Statement E2 possible in non-large room

  • Thread starter Richard Throckmorton
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Richard Throckmorton

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I'm searching for new speakers and have a budget of around $40k. There is a demo pair of E2 at Goodwin's for $36k, and a few other used pairs are available in this price range too.

At first I thought there was no way this system would possibly work in my dedicated room (details and pics below). But Dan Chadwick at Goodwin's suggested the E2 system could be a great match for my room, much to my surprise. I had expected him to reply "forgetaboutit" when I inquired...

Do any of the ML gurus here, particularly those who are fortunate enough to own or have familiar with the E2, think these could actually work in my room ? I certainly don't know of another speaker system in this price range, new or used, that offers as much value. I've always like the sub-bass towers (wish they were offerd as independent subs) and of course it is wonderful having a curved line source covering 200hz and up without a crossover.

My room is 14.5' x 17' with a 10' ceiling (with a peripheral soffit dropping 12" to 9'). Speakers are on the long wall with the listening positions on the opposite long wall. The front wall, and front portions of the side walls, are covered with about 120 sq ft of 2" fiberglass panels. There are also quarter round bass traps in each corner. All this treatment is then covered with thick drapery fabric. Behind the reclining listening chairs, there are double sliding doors opening into a large family room. When retracted there is an 8' x 8' opening into the family room.

I would put the sub bass towers in the rear corners (flanking the listening position) and the main towers in the same general area where the current speakers -- VMPS RM/X -- are located. I have added a TacT RCS 2.2X to my system and would probably use it, instead of the EXOS crossover, to integrate the bass and main towers and also take care of room correction.

Thanks!
 

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I'm not an expert on the larger M/L stuff, let me get that out in the open right up front. I am however an architect with a stereophile fetish and a general knowledge of acoustics.

1. You have a square room - or darn near square (same difference). This is bad for standing waves also known as bass nodes, booming bass, or one note bass. I see nothing in your room that is set-up to handle long wave two or three feet long waves (not kidding). It almost takes a closet sized enclosure to do that job (those tube columns aren't bad for that).

2. The best shape or room proportions will be based on the Golden Section or 2:3 ratio (your room is close to one to one) - not good.

3. Lose the right and left sound absorbtion panels and put them behind your head/back.

4. Remember the M/L's will be much farther out in the room/ off the wall than the other speakers. Also your toe-in will not be as extreem.

5. $40,000................could build a new room (maybe)..........could buy a 1-1/2 year old Porsche Boxster.................you could do worse things with your money (GM stock?). :p

6. Yes, you can purchase these speakers, yes there will have to be some, but not major changes. I'd lose the curtains and put up some art......perhaps even fabric art. Come to Ann Arbor's art fair the 3rd week of July.....perhaps I could help you find something unusual.
 
kach22i said:
2. The best shape or room proportions will be based on the Golden Section or 2:3 ratio (your room is close to one to one) - not good.

I think you mean Golden Ratio, 0.618, not 2:3.
 
Erictrostatic said:
I think you mean Golden Ratio, 0.618, not 2:3.
I know it's between 1:2 and 2:3..........3:5?

Let me look this up..........got Cardas first off.

http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=6&pagestring=Golden+Section+Stranding
Golden Ratio, 1.6180339887...: 1

So if I just up everything by multiple of two we get..........2 x 1 = 2 and 2 x 1.6 = 3.2............and I said "3", or more specifically 2:3! So I'm in the ballpark.

I knew it had a relationship to "PHI".......easy as pie. :D

http://www.vashti.net/mceinc/golden.htm
The decimal representation of phi is 1.6180339887499... .

PS: I was thinking just now that PHI is 3.1416, now I'm confusing myself - time to go to bed. :confused:
 
I'm familiar with the Cardas site and Golden Ratio. Even a room with perfect Golden Ratio dimensions will have bass nodes, they are just more evenly spread out. Nodes are also present in rooms with no parallel walls, they are just much more difficult to calculate. Worst case scenario is a cube room, where the nodes are the same for each dimension thus increase significantly in amplitude (though only at a few frequencies).

