It seems that amongst the many cans of worms I'm naively opening with my intended 3-way project is the room layout, so i thought i'd start a thread on that to add to all the other issues being juggled.
Its a standard living room, rather than a dedicated cinema or listening room, and has a number of compromises. In particular my speakers are either side of the TV, which is mounted on the chimney-breast - which means they are stuck in alcoves less than 1m wide and around 35cm deep. This clearly isn't ideal but doesn't seem to be 'too' bad with my current modest bookshelf speakers, theres a little boominess occasionally but then they aren't noted for their impressive bass.. my 3-way project is partly intended to correct that so i woulkd expect to have more of an issue. I don't want to bring the speakers out into the room - partly to keep them at the same distance as the TV and partly because its a small room and space is limited, but they could probably come forward several inches if necessary.
(see image below)
I've started reading The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms by Floyd Toole. Its pretty wide ranging and so not the fastest to get to the point, but he has a section comparing a bookshelf speaker sitting in a sort of shelf-type recess vs packed in with insulation vs flush with the wall (such as in a hard flush panel covering the recess), and its clear that the recess does unfortunate things to the smooth propagation of sound. The conclusion appears to be that its better to have it either flush mounted in a panel or failing that on a panel (where reflections are close enough to be < half a wavelength) rather then in a recess.
If its a problem I was considering bridging the alcoves flush with the chimney and having the speakers flush with it and the cabinets behind - possibly the whole speaker or perhaps just for the bass driver (in which case I would disguise it as a sort of built-in cupboard with the mid and tweeter appearing to be a two-way sitting on top, just above the bass driver). Or alternatively, I could look at a wide baffle design of enclosure like Troel's Poor mans Strad or the Stradivari placed a few inches forward, and hope this would push the sound into 2pi space before it has much chance to interact with the alcove.
So what I'm interested in knowing is if I will actually have a likely problem here, as I believe, and if so are my ideas any good or are there better ways of dealing with it?
Cheers
kev
Its a standard living room, rather than a dedicated cinema or listening room, and has a number of compromises. In particular my speakers are either side of the TV, which is mounted on the chimney-breast - which means they are stuck in alcoves less than 1m wide and around 35cm deep. This clearly isn't ideal but doesn't seem to be 'too' bad with my current modest bookshelf speakers, theres a little boominess occasionally but then they aren't noted for their impressive bass.. my 3-way project is partly intended to correct that so i woulkd expect to have more of an issue. I don't want to bring the speakers out into the room - partly to keep them at the same distance as the TV and partly because its a small room and space is limited, but they could probably come forward several inches if necessary.
(see image below)
I've started reading The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms by Floyd Toole. Its pretty wide ranging and so not the fastest to get to the point, but he has a section comparing a bookshelf speaker sitting in a sort of shelf-type recess vs packed in with insulation vs flush with the wall (such as in a hard flush panel covering the recess), and its clear that the recess does unfortunate things to the smooth propagation of sound. The conclusion appears to be that its better to have it either flush mounted in a panel or failing that on a panel (where reflections are close enough to be < half a wavelength) rather then in a recess.
If its a problem I was considering bridging the alcoves flush with the chimney and having the speakers flush with it and the cabinets behind - possibly the whole speaker or perhaps just for the bass driver (in which case I would disguise it as a sort of built-in cupboard with the mid and tweeter appearing to be a two-way sitting on top, just above the bass driver). Or alternatively, I could look at a wide baffle design of enclosure like Troel's Poor mans Strad or the Stradivari placed a few inches forward, and hope this would push the sound into 2pi space before it has much chance to interact with the alcove.
So what I'm interested in knowing is if I will actually have a likely problem here, as I believe, and if so are my ideas any good or are there better ways of dealing with it?
Cheers
kev