room tuning 12ftx12ft room

05-22-11: Br3098
1- 12x12 is going to be problematic no matter how much you treat. Try shortening the effective dimensions of the room by adding a bookshelf of LP racks to the back wall (behind you). If you arrange it properly, it will act as a diffuser. While it may seem counter-productive to make the room smaller, the dimensions are working against you more than the size."

Everything I read and was told when researching treating my 12' x 13' room was to never make the room smaller. A square is bad, a smaller rectangle is worse.
I've had good luck with a method (I forget - Audiophysics??) that suggests putting the speakers 1/3 into the room (4' in our case) and the listener against the back wall (treated). EQ Triangle or thereabouts. I suggest giving that a shot, it worked well for me.

I'm a small room expert. Sebrof has it right, pull the speakers out into the room to kill the booming bass, just like any room. A foot or two forward will kill the bass. Small rooms usually have problems with bass cancellation, too much bass is easier to deal with. If you are listening against the back wall you can move your chair out into the room a little more.

Let's face it - if you are into full range music (and who isn't?), small rooms are tough. And frankly, square rooms just suck unless they are very large. Based testing and experimentation in my own lilliputian space, I will take (for example) a 12x9.5 room with good dimensions over a 12x12 room any day. I was never able treat a square room well enough so that I enjoyed listening in it. But that's just me.

My second point regarding wall proximal speaker placement - to each his (or her) own. In a 12x12 room, how far apart do you intend to seperate the speakers? Let's assume a modest 7'. So unless you are going to listen in the nearfield position (always an option) you are going to be approx. 1' off the back wall; probably a little more. If your room is multi-use and you are mostly watching TV that's OK. For critical listening, maybe not.

Try a variety of suggestions and see what works best for you.

Obviously you guys are not familiar with Vandersteen speakers, their design and the amount of bass they are capable of. All of the room treatment in the world and moving speakers/listening position will not make up for the fact that his speakers are not matched for his room.

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The only successful technique that I've found in small square rooms is a 45 degree set-up.

This tricks the room into performing as if it has different dimensions.

All else, no matter how much you spend on room treatment, or move things around, cannot fix the problems with bass peaks and dips due to the room dimensions.

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