Oh well, I think I may just go for the Mediadesk after all... even though I haven't heard them. With the limited space I have, it seems like they'll probably be a better bet. Just out of curiousity, would the prodesk 2.1 require a much larger space to sound decent? I know it's a big leap in price, but I'm vaguely considering it... I'm also curious about the new JBLs...

J.

@jbm said:

[...] Just out of curiousity, would the prodesk 2.1 require a much larger space to sound decent? I know it's a big leap in price, but I'm vaguely considering it. [...]

J.

They should sound fine in a small environment, too - but you better ask this question in the forum of www.abluesky.com . Very friendly, responsive and helpful staff over there.

Okay, I may post the question there... Thanks.

I did have one other question, which Google hasn't answered in a clear way: do you know what the differences are, if any, between trapping bass in a small room with a stereo/8" woofer set, versus the Mediadesk sat/sub design? Would the bass on one be easier to control in a small room than the other?

J.

Well, the subwoofer from the Mediadesk system is also 8", closed box and active powered. The HS80M have bass-reflex enclosure for the woofers. That means with the Mediadesk system you have more possibilities to eliminate unwanted bass peaks by simply moving around a little bit, and usually the closed enclosures do not have that much problems as well as a smoother bass-roll-out (they could create a little deeper frequencies maybe, but as it is only one woofer, it may not be as loud as the others). With the HS80M you are pretty fixed for their positions (the perfect tweeter-ear-tweeter triangle as well as in-room positioning) - but I should mention there are also ways to control bassreflex behaviour, and maybe you'd need room treatment for both systems.

Best would be to test 'em both at their final destination place!
PolarBear

Hey PolarBear,

Thanks for the detailed reply. For some reason I never took into consideration the fact that I can position the sub independently of the satellites -- that's a pretty major difference. Though, I guess you don't want to get too funky with the placement of the sub. I'm planning on a fair bit of room treatment anyway, but it's a very small room (6' 3" x 9' 9"), so I'm pretty concerned about bass. My current plan is:

1) good old foam -- probably sonoflex, or something cheap-ish -- on the wall and ceiling behind/above the speakers
2) bass traps (DIY - wood + rigid fiberglass) along the wall/ceiling edge behind the speakers and behind the mix position (extending to both corners)
3) DIY rip-offs of the RPG "BAD" panels on both sides (if I'm feeling really flush, I may just buy these...)
4) one RPG "Skyline" diffusor kit (2 panels) behind the mix position on the back wall

From the research I've done, this seems like a pretty decent approach, and shouldn't cost me too much $$$ (though it won't be cheap).

Anyway, thanks for the help, and if you have any great DIY room treatment tips, please let me know!

cheers,

J.

I wouldn't put diffusion on the side at all. My friend Dave Moulton does a better job than I can why flat reflective sides work very well.

www.moultonlabs.com

The rest of it sounds very good, although you might consider this stuff instead of foam:

http://www.bondedlogic.com/ultratouch.htm

And while we're on the subject, if you need sound*proofing* (not absorption), this looks very interesting:

http://www.quietsolution.com/Products/Construction___Building/QuietRock/quietrock.html

Thanks Nick.

The foam looks very promising! I like the thought that it's not going to be a major pain to work with (or, sorry... a major pain with which to work... not sure how particular you are about grammar!) -- I wasn't looking forward to dealing with rigid fiberglass!

I'm trying to do this as cleanly as possible, without messing with the existing room -- it's a rented flat, so I can't go too crazy. But it seems like I'll be able to hang pretty much everything I need. As far as sound-proofing, I'm only trying to get it do a decent mixing level, and probably some single instruments (no drums) and voice recording -- so sort of like a vocal booth level.

Thanks again.

J.

Okay, Nick (and anyone else who has thoughts on this!)

