Listening room size and acoustics.

Room size is important but it isn't the whole story the contstrucion and layout are also important your listening room could be 18m squared but is it perfectly square or long and narrow are the walls solid or plasterboard is the floor suspended or concrete and is it sparsely furnished or very minimalist  all of these things will effect sound.

I would say it would take a very mighty set of speakers to fill up your 100m square living room and no wonder your UQ/100/Hawks system sounds better in your smaller rectangular listening room.

If you have a little portable speaker play it on a table or chair in the middle of a room and then place a wooden or cardboard box or even a bucket directly behind it and listen to the difference,  a room is the same but on a bigger scale.

Hard surfaces will reflect sound soft ones absorb it and corners are particularly bad because they will reflect it differently and at different angles to a flat wall which is why dead square rooms are more difficult to get right.

I have speakers that are really too big for my small living room but I have cured it with positioning by having full shelves, rugs and lots of cushions and also which isn't what everyone would do by under powering them with a smaller amp I went from 300 to 180. 

They are now slightly in front of two alcoves which are filled with books, records, photo frames and ornaments about 3 metres apart and about a half meter from the side walls with a slight toe in.  I sit dead centre about 2 meters in front and about a meter away from the back wall and I'm now very happy after at first having quite bad bass boom.

There are hard and fast rules but also tweaks to your personal room it just takes time, effort and a partner who is also a music lover.

I used to have the system in a very large open living room like yours, over 100m2 for many years and have had the same system in smaller rooms 3.5m x 5.2m. Currently the system is in a 3.2m x 8.5m room with openings to other areas. The system sounded different in all the rooms. In my experience, the larger the room the more colouration you will be hearing from the room unless one sits closer to the speakers and listen in near to mid-field configuration. A mid-sized room like your current media room would be more ideal and will usually produce better results than larger rooms.

Personally I prefer smaller rooms as well as the side wall reinforcement is the one that makes the difference. However, the width of the room must not be too narrow so that the speakers can be placed at a considerable distance apart.

I think the number of responses you get for a room of this size might be limited.

100m2 is 20m larger than my whole home which is already divided into 4 rooms.

I've done installations on large rooms of 100m2 or greater. They fall into 2 categories. Those that take existing hifi components and focus on building a listening "space" suitable for how much air the amp and (sonetimes modest) speakers can comfortably move.

And those that aim to fill the whole area using speakers and amps with a pro audio heritage.

With a NAP100 and your speakers, I'd be focusing on carving out a listening space.

I recently moved to Spain...with worries about how my system would sound.  Would the electrical supply be good enough?  Would I need a dedicated supply?  Actually I would say the sound is better.  There is a clarity I did not have before.  Voice sounds particularly good.  And I don’t even have my cables arranged behind the hifi units.  Ths room sizes are similar...4.5m x 7.0m.  But the volume is quite different.  The ceiling in London was a very low 2.3m, and here it is 2.55m.  I had curtains in London but not here, and there are sliding glass doors.  The floors are a faux parquet finish on concrete...as in London.  Thus far due to the heat of summer, I have not laid my wool rug down.  So surfaces are all hard, but there are shelves on the rear and front 'listening position' walls.  And it isn’t just my ears...most people who come over remark on the sound quality.  They focus on the speakers of course, but I know most of it is due to the Naim system. ;-}

feeling_zen posted:

I think the number of responses you get for a room of this size might be limited.

100m2 is 20m larger than my whole home which is already divided into 4 rooms.

I've done installations on large rooms of 100m2 or greater. They fall into 2 categories. Those that take existing hifi components and focus on building a listening "space" suitable for how much air the amp and (sonetimes modest) speakers can comfortably move.

And those that aim to fill the whole area using speakers and amps with a pro audio heritage.

With a NAP100 and your speakers, I'd be focusing on carving out a listening space.

I’ve arranged a listening space in the tv/couch hub of the centre of the lounge, so there’s a listening space in a sweet spot between the speakers and about 3.5m in front of them. The Forests are still wearing in and have a wide sound stage, so that fills the space, though of course the energy disperses at a distance. I should clarify, the 100 sqm is an open plan kitchen, dinning and lounge (configured to tv and listening space, and a hang out conservatory area). I was more wondering if the Nova and Forests would be too much for the media room. I’ll play around with it one rainy day.