There is a huge difference between a square room and a non-square room, even if the ratio L/W ratio is less than 1:1.618. The ratio for my room is H:L:W = 1:1.45:1.7 which is not bad at all. In fact the nodes are fairly well spread out.

Regardless, the TacT (or a DEQX) handles any room's bass problems with ease. It just reduces output at the frequencies where nodes cause boosts at the listening positioning. Nulls are harder to deal with but can be minimized by areful positioning of the speakers and listening chair.

So I am not really concerned about bass. More importantly, the listening positioning will be about 10-12' from the speakers and I am not sure that is enough distance to properly integrate sound from the curved line source and dipole woofer array.

Also the speakers will not be able to go 1/3 into the room. The front of each speaker will be 3-4' out from the wall. But I think this would be adequate since the front wall is heavily absorptive. I have found best results with the front wall and front portion of the side walls absorptive with the walls to the sides and behind the listening position a bit more lively.

The fabric is staying, by the way. It was mandated by the wife and interior designers and was not cheap!
 
Richard Throckmorton said:
More importantly, the listening positioning will be about 10-12' from the speakers and I am not sure that is enough distance to properly integrate sound from the curved line source and dipole woofer array.
Sounds like you know what you are getting into, I thought those speakers might be the ones with active bass EQ..

I have tried "nearfield" listening with my speakers by putting my chair in the middle of the room. It's not bad, kind of like being on stage with the band...........or the worlds largest headphones. The detail really picks up, but soundstaging suffers for it.

I have no doubt that you can have the fabric on the panels artsy-fartsied up by being hand painted or silk-screened. It just looks so much like a home-theater and not a 2-channel room................don't know why that disturbs me so.

What ever acoustic treatments you had with your conventional speakers will have to be re-thought with planar dipoles.............even if you had bi-poles (which are a bit different) before. Save a little in your budget for art or special lighting...................it could only make it even better than it already is.
 
kach22i said:
I have tried "nearfield" listening with my speakers by putting my chair in the middle of the room. It's not bad, kind of like being on stage with the band...........
Yes, near field listening works. Though, it might look wrong with the speakers being too close especially when we are talking about the E2.
 
Hi Richard-

Did you happpen to see this article from the ML site?
http://www.martinlogan.com/room_design.html#none

From the position of the e2's to the Scripts in this room, it doesn't appear (at least by eye) that your room will be much different, minus ceiling height.

By the way, the fabric looks great... leave it. Where did you get the acoustic panels at?

Regards,
 
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as a statement owner, i can tell you two things for certain.

1. You do not want to seperate the sub sections from the main towers. They are built to function in a close prox. to each other. I tried that very same thing with mine, and the sub/mid seperation was horrible.

2. Your room is boarder line too small. By the time you pull them 4' (min) from the side walls, pull them 5' (min) from the back wall, and pull your listening seat 5' from the rear wall....you would be sitting 7' from the speakers. Thats less than ideal for the statements. you could probably fix the short comings with massive amounts of room treatments, but it may not be the answer either.

my room is 20'x28', and its cramped. they are amazing, but they are ALOT of speaker to have to position.
 
Thanks for the link. He definitely has a sweet cave to retreat to after a hard days work !

The fabric has grown on me. It certainly helps cut reflected high frequency sound too. The panels are 2" Respond by Acoustics First. They are pretty reasonably priced and effective.


SugarMedia said:
Hi Richard-

Did you happpen to see this article from the ML site?
http://www.martinlogan.com/room_design.html#none

From the position of the e2's to the Scripts in this room, it doesn't appear (at least by eye) that your room will be much different, minus ceiling height.

By the way, the fabric looks great... leave it. Where did you get the acoustic panels at?

Regards,
 
Richard Throckmorton said:
Acoustics First
Nice product line-up, I really like the "QUIET LOUVER PANELS" and the "Art Diffusor" both of them use some wood - everyone likes wood, right?
 
