaha would be a good speaker to listen to with a view to being a decent option for the OP . Macca then give his reasons and view point on the Yamaha speakers. Oli who has used and heard those very same speakers has a very different view of both the Yamahas and the best way forward. Oli,s view has recently changed along with his speakers and having followed the method he details to chose his next speaker . From what I gather this has been the right way for Oli to get the best music in his room .

I do not read in to this that Oli was questioning the competence of the advice or that Macca had no real knowledge to offer , but as it proved we are all different and our view of speakers are probably the areas were we differ most . I have and use a pair of Harbeth Compact monitors and knowing the design thought about the cabinets use very light rigid stands (Torlyte) to allow the vibration to ground to earth as quickly as possible . So for my use they work very well .

I would also say that unlike both Macca and Oli and certainly unlike Jason I made my choice of speakers without any of the rigor and knowledge they all bring to their choices. My choice came about after years of believing that I could not possibly use Quad ESL 57 in my room because I had been told that they can not be used close to a wall they will only image in one sweet spot and they are unable to do any bass . All of this is possibly true for other people with other rooms and I thought it the case . Till I bought a Quad 405 for my two way active and listened to his Quads hard against a wall and the gap behind them filled with boxes of used hifi gear . They sounded very good . So i bought a pair had them fully serviced and then tried to place them in my room as far from a back wall as I could . I then used DIRAC Live dsp to adjust for all the things I was expecting and I did get a decent sound . But there were niggling issues and then I cam across the Aircraft Anti Vibration units and got the Quads on them . Without DSP they now sounded more balanced and neutral . Then over a full day they were moved and listened to until they ended up in the position I have them one side (inner) very close to the wall behind the speaker and the other (outer) side about 13 inches away which gives the toe in . I love the sound and I think it sounds amazing on all the music I play . I find the sound transparent and involving . My wife likes the music it produces and the only other person who has listened to it thinks it now sounds much better than ever.

I would guess that if Oli , Macca or Jason came and heard my system they would all be less than impressed and would all have areas they would say could be improved . They would all be right I am sure but I love what music comes out and it suits me it is not made to impress visitors or to follow a method or to deal with issues in my room . It is there to play my music and make me smile or cry or sometimes even laugh . I know that if I measured the room I would identify issues and there could well be things like room sound panels that could be put in place to make the sound better . But those i have seen used are an eye sore and neither Linda or I would be happy sitting looking at them . There are probably better speakers I could use but I suspect they would be really expensive and give only marginal gains .

I think what I am trying to say is that from my reading all on here give there honest opinion and advice to try and answer questions and help . The main issue will always be we are all different , wel all like different music and we all have a different view of what that music sounds like . We need to accept this and then not be surprised if others do not agree .

macca

I'm certainly not lumping your advice with the usual nonsense spouted on forums.

Obviously you can't measure a room without speakers, but as Jason said...room modes are what kill the sound/performance in most rooms. Once you know what you are having to deal with, you can choose speakers more effectively....surely that was obvious fromy post?

My view from owning Yams is that actually I think they are quite veiled and lack the timbral qualities that I think Jazz and Classical music need. My listening impression of living with these speakers is as valid as yours when you heard them. You enjoyed what you heard, I did too when I heard a pair at MCRU...I bought a pair and they didn't work in my room due to boomy bass and lack of timbral qualities. Inescapable truths of not being able to control the output from the lower half of the speaker.

That's why offering up speaker suggestions is always useless unless you have all the speakers in the room and can try them. This is a massive undertaking and costs you money. Money you rarely get back.

Personally, I went down the buy and try every speaker I could....it didn't work. If you have a difficult room, you need to know how to solve the puzzle, and dropping random speakers into it won't get you there. That's my experience anyway.

Hi, I use REW.

Thank you. I try to do some measurements in my room with an exisiting speaker. The Troels Nextel looks promising.

EDIT: Your built is mouthwatering. audioaddictsforum.com/thread/3228/mini-vaders-troels-gravesen-nextel

I did hear your system with the stacked KEFs at the Wigwam show in Stoke, and very good it was too. Maybe a little bit hot in the mids for me, but that's personal taste.

I did make the point further up the thread that it's hard to recommend speakers due to personal taste. I have been at dems where I thought the speakers so poor I would not have taken them away if they paid me. But others at the same demo loved them. There's no accounting for it but it's a fact.

Weighed against that is the Harman preference research which showed around 80% of people, when tested blind, liked the same presentation. Of course that 20% who didn't is a lot of people, so you can never assume. 

(The also found people's preferences sometimes changed when they couldn't see the speaker they were listening to. We all listen with our eyes and our built-in bias to some extent).

We were asked to recommend three way speakers for use in a fairly small room, I recommended a speaker which is universally acclaimed and still competes with the best available today. 


I have had plenty of listening time with NS1000 and NS1000M and heard them sound both bad and sublime. I won't go into the reasons, but just because Oli could not get them working to his liking in his incredibly difficult room does not make them a bad speaker.  Should someone not bother to consider them based on one man's experience in one room? You just argued otherwise yourself!

He could have got some, tried them, loved them. Or hated them and moved them on for what he paid since they are easy to sell. If there's a better way of auditioning speakers I'd like to hear it.

Okay so as it turns out, the man doesn't like Yamaha. Fair enough, at least he was given a suggestion that followed his brief. I mean what more do you want from me.

Yep, there are always variations, but they all roughly follow the same peaks and nulls. None worked well in the bass in there. The red actually sounded better for a lot of music as it didn't excite the 32Hz mode that much (it was the only down ported design).

Hello, good question.  Generally, no - the midrange XO would remain as is.  

Ideally, you would choose a 3 way which has a XO between the bass and mid around 200-400Hz.  I (personally) would rather not have DSP (Hypex) doing too much of the midrange.   It looks like the Fusion 22 have a bass/mid XO point around 400Hz.

I also think the Faital-12-430 could be very good option.   Troels describes this as his favourite 3WC - it is his 'stock' speaker.  It looks like this has a Bass/mid XO at 300Hz.

Given you only had a small room at Stoke you still had one of the best set ups (although that's obviously based on just a ten minutes or so listen in each room). I gave the prize to Orbscure with his Acuphase/Omar (?) set up - that really was a sound totally to my taste. He'd got those speakers for next to nothing too IIRC.


You taking the KEFs this time or will it be the ESL?

Doubt I will go as just too awkward to get there without a car. It's like 3 changes on the train.

The Stoke one was just a ten minute stroll from my house.