What constitutes a mid- to large-sized room?

I suppose this could be a highly subjective question, but perhaps longtime audiophiles will know of some prevailing thought...What constitutes a mid-sized room? or a large room? Where would a 12' x 15' x 8' room fall? Is it small for audio discussion purposes?

A 12 x 15 is basically two jail cells. I would consider this size in the small category, especially with 8 foot ceilings. At one point in the 90's, my living room was roughly this size, perhaps a tad longer. I had a 120 watt Sony STRD-1011 surround setup...with Bose Acoustimass fronts and Sony center and rears. I could literally make the bay window heave in and out. Some EQ tweaks and Bose reflecting adjustments and I was in heaven...till the wife hid the remote!!

I feel, from my experience in housing construction that 15 x 20 and up is more in the mid to large range.

12x15 would be a (fairly big) small room. But remember, unless that room is surrounded by 4 walls, count all of the adjoining space along with it when determining the room size that you need to fill with sound.

Audio Note recommends their AN E for 18-200 square meters which is small to medium.

25 X 25 with 8-10 foot ceilings they deem a medium sized room.

Seems reasonable - but nothing is set in stone. Another company may deem 25 X 25 as large.

Wow, this is a bit of an eye opener. I considered my old 24 X 20 room with 10-12 ft ceiling to be on the large side. How many people have 25 X 25 dedicated audio rooms these days? If manufacturers consider 625 sq ft medium, then 90% of the gear out there is made for small rooms.

Wow, I've been on stages smaller than that.

Oddly enough, my current room is 16 X 20, has a higher percentage of room treatment and sounds far better. I wonder if there's a magic size/range that works better for most gear?

Is it just sensitivity or loudness that manufacturers are using to determine room size recommendations?

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Originally Posted by stevareno

A 12 x 15 is basically two jail cells...

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Interesting analogy there stevareno. Lotta prisons in Lawrenceburg?

Just kidding. :biggrin5:

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Originally Posted by 02audionoob

I suppose this could be a highly subjective question, but perhaps longtime audiophiles will know of some prevailing thought...What constitutes a mid-sized room? or a large room? Where would a 12' x 15' x 8' room fall? Is it small for audio discussion purposes?

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I tend to think of medium as 200 ft^2, (12x18'; 18.5 m^2, small medium), to 500 ft^2, (20x25', large medium).

My audio room is 880 square feet in size. (22ft by 40ft) and is considered a "medium" room for my speakers. This is a medium room for a Apogee Grand. A Apogee Fullrange should not bet in a room below 600 squre feet in my opinion. But those speakers if driven right have enough acoustical power to fill those rooms. Most systems do not.

What happens, technically, in a small room with towers designed for large rooms? Would it create a big bass party?

No, they do not.
Bass waves are very long and require a fare amount of distance to unfold. Also the integration of the drive units tends to be better the further away you go, asuming your room does not have a lot of peaks and nulls. A big speaker like my pair requires at least 800 square feet and can unfold its acoustical power much better. With a huge dipol speaker the room is the case and they love space.

Cheers

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Originally Posted by Florian

My audio room is 880 square feet in size. (22ft by 40ft) and is considered a "medium" room for my speakers. This is a medium room for a Apogee Grand. A Apogee Fullrange should not bet in a room below 600 squre feet in my opinion. But those speakers if driven right have enough acoustical power to fill those rooms. Most systems do not.

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The Apogee Grands aren't one's typical speakers, eh? That is, they were designed with large rooms in mind
... Florian's Grands ...

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Originally Posted by kexodusc

Oddly enough, my current room is 16 X 20, has a higher percentage of room treatment and sounds far better. I wonder if there's a magic size/range that works better for most gear?

Is it just sensitivity or loudness that manufacturers are using to determine room size recommendations?

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It would be interesting to know the dimensions of the rooms used in testing/tweaking amongst the various manufacturers.

I think we're touching on a point that usually gets lip service only when answering the variety of noob questions that abound. To wit: "Just how much should a room's size effect my speaker choice?".

I know my ML multi-channel configuration which sounded great in a big showroom sound terribly constricted in my 14 x 20 room at home...so much so that I've disconnected theh center and have chosen to go the 2-channel route for the time being.

Kexman, I'd give a finger for a 24 x 20 room. You were lucky, eh.

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Originally Posted by bobsticks

It would be interesting to know the dimensions of the rooms used in testing/tweaking amongst the various manufacturers.

I think we're touching on a point that usually gets lip service only when answering the variety of noob questions that abound. To wit: "Just how much should a room's size effect my speaker choice?".

I know my ML multi-channel configuration which sounded great in a big showroom sound terribly constricted in my 14 x 20 room at home...so much so that I've disconnected theh center and have chosen to go the 2-channel route for the time being.

Kexman, I'd give a finger for a 24 x 20 room. You were lucky, eh.

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It was a lot of real estate, but it also served as our living room so it wasn't ideal. My new room is much better, and dedicated for multi-channel audio/HT. I've setup acoustic panels without shame about looks or anything like that...I've lost the dedicated 14 x 12 mini studio I had for jamming and stereo though, now I have a 10 x 12 bedroom and that is small for my towers...too small. Gonna have to make decision there pretty soon I think. The HT is doing such a good job in 2-ch that I don't really mind.

For the first time in a long time I'm...content with what I have...(other than the need for an HDMI pre-pro).

Good point on the manufacturers test rooms. The anechoic chamber I visited at the NRC in Ottawa was 20 X 12 X 10 or so...the exact dimensions are 5.8 m in length, 3.7 m in width and 3.4 m in height. A lot of companies use that chamber or carbon copies.

Reasonably typical I guess. Not sure if the rooms they measure response are the same they subjectively evaluate sound quality in though?

I've been vacillating between finding speakers that can make good use of the quantity of power my Adcom GFA-555II has to even the idea of putting the amp up for sale and trying low power but high-end.

Right now, the Adcom sounds nice with my Focal Cobalt 806S bookshelf speakers and so I thought I'd just replace them with the first pair of Cobalt 826S towers I could find. I figured surely I'd love 'em. Well...as it turns out...I didn't like the sound of the midrange. So then I got the idea I liked a pair of Dynaudio Audience 82 that a seller about an hour's drive away has. But I've read they're meant for mid- to large-sized rooms...it makes sense...dual 8-inch woofers, handles something like 300 watts at 4 Ohms. Thus this thread.

However...a home theater store called MODIA has a shop near me and they have the Audience line in old inventory (they don't sell them in the store, anymore) and they said they could bring over any of them for a listen. That would save me the hour drive each way and I could try out the smaller speakers from the Audience line. So given the 12 x 15 x 8 room, now maybe I'll forget the 82 and see if MODIA will set up a pair of 62 in a small listening room.

But continuing to vacillate, I see there are some nice ideas in my bookshelf-for-less-than-$1,000 thread.