Changed rooms, now sounds dire. Suggestions pls...

Can you move the speakers a little closer to your listening position? That can tame bass by making the reflected (lower frequency) sounds relatively lower in volume.

Chris - only suggestion from me is work on the speakers and position in the room, have you tried them on different walls? 

What worked for me was not only bass traps in the front corners, not for everyone I know, but wow what a difference! 

Also the listening position made a big difference. My sweet spot is 38% into the room from the rear wall. Then I made sure I had the perfect triangle, distance between the speakers is the same as the distance from speakers to listening position. 

Put the desk and office chair in the bay window area and the system on the opposite aspect.

Tilt the 20-23s up a smidge more.

look purposeful when sitting at said chair or desk so passers by will think your doing something more important than listening to music. 

TOBYJUG posted:

Put the desk and office chair in the bay window area and the system on the opposite aspect.

Tilt the 20-23s up a smidge more.

look purposeful when sitting at said chair or desk so passers by will think your doing something more important than listening to music. 

?????? 

Before considering treatment, I’d start by trying different arrangements in the room, e.g Tobyjug’s suggestion, and any other orientation achievable. In playing, try getting  the speakers as far out from the corners and walls as possible.

Unfortunately whilst cushions can be useful for taming high frequencies, they don’t do much in the bass. If you have a sofa in another room and if it fits, you could try that to see if it makes a difference - depending on construction some do.. 

Room layout and speaker positioning are certainly worth experimenting with, but you may find that this never fully solves your problems. In a small room like that, I suspect that changing to smaller speakers, possibly standmounts, may be a better match. 

Thanks for the suggestions. The desk won't fit in the bay window and there's no-one to check that I am doing important things as it looks out to the garden, and I've tried almost all permutations that work - how it currently is is the least worst layout tbh. I'll give it a go re moving the speakers about, but I suspect ChrisSU you may be right, that the speakers are now too big for the space they need to fill. Bother.

It may be worth seeing if you can swap the 23s for some 21s, with their dedicated stands. That said, in my experience the Nait 5i is woefully inadequate for the excellent 23s, which really want 70 or 80 Watts to get them going. You may also find that the 21s sound a bit small and weedy with just a Nait. A Nait XS2 may do the business though. 

I take it you have tried moving the speakers about side-to-side and back to and away from the rear wall - and tried firing them the other way down the room?

Small position changes make surprising sonic differences and you can 'fix' most room problems doing that is my experience. Having heard DBLs work fine in a smaller room than yours I don't buy the speakers being too big for the room idea - possible but probably something else.

I usually find a good carpet in front of speakers, heavy side-curtains, a bookcase behind listening position to break-up rear reflection and heavy absorbent settee to listen on works wonders and were all absolutely essential in my room.

Try all this first before immediately assuming you need to change the speakers.

DB.

Hungryhalibut posted:

It may be worth seeing if you can swap the 23s for some 21s, with their dedicated stands. That said, in my experience the Nait 5i is woefully inadequate for the excellent 23s, which really want 70 or 80 Watts to get them going. You may also find that the 21s sound a bit small and weedy with just a Nait. A Nait XS2 may do the business though. 

I was thinking along the same lines - a better amp doesn't just deliver more power, it can also have more control over the speakers. I used to think I had problems with bass control in my room, and tried all sorts of changes to speaker positioning, etc. This did help quite a bit, but when I upgraded my amp, I was surprised to find that the problem virtually disappeared.

I would still do everything you can to sort out the room first, though - even if you later make changes to the system as well, this will be worthwhile.

Another issue to bear in mind is that a better amp might control your speakers, but it might also expose any weakness in your source, leading to yet another upgrade which you may not have wanted. If your dealer is any good, they should be able to help you with this.

Also check speaker cable connections at both ends. If it so different it is possible you have a polarity issue.

You can check polarity, muddle with different amps and speaker positioning, or throw in a carpet. Ultimately, you've moved your system into a veritable cube of a room with a marginally-powered amp per your speaker's demands and it's likely bass nodes are killing the coherence. Bass trapping/treatment seems in order, as well as different speakers.

You might find efficient standmount speakers work better in the smaller room. Greater command, less excitation of bass nodes, and better sonic coherence. You sacrifice the very bottom-end bass with smaller speakers, but reduce bass-doubling, gain more musical sense, and perhaps more enjoyment.

This is very often what happens when you put larger (& nearer to full range) speakers into a small room, particularly one that's nearly square!

You'll have a massive resonance problem at 51Hz.  Using a more capable amp such as an XS is likely to make this worse not better.

With those speakers in that room, the only cure will be substantial amount of bass trap.

Cheers guys. It's either divorce* then, or find a new job that doesn't require working at home as often.

It's a shame as the same setup in the living room gave a really good performance, which I really loved. It may be that there's a whole new world available just by stepping up a level in terms of amp & source, but for now it seems that avenue of pleasure is temporarily closed off to me.

As an internet radio though it's pretty good. Even with Woman's Hour. 

Best

Chris.

* I can't be the only person who's actively weighed up the pros & cons of not having a wife around to block the quest for better and better audio, even if a bottle of nice red was involved in the journey to that moment of questioning... 