So I've been working more on my design and another question has come up. I'm sold on the idea of reflective sides -- a well-made argument, which makes pretty good sense to me. It also seems like this would be helpful in a small room... don't know why -- that's strictly intuitive (and if I'm sadly mistaken, please let me know!). Anyway, what I'm wondering about is the ceiling. I've got carpeted floors, and I'm going with the "live" sides (at least beyond the speakers), so should I go for diffusion on the roof, absorption, or a bit of both? I can sort of imitate the BAM panel, which provides some diffusion with some absorption, but do you have any better ideas? It's an 8' ceiling, btw.

The other thing is that I have a door at the back/side of the room (basically the rear corner, behind the listener). My thought right now is to build a panel to hang on the door which is a bit like a membrane bass trap -- thin particle board with OC 703 or UltraTouch behind it. I'm thinking that the door may work as a bass trap this way. Make sense?

I've also planned for a corner trap between the ceiling and wall, extending across the length of the room, but I'm not sure whether to go behind the speakers or behind the listener? Since it's the same dimension I can certainly just experiment... The only difference is that if I go behind the speakers I'll probably make it HF absorptive, whereas if I go behind the listener I will probably make it more like a membrane (HF reflective). Thoughts?

cheers,

J.

Whoa!!!!

Well, Dietz, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! Just set up my little Mediadesk 2.1 set and so far am VERY impressed! I still have to tweak around, get the sub in the right place, and so on, but on a quick first listen I'm very pleased.

Also, Nick, I think your acoustic treatment idea (okay, not exactly yours, but promoted by you) is really pretty brilliant as well. I've pretty heavily treated my front wall, behind the speakers, and left the sides clear of anything. The floors are carpeted, and I've done a small amount of treatment on the ceiling. But I have to say that the stereo image is _considerably_ wider than the position of the speakers themselves. I can only explain by your room treatment method... I've just listened to an Aphex Twin with a slow, circular pan at the low bass level, and I swear the bloody thing made a _wide_ circle around the entire room!!! (okay, it's a small room, but I've never had these "surround on two speakers" things work before -- impressed.)

okay... too excited... got to go play some more.

cheers and thanks again, Dietz and Nick.

J.

I'm glad to hear that worked. There's a reason good speaker designers try to make the off-axis sound as even as possible, and it sounds like that's what you're hearing.

To JBM -

I'm glad you like the little BlueSky-monitors as much as I do.

Your enthusiasm makes me a little bit nervous, though, as this special "surround"-feeling from stereo speakers is not seldom the sign for phase issues. If I were in you place I would play arround with slow sinus-sweeps for a while - mono from each side first, and from the "phantom center" lateron. Listen carefully for any strange occurances, like L/R-swaps or diffuse phantom signal sources.

Only if you pass these listening test without _serious_ doubts (... there will always be some inconsistencies in a natural listening environment), you can really start to enjoy the new listening experience. Otherwise you hear things that won't translate on other systems.

All the best,

Dietz,

I appreciate your concern! I actually did some full-range sweeps, and apart from a couple of pretty noticable dips and peaks in the lower-mid, everything was pretty good -- as good as can be expected in a really small room. Imaging from normal stereo recordings, ranging from Boards of Canada, to Branford Marsalis, to Mahler are all consistent, and seem spot-on to me. The Aphex Twin track I was referring to must clearly have has some sort of virtual surround trick going on, as the sound makes a clear path all the way around the listener, in a continuous, slow circling motion. I did notice that one side is more pronouned than the other, though. There are two possible reasons for this:

1) there is a window in that corner
2) my ear on that side is visibly lower... yes, I'm a freak

I have a total of 5 high density rockwool panels installed. Two are in the front corners, two are above the speakers, covering the ceiling corner, and one is behind my head. The ones above the speakers overlap with the corner ones, so that the wall-wall-ceiling corner is also covered, and maintains about a 4-inch air space. The rest of the front wall (behind speakers) is treated with acoustic foam. I think I've done pretty well, actually.

Anyway, thanks again for the tip!

cheers,

J.

I'm relieved to hear that. Enjoy! [:)]