California Jim posted:

I recently moved to Spain...with worries about how my system would sound.  Would the electrical supply be good enough?  Would I need a dedicated supply?  Actually I would say the sound is better.  There is a clarity I did not have before.  Voice sounds particularly good.  And I don’t even have my cables arranged behind the hifi units.  Ths room sizes are similar...4.5m x 7.0m.  But the volume is quite different.  The ceiling in London was a very low 2.3m, and here it is 2.55m.  I had curtains in London but not here, and there are sliding glass doors.  The floors are a faux parquet finish on concrete...as in London.  Thus far due to the heat of summer, I have not laid my wool rug down.  So surfaces are all hard, but there are shelves on the rear and front 'listening position' walls.  And it isn’t just my ears...most people who come over remark on the sound quality.  They focus on the speakers of course, but I know most of it is due to the Naim system. ;-}

Spain? Nice, I’m in New Zealand but have lived in London for quite a while. Dragged an A&R A60 there and back in the day.

its quite interesting realizing how much room factors come to play, possibly much more so than upgradeitis!

Having owned and home demo'd several Totem floor standers I'd say you're challenging the lower power threshold of the Hawks with a 50-W amp. Regardless of where you place the Hawks, you'l get better results with more power. I'd try the Hawks on the Nova (either room) and see what you think of the additional power.

California Jim posted:

I recently moved to Spain...with worries about how my system would sound.  Would the electrical supply be good enough?  Would I need a dedicated supply?  Actually I would say the sound is better.  There is a clarity I did not have before.  Voice sounds particularly good.  And I don’t even have my cables arranged behind the hifi units.  Ths room sizes are similar...4.5m x 7.0m.  But the volume is quite different.  The ceiling in London was a very low 2.3m, and here it is 2.55m.  I had curtains in London but not here, and there are sliding glass doors.  The floors are a faux parquet finish on concrete...as in London.  Thus far due to the heat of summer, I have not laid my wool rug down.  So surfaces are all hard, but there are shelves on the rear and front 'listening position' walls.  And it isn’t just my ears...most people who come over remark on the sound quality.  They focus on the speakers of course, but I know most of it is due to the Naim system. ;-}

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I think it’s easier on the whole to get the best sounding systems in smaller room.. perhaps because I prefer near field listening.. as essentially that is how music is often mastered.

one thing that is often over looked is room height... ceilings can be terrible reflectors., I find more height and coving or similar helps.  I have found care with placing tweeters at a point  where it’s not a simple ratio (like 1/2 or 1/3) of floor to ceiling helps as well.

joerand posted:

Having owned and home demo'd several Totem floor standers I'd say you're challenging the lower power threshold of the Hawks with a 50-W amp. Regardless of where you place the Hawks, you'l get better results with more power. I'd try the Hawks on the Nova (either room) and see what you think of the additional power.

Thanks. I've actually run the Hawks on the Nova in the larger lounge, and they were significantly better.

There is a back story to arriving at this point. Back in the day, my system was an A60 30W amplifier, Acoustic Research 22BX speakers and a Rega Plannar 3, all over 30 years old now. 5 years ago, I decided to go for a streamer option with the UC2 and ran them with the 22BX's in the lounge. Then I decided to upgrade the speakers and move the 22BX's to go with the A60 in my home office (now an office/media room). I tried the Totem Arro with the UC2 and NAP100 and the Hawks. The Hawks had a fuller sound, so I went with them - this was 5 years ago. This year, I wanted to upgrade to the new Uniti range and my dealer said, get more power, the Hawks will be even better. So, I did, and they were. But, there is always a but. I wanted better sound in the media room to go with a new 65 inch OLED TV. I had the UC2 and NAP100, and they blue the trusty old A60 out of park with the 22BX's. But the 22BX's were too large to fit with the TV and I knew the Hawks would sound even better. So, at that stage, I had resolved to have new speakers in the media room, so was it a step below the Hawks in the Totem range (I like their imaging and soundstage), and keep the Hawks with the Nova? or use the Hawks with the UC2/NAP100 (knowing they would sound better than smaller Totems) and go up the Totem range with the Nova. I decided to go with the later and landed Forest Signatures for the Nova and they are better again than the Hawks with the Nova. So, this is where I am now. To complicate matters, there was only 1 Forest Signatures in New Zealand and there was an offer, so that was that.

Bit of a good problem to have I suppose and it gives me a future path. Nova to the media room and a step up on the lounge system, as the Forest's will no doubt take more power. But I'm redundant to accumulate boxes and spend mega bucks when I love what I have. So I think its time to park the bus, and enjoy the music for the next 5 years and see where to from there, when other life stuff will move the goalposts. 

Quick update. My dear dealer had a pre-loved Uniti2 to hand, so that's replacing the UC2/NAP100 in the media room to give more drive to the Hawks. UC2/NAP100 moves to the converted garage/games room next door with some old 22BX speakers to run on multi-room. Lounge system of Nova and Forest Sigs stays as is. Re-visit at retirement.