Square rooms can be very difficult due to reinforcement of resonances at certain frequencies.  A room that is near cubic is even worse.  The only solution is to try to break up the room dimensions, be very flexible with regard to placement (one of the best "tricky" rooms I heard ended up with the speakers mounted high up near the ceiling firing down at an angle, so don't rule anything out), treat the room carefully and also very careful speaker choice. Sometimes a sub sat system can be very helpful in these situations - or just provide further complication.  Best seek some experienced help from a good dealer used to getting the best from a tricky room. Failing that, move to another room, or else to headphones...

ChrisR_EPL posted:

Cheers guys. It's either divorce* then, or find a new job that doesn't require working at home as often.

It's a shame as the same setup in the living room gave a really good performance, which I really loved. It may be that there's a whole new world available just by stepping up a level in terms of amp & source, but for now it seems that avenue of pleasure is temporarily closed off to me.

As an internet radio though it's pretty good. Even with Woman's Hour. 

Best

Chris.

 

* I can't be the only person who's actively weighed up the pros & cons of not having a wife around to block the quest for better and better audio, even if a bottle of nice red was involved in the journey to that moment of questioning... 

Can you not reinstall in the living room to play there for enjoyment, and put a secondary system in the office if it is for music while you work?

I find in any case that when I play music ‘properly’ I often end up listening to the music rather than doing what I might be supposed to be doing, so for background while doing something it may be helpful if the system isn’t as good (If I’m doing something I need to focus on at home I now do that round behind a stub wall well away from the optimum listening position, where the music is more ‘background’ and less engaging), and pick music least likely to draw me in. So for a work evvironment if what is wanted is background music, a lesser system - maybe even a Qube or Mojo - might be worth considering?

We both knew it needed moving out of the LR as there's really a bit too much stuff in there, and I'd be able to use the hifi when I felt like it. That hasn't worked and it looks like the best option is to revert, so that at least when it is reasonable to have it going it works to its potential. I end up not hearing what's on anyway in here as work = work and that's what draws my concentration and attention, so the music / radio may as well be out of a basic box from Currys tbh.

It was a worthwhile exercise as it's proved that the setup as is needs the space and furnishings, and I now have an excuse to upgrade at least the amp to something better, and probably the ND5XS to an NDX while I'm at it.

If you're keeping the speakers, then re-installing in the other room is possibly your only real option.  A whole load of bass traps may well sort it out, but that's either a DIY job or very expensive.

If you do keep the speakers and reinstall in the other room, as for upgrades, then with the 20.23s, an amp upgrade should be your first port of call.  Of course, for domestic harmony you might also consider a change to smaller, more discrete speakers (the 20.23s have a tendency to dominate a room because of their front to back depth).

To use the smaller room, a small speaker + sub system can be made to work well, but I'd strongly advise using a proper microphone and a copy of REW to set it up - doing it by ear is surprisingly tricky.

The best performing very low budget system for an office that I've heard is a Denon D-M38/39/40/41 with half-decent budget speakers (Wharfedale Diamonds / Q Acoustics 2020i or 3020 / Monitor Audio BX2s etc. on reasonable stands e.g. Atacama Nexus 5 or 6).  For an office system it's surprisingly good and they're really cheap second hand, you might be quite surprised.

In my experience you can never get the same sound as before, but you can improve your existing one,  try to forget your superb larger listening room as before, otherwise it will frustrate you

Have you tried putting cushions or something else to partially block the front exit port? If that works, you could add and adjust the right amount of stuffing inside the cabinet behind the port.

Transmission line loading is not the same as reflex, so blocking or modifying the port may not have the same outcome, and the ‘stuffing’ isn’t, rather it is like a lining of the line - and impossible to get at other than the area immediately behind the drivers - and As that would destroy the character of the speakers I would hesitate before even considering.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Transmission line loading is not the same as reflex, so blocking or modifying the port may not have the same outcome, and the ‘stuffing’ isn’t, rather it is like a lining of the line - and impossible to get at other than the area immediately behind the drivers - and As that would destroy the character of the speakers I would hesitate before even considering.

I don't think it could change the character that much as there is no medium and high frequencies coming out of a transmission line speaker port. IMO, it would only reduce LF output.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Transmission line loading is not the same as reflex, so blocking or modifying the port may not have the same outcome, and the ‘stuffing’ isn’t, rather it is like a lining of the line - and impossible to get at other than the area immediately behind the drivers - and As that would destroy the character of the speakers I would hesitate before even considering.

Functionally, ported (i.e. open) transmission lines are very nearly the same as Helmholtz resonators; however, in comparison, they usually have more efficient MF absorption, but correspondingly less efficient flow performance.

In both cases the output from the port is based on the same principle - constructive reinforcement by a signal that's inverted and delayed by one half cycle at the frequency where the delay (of the TL length or the resonator) is equivalent to a 180° phase change.  Together with the 180° phase change by taking the energy from the back of the cone the delay of the TL produces a peak of constructive interference.

Closed TLs behave rather differently and don't have the constructive reinforcement or the phase delay.

Whilst the constructive reinforcement of the port would be stopped by blocking it, that would change the loading on the cone and may result in a change in its directly radiated output, possibly producing a lumpier upper bass response than when open - however at this moment I do not  have access to the TL modelling software so can’t check.