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Room shape..Acoustics
#1
Hello everyone,
Right now im starting a project to build my house with my wife.
Its going to be a Mini house between 30 and 35 sq meters.
Music being an important part for us, and being charmed for some time by our pair of 900's we want to think of this place where the speakers
are able to sound at it best.

Question is, what would be the best shape for a 35 sq mt mini house, that was created around a pair of reactors?
Round? Rectangular...

Best!
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#2
That’s a very open and difficult question with too many answers in between even depending on materials you will use to build, forniture and its placement inside. Reactors do not make any exceptions than other speakers rules in terms of placement into their listening environment.

On the web there are hundreds of sites. I would start from there. Here just an example:
https://audiophilereview.com/room-acoust...ening.html
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#3
Rectangular rooms are the easiest to deal with but I've got my system in an L shaped room which I have acoustically treated and I get very good results. You can usually get good results in any room but you have to work a lot harder in some rooms than in others. The worst shapes would probably be square and round, and I think round would be worse than square. You would potentially have a really bad room mode resonance at the frequency with a wavelength equal to the diameter of the room with a round room and at wavelength equal to the width or the room with a square room.

With a mini house of 30-35 square metres you have some challenges ahead of your. My L shaped room, which is a dedicated listening room, is 29 square metres so it's almost the size of your house. When it comes to room acoustics bigger rooms are better and rooms in nearly every house count as small rooms for acoustic purposes. That doesn't mean you can't get good results but a lot is going to depend on setup.

What I think is the most important thing for you is to have a room where you can place the speakers symmetrically in relation to the corners behind them. That helps get the left/right stereo balance and the imaging right. If you're going to have bends in the room like in an L-shaped room, try to have the bend behind you. The asymmetric shape is going to affect the sound but having symmetry at the speaker end helps a lot.

Consider things like doors and windows. You don't want to have people walking between the speakers to get to a door because that makes cables connecting the speakers a problem. That's not an issue if you can do things with a wireless connection but it is if you have wired connections. You can have a power point for power on either side of the door so powering the speakers isn't a problem. Try and plan things so that you have as much symmetry as possible but that's going to be difficult. I'd definitely prioritise symmetry behind the speakers if at all possible.

You can do a lot with things like carpets, soft furnishings, and furniture placement and I'd try to deal with any acoustic issues that way rather than with physical acoustic treatments because acoustic treatments take up space and some need to be permanently fixed to walls in particular locations which means that you have to map everything out from the start before you start building so that you know where to put things like windows.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#4
Thanks for the advice was very helpful, right now im starting the sketch so hoping to show some pics and sort this out better
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#5
Hello, unfortunately i drop one of my reactorsbecause of the base it was sitting. I have to send for exchange, fortune that i bought devialet care, my question is, I’m thinking on buying the gecko wall mount, or the legs, does the wall mount affect in any way sound quality?, because of the proximity with the wall?
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#6
The wall mount will affect the sound because of proximity to the wall. Actually the biggest effect is likely to come from proximity to the corner given the size of your space is going to be small.

I have no experience with Phantoms or Reactors so I can't tell you how much the sound will be affected but it is going to affect the bass and possibly up to the upper bass/low mids because of the small size of the space. I would suggest not mounting them high on the wall but I think you are going to be limited in a small area because you're likely to want to put furniture of some kind on the wall below them. The closer on the wall to another room surface, either very high on the wall so close to the ceiling or on the wall close to a side wall, the greater the effect will be and if you mount them close to the ceiling and a side wall the effect will be greatest. Given the small space I can understand the decision to wall mount but I would recommend keeping as much distance as you can between them and the ceiling and slide walls, but you also need some distance between them for a good stereo image. Small rooms are difficult to work with because you don't have much space in which you can locate speakers and there's no choice but to place them closer to the walls than you would in a larger room.

On the bright side, the photos I've seen of the Reactor floor stands show the stands as being fairly low. You could take a hint from that and mount the wall mounts so the speakers are the same height from the ceiling as the stands would place them from the floor. That way the reinforcement from proximity to the ceiling would be the same as the reinforcement you would get from the floor if you had them on stands and the reinforcement from the floor would be the same as you would get from the ceiling if they were on stands. I assume that Devialet have chosen the height of the floor stands for the Reactors in order to provide an appropriate amount of reinforcement from the floor so I think mounting them that distance from the ceiling would work well. If you have to mount them close to a side wall, try to mount them a little further from the ceiling in order to compensate a bit for the additional reinforcement from the wall.

