Speakers for a tiny room?

[Paul R]

I need to put some speakers in what amounts to a tiny room with a nightstand and single bed in it. When I say tiny, I mean a room 9 feet long by 4.5' wide. One of the short walls is a window, and the other short wall is the door.

 

A little NAD all in one CD/Radio unit will be powering the speakers, so efficiency is important. The person who will be living in this room for the next two months listens exclusively to classical music, so dynamic range is perhaps more important than anything else. Bass is also important, especially piano.

 

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

-Paul

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

UK or US?

What's your budget?

New or second hand?

Happy to add a sub?

Wall or stand mount?

 

My gut reaction would be Wharfdale 10.1; Monitor Audio BR1; Bowers and Wilkins 685 or CM1 or Quad 11L.

 

Eloise

 

[Part-Time Audiophile]

At the CAF, I had a chance to listen to some truly fun bookshelf speakers from Joseph Audio -- the Pulsar. Bass was great (floor shaking in that small room), imaging spot on, and tonally, they were just fantastic. I loved them! They're also about $6k or so, so definitely not on the cheap side. Worth a look.

 

I would have also recommended the Reference 3a MM De Capo IIs as they're very easy to drive and 91dB. I thought they were fantastic speakers, and at 1/3 the price of the Joseph's, they're a screamin' deal. But ... they don't do so well with toe-in. You really need to listen off-axis or they show this upper-mid suckout, which makes positioning important, and given your room dimensions, this is going to be a problem.

 

How about the new Gallo's? The Strada might be just the ticket for you. They're pretty easy to place and not designed to go super low, which would probably be a good thing as that room will not take the bass. And at $1k each, they're not terrifically expensive -- and they sound great.

 

EDIT: Why not look at headphones?

 

[Audio_ELF]

Do people actually think and read the body of people's posts: $6k speakers for a less than $1000 (guessing price) NAD all-in-one?? That's rather rediculous miss-match don't you think. Even $1k would be (to my mind) an upper limit. Yes this is computer Audiophile but surely we take some thought for people's requirements.

 

Eloise

 

[Part-Time Audiophile]

@Eloise: the point about the Pulsars is well taken. Thought I'd added a tongue-in-cheek "emoticon" in there, but apparently that didn't make the edit. My bad. ;-)

 

That said, they truly are wonderful. Oh well.

 

But the other speakers are probably not too "over" priced wrt to the NAD, are they? I suppose it turns on the OP's feeling about the relationship of pricing the speaker to everything else. And there's always the ability to get the speakers used, which would drive the price down considerably. Just a thought.

 

BTW, bookshelf speakers are really hard to do well. I've heard quite a few, and liked many, but loved? Well, no, not really. Not many at all.

 

But getting back to the OPs point -- that room is going to be hell on any speaker setup that goes in there. And if we're talking about the NAD C715, there is a headphone out on that thing. Add an AKG701 and you're done. And no need to futz with room interactions.

 

[Richard Dale]

 

The small speaker I'd most like to hear for a small room is the Marten Logan Motion 4. But we don't really know your budget and maybe it is a bit expensive (about 500 dollars I believe).

 

 

 

I you don't have much money and don't mind a second hand choice with a bit of DIY needed - see my sig. I have a 15 year old pair of modified Radio Shack LX5s. You can get them on ebay for about 50 euros, and modifying them will cost about another 30 euros (new wiring, replace crossover inductor and capacitor, drinking straws in the ports, more foam stuck inside). In my opinion, after some modification they really sound a poor man's electrostatic. I moved to a small flat and my Audiostatic DCI electrostatics wouldn't have fitted, and so I put them in storage, and modified the little Tandys that used to be my desktop speakers. I actually miss the full range electrostatics much less than I thought I would.

 

 

[Tipper]

I would certainly have a listen to the quad 11L's. I’ve heard and liked these.

Q acoustics do a nice little speaker for around £160. It was a class winning product for another HiFi site. I haven’t heard these.

 

Even with clever porting it's impossible to get decent bass out of a small speaker so clarity and dynamics in the range the speaker can reproduce would seem to be what to look for.

 

Socrates7 has a point about the headphones and it could be a neat solution for the household assuming the Nad has a reasonable head phone stage.

 

 

[Paul R]

 

US -or more accurately, Central Texas.

 

Budget is truly "as little as I can get away with," since these things are likely to be "throwaways." I had planned to put a small set of psb Imagine B's in there, but they are actually too big! They are the smallest set of speakers I have.

 

New or second hand is okay.

 

I don't think there is any room for a sub and to be honest, I really don't want it to get too loud in that room.

 

I think a wall mount might be a better choice.

