speaker placement question

[vn800_b]

My Model 14's are presently in my living room competing for airtime with the television (I've got a wife and a 3-year old who prefer watching over listening). As such, I'm considering moving my audio system into my office/study. Given that the room is small (12' x 11') and I want to retain its function as an office/study, I was thinking of mounting the speakers on the wall. In order to achieve this, I am planning to make 9842 cabinets.

What am I trading off by mounting my speakers on the wall vs placing them on the floor away from the walls (image, depth, soundstage)? Will standing waves be a problem?

I observed that most recording studio control rooms have their main speakers (not the engineer's nearfield monitors) mounted on/in the walls. Is there something in the way they mount these speakers or set-up the control room that makes wall mounting work? Or, is hi-fi listening a totally different experience from the producer's listening position in a control room?

Thanks!

Edrik

[MikeInNH]

Option two is to rebuild them. I rebuilt my Model-15's to match our furniture in our living room. The speakers are taller and skinnier, but have the same internal volume. In fact my design could work perfectly for you speakers since they use the same 12" woofer.

The skinnier speakers give you more options in speaker placement.

[Steve Burger]

You will lose some bass but it's better than buying some Klipsch Heresy's or something.

[vn800_b]

Hi Guys! Thanks for the replies.

I don't mind losing some bass as long as nothing along the frequency response is muddled. I read somewhere that soffit mounting might be better but aside from spending on building the soffit, I will have to buy/build LF absorbers for the back.

The second option sounds good but I want to avoid that for now given the shortage of real estate in the small room.

[GM]

>I don't mind losing some bass as long as nothing along the frequency response is muddled.
====
Between the beaming of a large driver and the controlled directivity of the horn this shouldn't be an issue.
====
>I read somewhere that soffit mounting might be better but aside from spending on building the soffit, I will have to buy/build LF absorbers for the back.
====
Yes, there's a similar gain to soffit loading as a wall/floor location. If the speakers will be firing straight at the opposite wall, you'll need more than some dinky ones to go behind a tilted speaker if you don't have a large bookcase or similar to break up standing waves.

GM

[vn800_b]

thanks for the feedback and suggestions. here is where i'm at:

- decided against rebuilding cabinets or converting to 9842.

- decided to keep them in the living room which is approximately 13' wide x 40' deep.

they are about 4' from the front wall (or is it back wall? can't seem to get that right) but i'm thinking of building a cabinet on the wall and mounting the 14's flush to the front of the cabinet (almost like being soffit mounted, i guess).

question is, if the opposite wall is 40' away, what will be my issues on standing waves?

[wilcal]

> Given that the room is small (12' x 11')

I have found that the biggest detriment to
good sound in a small room is the close field
reflections or retransmission of the acoustic
energy. A rug on the floor with a heavy pad
under it helps a lot. There is lots of room
treatment stuff out there but simply
attaching a 24inx36inx1in form pad (cover it
with some nice material) strategically at first
wall bounce also helps a lot. A bookcase filed
with lots of different size books on the wall
behind the listener breaks up most of the
midrange standing waves.

One of the more interesting room mods, and
really does work, is placement of a pillow
into the upper right and left corners of
the room. If you acoustically energize any
room that energy will reradiate from all
eight corners. That reradiation could in
fact be louder then the speaker sources
themselves. By stuffing pillows into as
many corners as you can get to the pillows
absorb most of that energy. It will have
a damping effect, reduce room ring and
enhance sound field focus. A small pillow,
12inx12in is all that's needed.

But this comes with a price. Wives sometimes
hate it. What the heck are the pillows
doing in the corners. And visitors
to the room will wonder what the heck
are those for.

Wilcal

[GM]

>they are about 4' from the front wall (or is it back wall? can't seem to get that right)

====

If you're facing it when listening, it's the front wall.

====

>question is, if the opposite wall is 40' away, what will be my issues on standing waves?

====

The longer the room, the lower the 1st mode, the greater the acoustic energy, and the more harmonics before it decays away into the room's noise floor, ergo it's more of an issue, though how much it affects your perception of 'good bass' and the speaker's response can only be determined by moving the system outdoors with the speakers placed up against a house wall that points away from any solid boundaries for at least a 100ft.

That said, in a small room you need a diffuse or well damped rear wall for mids/HF absorption, but in a 40ft room, this isn't an issue since it will decay enough over the distance.

GM

[HiFiPlayer]

Edrik

Here have some of my similar cases for you to reference.

I have a small bed room ( 12?L x 10?W ). I used it as my private AV room when living room has a lot of peoples as family or friends invitation. There has LCD projector w/80? screen, multi-disc player, CDP, DAC, J.A. Michell and Micro RX1500 turntables, pre-amps, huge power amps, a set of surround sound system, turner?.etc.

Usually, I only enjoy music and to do some experiments in this 2nd Hi-Vi room. There was placed JBL 4430, 4340, L100, ESS AMT Monitor, Infinity RS-1, RS-2 etc. Then got a very good sound stage, image and focus, even fixed the problem of over bass. However, main speaker has been replaced a pair EV Sentry 500 finally. It provides 99db w/m, 40 to 18kHz original. I modified it to 4ways from 2ways, sounds unbelievable great; I think that it has about 92% near to the 515B with 288B plus JBL slot UHF. Though It such good but I have decided to replace all original drivers to Altec 414s, 802D w 511B or 288B w 511E, sub and UHF will choice later. I?ve building 400Hz XO and testing.

My room treatments:

1. 2? Sonex foams on front wall. From floor to half, remains upper size for screen.
2. thick wool cloths as curtains to covered the windows and size walls.
3. yews with thick wool cloths covered.
4. placed an 1 inch thick wool carpet. But didn?t cover to the speaker stands bottom.
5. only one under 18? height cabinet placed for turntables and CD players. Others components just placed on the floor. But with some wall mounted shelves for placing magazines and some garnishes.
6. there has about 24 ? between front wall to speaker, seats and back wall also.
7. employed speaker stand and conic stands.
8. never use wall mounts for main speakers.

BTW, you will comprehend a lot of precious experiences for the home HiFi, if you can overcome this problem of small room. Something as sound stage, image etc adjustment that you will be easy to fix. Just try to figure it out.

Good luck

HiFiPlayer
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as simple as best

[vn800_b]

hey GM, thanks for the feedback.

hi wilcal and HiFiPlayer, as mentioned in my last post i decided against moving the speakers to the smaller room. just the same, thanks for the help.


new question: has anyone tried mounting Model 14 on stands? i'm thinking of raising them by 6 inches or so. any thoughts on this?