I'm sorry I can't give you precise recommendations about mounting distances because I don't have experience with your speakers. I'd recommend experimentation first in order to find out where you would get best results but that's going to be difficult because you have to fix wall mounts to the wall and that makes moving them to test different locations pretty well impossible. You might try making an enquiry to Devialet support asking them for recommendations on how far to place the wall mounts from the ceiling and side wall in order to achieve an optimal sound balance and if you can't get them that far from one or both of those surfaces, get them as close to the recommended placement as possible.

Once they are mounted on the wall, you can still adjust the sound a fair bit with tone controls and also with absorption in the room. Physical acoustic room treatments may not be an option in a very small space but a good thick natural fibre rug or carpet on the floor will help a lot and furniture choices can also help a lot. You may be able to use a few wall mounted acoustic panels to help. Big panels probably wouldn't work but some manufacturers make wall mounted panels around 600 mm/2 ft square and you may be able to make use of some of them. Normally I'd recommend against placing absorption panels at first reflection points but that may be the best way to go in a really small space. Some manufacturers also make triangular panels to mount in corners to help control bass and they may be a good option for you in your room. If you happen to be a reader with a bookcase and a lot of books, then books can provide some absorption and also a bit of diffusion if they're different shapes and sizes so they make an irregular pattern on the shelves and you may be able to experiment with the location of the bookcase a bit.

There are compromises associated with small rooms but there are compromises associated with every room when it comes too acoustics. Nearly all of us would benefit from a bigger room and that's an inescapable fact of audio life but we all have to make the most of the room we have and you should be able to get good results in a small space. You may have to work a little harder at it in order to do so.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#7
(30-Jun-2020, 21:09)David A Wrote: The wall mount will affect the sound because of proximity to the wall. Actually the biggest effect is likely to come from proximity to the corner given the size of your space is going to be small.

I have no experience with Phantoms or Reactors so I can't tell you how much the sound will be affected but it is going to affect the bass and possibly up to the upper bass/low mids because of the small size of the space. I would suggest not mounting them high on the wall but I think you are going to be limited in a small area because you're likely to want to put furniture of some kind on the wall below them. The closer on the wall to another room surface, either very high on the wall so close to the ceiling or on the wall close to a side wall, the greater the effect will be and if you mount them close to the ceiling and a side wall the effect will be greatest. Given the small space I can understand the decision to wall mount but I would recommend keeping as much distance as you can between them and the ceiling and slide walls, but you also need some distance between them for a good stereo image. Small rooms are difficult to work with because you don't have much space in which you can locate speakers and there's no choice but to place them closer to the walls than you would in a larger room.

On the bright side, the photos I've seen of the Reactor floor stands show the stands as being fairly low. You could take a hint from that and mount the wall mounts so the speakers are the same height from the ceiling as the stands would place them from the floor. That way the reinforcement from proximity to the ceiling would be the same as the reinforcement you would get from the floor if you had them on stands and the reinforcement from the floor would be the same as you would get from the ceiling if they were on stands. I assume that Devialet have chosen the height of the floor stands for the Reactors in order to provide an appropriate amount of reinforcement from the floor so I think mounting them that distance from the ceiling would work well. If you have to mount them close to a side wall, try to mount them a little further from the ceiling in order to compensate a bit for the additional reinforcement from the wall.

I'm sorry I can't give you precise recommendations about mounting distances because I don't have experience with your speakers. I'd recommend experimentation first in order to find out where you would get best results but that's going to be difficult because you have to fix wall mounts to the wall and that makes moving them to test different locations pretty well impossible. You might try making an enquiry to Devialet support asking them for recommendations on how far to place the wall mounts from the ceiling and side wall in order to achieve an optimal sound balance and if you can't get them that far from one or both of those surfaces, get them as close to the recommended placement as possible.