 

Someone suggested I look at headphones, which might be a good idea, but I'm not sure if she will wear phones or not.

 

P.S. Those are all great suggestions guys, though the ones I like the most are out of my budget range. I'll look up the little Radio Shack critters though. I have not heard anyone say anything good about Radio Shack in oh - 30 years?

 

-Paul

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

But the other speakers are probably not too "over" priced wrt to the NAD, are they? I suppose it turns on the OP's feeling about the relationship of pricing the speaker to everything else. And there's always the ability to get the speakers used, which would drive the price down considerably. Just a thought.

 

Regardless of the price, it's always been my opinion / experience that you get better results (at the budget end) with a higher end (price if you like) amp with lower end speakers than trying to run high end speakers off a lower end amp: e.g. I'd rather have B&W 600 series driven by Classe than 800 series driven by low end Rotel (not perfect example but you get the idea).

 

This isn't a hard and fast rule and beyond a certain level the amplifier is more than capable and the ratio can be inverted.

 

Eloise

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

eBay is your friend...

 

Sound like if you buy small known brand you won't really go wrong for your situation. Sounds like a college / uni room?

 

[BobH]

A Pure Avanti Flow and an iPod Touch. Can stream from home network. DAB. FM. Internet Radio. IPod dock. Everything in one box. Can sound a little woolly in the bass, but backing off the built in sub woofer normally fixes that. PlugPlayer on an iPod works better than the built in network streaming.

 

[Audio_ELF]

Sounds pretty good suggestion Bob - I nearly said Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin so very similar...

 

Eloise

 

[Paul R]

That sounds like a great idea - less space, less hassle!

 

This is a space for a friend of my son's who is auditioning for a music scholarship. First time away from home, and needs a bit of private space.

 

We have a larger room for her, but she insisted on this room, and well, that artistic temperament is there in full force. Also, this room is about as far away as you can get from my son's room...

 

Pretty much everything surrounding this project is restricted because of the space issue.

 

-Paul

 

 

[RankStranger]

Cheapish - Polk RtiA1

 

Less Cheapish - Sonus Faber Toys

 

Don't know US prices but love both of these, especially the Toys for classical.

 

RS

 

[nrwatson]

Not listening to classical : )

 

[sully22]

I have the Cain & Cain Noogi and Spud combo (named after pets) they work well. probably $1500. Place the sub (Spud) as close as is practical, centered between the Noogi's which like to be spaced fairly wide apart. Experiment with the direction of the Fostex drivers. if the upper frequencies bite a bit to much you can dampen the ports ( I used socks ) I ended up removing them when I repositioned the small Spud sub to the other side of my monitor and gained some bass reinforcement. Do not use the Spuds powered amp to run the Noogi's,you can but it sounds like crap. A low powered tube amp 2-10 watts (the new MiniWatt ?) is apparently ideal. my amp is 38 watts and works fine. Voices sound excellent. It took a fair amount of experimenting to get the bass set right for most music and keep the articulate upper bass while losing the occasional shout on some music.

A little bit of money,but it is my bedroom and desktop system and there is that word audiophile in the name of this website.

 

[sandman00000]

Hi-

 

I just grabbed some Epos ELS-3 off Audiogon for $150 used. I needed something while my Opera Mezza's are being fixed.

 

At first hook up I noticed the deficiencies of course, as they were veiled and had considerablely less range than the Mezza's.

 

(PS. anyone else heard the Mezza's? impressions? These are my first monitors)

 

After getting over that, I am really enjoying these; they just sound nice, very pleasant to listen to.

 

They are probably worst at playing orchestral music, they just cant handle the dynamic range and populous instumentation; but really shine on small group jazz, classical, and singer-songwriter vocals.

 

(So these don't meet the dynamic needs that you want, but if you only have

[mikemercer]

I'm a two-way speaker devotee, and have heard a TON of stuff over the years - I'd say for that space you can't go wrong with the Reference 3A Dulcets!

 

They just ooze soul, to my ears anyway. They also disappear easily into the room, allowing for the music to shine through.

 

or, the little Ushers (think the model is 500a or something)

 

and the AUDIOENGINE passives are also VERY good, especially for the price (their bamboo cabinet pair; I got them for my father, who's been into Hifi longer than I've been alive, and he LOVES them)

 

[mwheelerk]

Pricewise and performancewise I might consider the Mordant-Short Aviano 1 speakers.

 

[bikemig]

I use the zvox mini for a small room. The sound is very good for music especially for classical (which I mainly listen to) and the price very reasonable. You can get it directly from the manufacturer or a variety of online merchants. I also had a very good experience when I had to warranty my unit.