Open Floor Plan Listening Room

Thanks for the advice Andy!  I feel better about the open space than I used to.

Ahh the memories...20 years ago I entered this hobby diving in with a Cat pre-amp and Krell 300 monoblocks driving Apogee Duetta's.  In a wide open Split atrium house where the listening room extended to the roofline and two rooms back I had an indoor mini-theatre with a refined high-end audiophile sound system.  Even 2 large Muse model 18 subwoofers didn't fix the basic dilemma of the Duetta's reserved bass or give that real-world dynamic punch that I wanted for some music some of the time. Nothing would or could solve it, even after moving 4 times to 4 homes and other listening rooms when compared other dynamic speakers substituted into the system. 

Subs helped a lot in the lower extremes but not higher up and did not mimic a full range dynamic speaker and the solid punch you get all the way through the upper bass and midrange.  Yet 20 years and 4 homes later I still have the Duetta's and since parting with the CAT preamp and Krell monoblocks am using Jadis Defy monoblocks to easily drive either the Apogee Duetta's or Martin Logan Quest Z.  The ML Quest hybrid really showed me how reserved the Duetta bass is as far as real world impact, that you feel and taste.  The Duetta can put out some volume of bass that is controlled, tight and can measure, but it will never be visceral and never touched the way it is with dynamic speakers.   But time after time, year after year, floor plan after floor plan I have always turned back to tubes and either panels or stats, whatever their limitations may be.  The musical magic that comes out of those continues to be priceless and irreplaceable and not for trade. Subs have often helped fill in with many rooms but do not replace or turn the Duetta's massive woofer ribbon into a dynamic driver.  But that's ok, put on some female vocal and you'll forget all the discussion and worry.  I'm moving soon again, but  I'll will still look for an open floor plan  and of course am keeping my planars. The joy that comes out of those components has far exceeded the perfect audiophile setup I could never achieve after so many years and dollars later. 

This is an important reminder that no domestic space will ever give you the acoustics to mimic a concert hall. It will always be too small, limiting the dynamic range that can be reproduced, and creating havoc at lower frequencies. A good postage stamp image of reality is the best we can hope for, and all the more so with large scale dynamic music like a symphony orchestra. Here, the real thing will always remain better.

willemj

This is an important reminder that no domestic space will ever give you the acoustics to mimic a concert hall.

That's pretty obvious, unless you actually live in a concert hall.

It will always be too small, limiting the dynamic range that can be reproduced, and creating havoc at lower frequencies.

You can certainly obtain full dynamic range in a domestic environment - that's easy to measure. Room treatments can ameliorate its acoustic issues.

Sandpat- great intro to the forums. You ask great questions and have a good attitude. Well done. We’ve had a lot of know-it-alls who have signed up lately and proceeded to school us all and save us from our ignorance. Not a great first impression.

I can’t help with advice for your issue, but it sounds like you’ve plenty of that. I just wanted to second the recommendations for room measurement. I recently purchased a calibrated USB mic that I use with REW, a free program. It’s the mic they recommend and was $90 shipped. Each mic also has a specific calibration file to use, making the whole process more accurate. I’ve found some bass modes that I thought were there, but I didn’t know at what frequencies or if they truly were problems. Now that I’ve the info, I need to decide what to do. But that is a way better situation than buying room treatments and placing them based on my thoughts instead of data.