Arendal Sound in small rooms

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

Casually browsing apartments for sale, trying to imagine how a Home Theatre best could be implemented to see what options is on the market.

My main limitation will be my wife, so the example photo attached is from a best/worst case scenario where I would be able to have a dedicated room (+), but it doesn’t reach THX minimum (-).

The attached example is 3m wide and 3.4m deep. Room height is unspecified but I assume it is no more than 2m. Main issue is roof height and volume (23m3, well below 50 m3 recommendation) being well below spec.

What is the experience with Arendal Sound speakers in such an environment.

Is it possible to use Atmos / Height at 2m flushed to roof, or upwards firing? What about roof height on 2.2m?

How would bookshelf vs monitor perform in such a room?
1961 LCR vs 1723 S LCR

Single or dual subwoofer?

Does the 1723 SURROUND S THX go well with 1961 LCR or is it better to match with 1961 series? I do prefer the look of the 1723 here, and protruding 1cm less from the wall.

Regards,
Aksel

Attachments:

1. 

[Thomas Gunvaldsen]

Hello Aksel,

For a space of this size my first choice would be looking at the 1961 range for the entire room. They have a little less sound power in the lower tweeter/upper midrange section vs the 1723 series which will help in a smaller room to get more of the direct sound of the speaker vs the reverberation from the room.

Secondly, for the fronts I would choose either 1961 Tower or 1961 Monitor/Center speakers, as they are a D’appolito design, they also reduce slightly vs the Bookshelf speakers, the dispersed sound vertically and horizontally – offering more direct sound from the speaker and a better sound for movies.

I would go for a 5.1 setup as base layer, and my choice for surround speakers would simply be 1961 Surround as they will have more or less identical sound to the front stage, plus the TriAxial behaviour which gives you that nice enveloping sound field even without the rear surrounds.

As for height channels, yes definitely if you have space for it, they will elevate the experience. You could either mount them on top of the front and rear wall (I would recommend having 2 pairs in this layout), or having either a single pair mounted on ceiling as per dolby specs, or even two pairs on ceiling, if you have enough ceiling height. It is possible also to place on top of the 1961 Tower speakers in front to have them upfiring.