Bonedust, thanks for the advice. I was hoping to get some input from you.

See the diagram I attached and let me know what you think. I'm am hopefully optimistic -- both the sub bass towers and main arrays will fit in the front of the room. They certainly will have a "presence" but that isn't such a bad thing for these handsome fellas ;)

Distances from the front wall and side walls will be borderline, and obviously I am counting on the absorption panels to help compensate for this. And I do plan on using digital room correction which will eliminate the inevitable bass lifts. Nulls are tougher to deal with but can be minimized by lots of measuring and repositioning of the speakers and listening chair. Little correction should be needed from the mid bass upwards since the e2 main towers act as a nearfield line array with cylindrical wavefront.

This is the system which would initially be used:

Meridian G98DH
TacT RCS 2.2X
> main output
> TacT S2150 (L & R dipole woofers)
> TacT S2150 (L & R electrostatic panels)
> sub output
> Crown K2 (L & R bass towers)

The S2150 is a bit underpowered for the e2 (150/300 wpc) but I think that output levels will be sufficient with passive biamping of the main towers and the relatively small room volume. Later in the year I plan to upgrade the two S2150 amps to a four channel BOZ 216/2200 which has a bit more power (200/400 wpc).
 

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Man, I dont know much about anything but those statements are going to blow you through the back wall. I hope you have seatbelts for your recliners. I have found that Ascent i seem to really sing when the volume is turned up. Not deafening loud but plenty of volume. Will you get the benefit of Statements in a room 14ft long.
 
jonnyb said:
Man, I dont know much about anything but those statements are going to blow you through the back wall.

The room will act as a band-pass filter, the door opening will be similar a port on a ported speaker..................going to hear lots of bass down the hall no mater what the room treatments.

Saying it's too much speaker for the room would be similar to saying my muscle car has too much horsepower - can that really ever be true? :D

Oh, I really don't have a muscle car, just an old (modest 175 hp) Porsche from 1977. The car has just enough power to be fun but has a delightful degree of handling finesse, and old sports car rawness - much like the personality my stereo system. I'm not sure if Richard's system will be more like the Cayenne than the latest Turbo 911, lets call it a Turbo Cayenne for now. :)
 
Gooday Kach22i,you are proberly quite right, i should have kept quiet. If here in Aust i found a Statement system for that price i would try everything i could to make it fit in my room and make it sound good. I hope he buys them and they sound incredible. regards jonnyb p.s. ascent i cost A$10,000.00 here, they quote you over the phone A$25,000.00 for Prodigys, Statements A$250,000.00. New.
 
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I've measured the room with doors open and doors closed (which seals the room). Bass measures better with the room sealed. Not sure if the "band pass" analogy really holds up but some extra dips and nulls manifest with them open. I always thought this was from additional reflections off the back wall in the family room which is about 22' back from the opening.

Most of my personal listening is done at night with the doors closed but sometimes when friends come over during the weekend days we'll open them up.
I have different settings saved on the TacT for open and closed for each of the two listening chairs :cool:
 
I'm jealous of your set-up Richard (and future set-up).........let us know how it all works out. ;)
 
Hi,
this is a Statement owner from Berlin. My room is 16' wide, 25' long and 8' high. I have no problems with the sound - so I would like to say "it works".
But I think your room is wide enough, but a little bit to short. Please think
about the Prodigy or successor. You can safe money, will have a really great
sound and - important - there is not allways the feeling of a wrong decision.
Good luck, Frank
 
hmmm, after looking at that diagram, it may work out well. being against the back wall isnt ideal, but its also not the end of the world.

also, a few words of advice. i have heard bits and pieces of how goodwins has treated that set of Statements. Inspect everything with a jewelers eye before you buy them. At one point they had the sub sections in 4 pieces and inside these cabinets...not sure why...

i gotta tell ya, therer is NOTHING like the Statement sound!!!
 

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