12'x16'x8' room OK for good stand mounts?

I got the OK from the wife to repurpose a room in the house as a listening room. The room is 11.5 x 15.5 x 8. I have always loved the sound of Joseph Audio speakers as I have heard them at every RMAF until they cancelled the show :-(

So I’m thinking this is the time to get Prisms or even Pulsars! My question to the group here is about the room and the speakers. I realize I will need room treatments. Since I’m about to retire, I will have time to build the room treatments and do lots of measurements to tune the room and speaker placement. The floor is concrete slab with 3/4" carpet pad and wall to wall relatively thick carpet. The walls are wood frame with sheet rock. I listen to rock, jazz, and classical at moderate volumes.

Will the room be too small for Pulsars or Prisms?

I also love the sound of Monitor Audio Golds. I was thinking Gold 200's, but I also worry the room would be too small for 200's.

Ug, or even Philharmonic BMR stand mounts.

Too many to choose from!

I appreciate any advice

 

Not talking about the speakers, but my concern is your room dimensions are all (roughly) multiples of 4 which could result in some strong nodes. Maybe consider tapering the shape of the room when you figure out your treatments and bass traps?

edit: also just stumbled across this interesting site which may be useful...
https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc?l=12&w=16&h=8&ft=true&r60=0.6

 

Thanks. I was playing with that site yesterday. Very interesting. The actual room dimensions are 11.5x15.5, so not sure how much that matters. In any event, I will certainly have to deal with that with room treatments.

 

In my experience, what can make a huge difference is how 'open' the room is. Are there openings or archways to another room? If you have a solid wall behind the speakers and behind your listening position, that's gonna need the most room treatment. If there are openings and you can place your listening position with some opening behind you, it gets a lot easier.
And it will potentially make a big difference whether you need to place the speakers against the longer wall or the shorter. In general, having the speakers 3' from the side walls it is easier to tame reflections; and you'd have all the room you need to have good separation for your listening position. But reflections from behind you will be significantly worse. Unless there's an opening behind you.
It could be in that size room you'll have an easier time managing reflections with a floor or stand-mount speaker crossed over to a sub or 2 that you can place where you get the best response, and subs will have their own settings to help tame room response.

 

Thanks. I likely will not have a sub. This is for two channel listening, but maybe I'll add a sub at some point. The room doesn't have any openings other than a door to bathroom and a door to the family room. The room is repurposed bedroom. I will be building lots of bass traps.

I'm leaning very much to the Pulsars, some used amp in the $500-$1000 range, a Transcendent Sound Masterpiece pre-amp, and PI streamer. Since I don't retire until June, it will likely be a retirement gift to myself, so I'm jumping the gun a bit now with the planning.

 

The actual room...
note: floorplanner.com is pretty cool

 

If you can export that to or duplicate it in a CAD program, you could have a play with the computational room acoustics thingy put together by a buddy of @spwath . Background and link here.

Or, more basic, use the room simulator functions in REW. Seems like that'd work OK in this case because of the simple geometry/no openings. Or a simple room mode calculator like the one @Armaegis linked above.

 

I like to add Sengpiel:

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-roommodes.htm

as @Armaegis pointed out given the fact that the dimensions are close to multiple ones there will be quite some axial and tangential room modes in the 30 to 35 Hz region. A region where absorbers are only useful when being very deep. Alternative is tuned bass trap or speakers which are already @ -10 dB in that area or DRC software like Dirac or acourate. Your room would be 4,72x3,5x2,44 in meters.

 

Just looked at the specifications of your preferred speakers, prisms or Gold 100 probably the better choice. Less need for room treatment or DRC. I know it is not a purely reasonable decision, but what is the use of a donkey with big balls if you need to castrate it (either through room treatment or DRC)

 

Well said (I think)

I have 100's, so once I move out of the room (it's my office now), I can certainly try them in the room. I'mn still leaning towards the pulsars.

I tried the golden ratio method from here:
https://www.ecoustics.com/articles/stereo-speaker-placement-optimum-sound/
see the attached file.

This seems a bit odd to me.

 

I had 3-way speakers with 15" bass woofers in a 10'x10' room. Even if placement of speakers and myself weren't fully optimal, I could get just far enough back that the drivers summed. It was %&$^ing awesome. I wouldn't worry too much about your room being too small for Pulsars (personally, I'd wonder the opposite).

Enjoy the process of tweaking with placement, angles, and treatment. It's exciting to get free or cheap audio upgrades through experimentation.