Once they are mounted on the wall, you can still adjust the sound a fair bit with tone controls and also with absorption in the room. Physical acoustic room treatments may not be an option in a very small space but a good thick natural fibre rug or carpet on the floor will help a lot and furniture choices can also help a lot. You may be able to use a few wall mounted acoustic panels to help. Big panels probably wouldn't work but some manufacturers make wall mounted panels around 600 mm/2 ft square and you may be able to make use of some of them. Normally I'd recommend against placing absorption panels at first reflection points but that may be the best way to go in a really small space. Some manufacturers also make triangular panels to mount in corners to help control bass and they may be a good option for you in your room. If you happen to be a reader with a bookcase and a lot of books, then books can provide some absorption and also a bit of diffusion if they're different shapes and sizes so they make an irregular pattern on the shelves and you may be able to experiment with the location of the bookcase a bit.

There are compromises associated with small rooms but there are compromises associated with every room when it comes too acoustics. Nearly all of us would benefit from a bigger room and that's an inescapable fact of audio life but we all have to make the most of the room we have and you should be able to get good results in a small space. You may have to work a little harder at it in order to do so.
Hello!, thank you for such a detailed reply, about the placing that’s what i was thinking, to place the wall mount as low as possible, but there’s a catch, if you take a look at the gecko wall mount, its angled downwards, so if you place them low, they’ll be pointing towards the floor, I’m not the biggest fan of the legs, they take to much space, and the looks aren’t of my liking.
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#8
Reactors behave like 'normal' speakers acoustically so placement is important for a good result. Acousticfields.com has videos on youtube educating on the subject. One example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-iFsWUrOhs There are many resources on the subject of acoustics and speaker placement on the web. You should inform yourself a bit before you start building.
I think @David A meant placing Reactors high on the wall pointing down. Geckos are fine, but you'd need digital room correction to make that kind of placement (close to a wall) sound really good.
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#9
I would even add that because reactors and phantoms are amongst the few truly full range speakers, placement can be even more important that with the majority of other speakers.

Jean-Marie
MacBook Air M2 -> RAAT/Air -> WiFi -> PLC -> Ethernet -> Devialet 220pro with Core Infinity (upgraded from 120) -> AperturA Armonia
France
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#10
@ogs is correct, I was suggesting placing the Reactors high and pointing down.

Speaker designers often try to design a speaker to work in a particular sort of location, and they can go so far as to design stands to work specifically with a given stand mount speaker. The Reactors are stand mounts and Devialet could have designed them to work on the same stands as the Phantoms but they didn't, they designed a lower stand specifically for the Reactor. That makes me think that the Reactor is intended to be placed lower to the floor in order to gain a bit more reinforcement from the room, than the Phantoms get on their stands, probably because of the smaller size of the bass drivers. Placing the Reactors high on the wall, the same distance from the ceiling as their stands would place them from the floor, should provide a similar amount of reinforcement so I would think that kind of placement would be beneficial for the Recators if you are going to wall mount them.

Sorry it that meaning did't come through clearly in my earlier post.

On the other hand, I'm not certain that @ogs is necessarily correct about the need for digital room correction. @Jean-Marie is right about the Reactors being full range speakers and placement being important but I do think we can take a suggestion about placement from the height of the Reactor stands. I think we can also take a suggestion from the fact that the Gecko is also suggested as a possible mounting method and the fact that small speakers are often designed with small spaces in mind. I would think that, all things considered, the Reactors have been designed for closer placement to adjacent room surfaces than many speakers, especially most full range speakers which are physically many times larger.

My guess, and it is a guess, is that they can be placed as close to the wall as the Gecko mount places them but that you should keep at least the same amount of distance between the top of the Reactor and the ceiling as their stands would provide between the bottom of the Reactor and the floor.. In a small room, however, you also have to deal with the fact that the room isn't wide and you also have to consider distance to the side walls which are also going to be adding reinforcement. Given that the distance to the wall behind the speaker is fixed by the dimensions of the Gecko, excessive proximity to the side wall would need to be compensated for by a greater distance from the ceiling. Unfortunately the only way I know of to work out the best location is trial and error and that is likely to leave a lot of screw holes over the wall as you move a Gecko from one position to another. I would suggest asking Devialet for suggestions based on the eventual size of your room when that is decided. Failing that, I would try to avoid placing them the same distance from the side wall as from the ceiling and I'd suggest trying to have one of those distances around 1.4 or 1.6 times the size of the other.

Digital room correction is possible but even if you eventually go down that route, trying to get the sound as good as possible without digital room correction is still a good idea and might make the task of digital room correction easier id you eventually try it.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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