Tower speakers in a small room

[J Larsen]

After years of talking about it, I think I'm finally comfortable dropping some savings on a nice pair of speakers. I checked out the B&W 704s at Stereo Exchange. I liked them best out of all of the decent-looking speakers that were within my budget.

Here's the dilema: I don't live in the biggest apartment. My living room, which is where the speakers would go, is roughly 11 feet by 12 feet and is slightly teardrop shaped. On the other hand, the apartment has an open floor plan (basically a 1BR railroad with no doors), and the whole thing is about 500 square feet. My question is whether getting tower speakers in this kind of space is just the wrong idea. My problem with bookshelf speakers is that I'd rather not deal with speaker stands and because of the layout of my current apartment I really don't have a place to put a subwoofer. Also, I have been led to believe that speaker placement is a bigger issue with bookshelf models than it is with towers, which is something to think about given the somewhat odd shape of my living room.

Further considerations: 1) I do plan to move into a place with a larger living room sometime in the next couple years, where the tower speakers might make more sense (once my current apartment is no longer rent stabilized, I'll move). 2) The speakers these would be replacing are floor-standing Infinity Sterlings that I bought in 1994 for probably about $400. They've served me well, but I think I'm ready for something a little more refined.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[RDK]

I've always prefered tower speakers no matter what room they're in.

[Deuterium]

If you like the sound of the 704s, and you have the electronics to drive them well, I would get them. I don't see a problem with towers in your setting.

[Late]

B&W's are great. I only have bookshelf B&W's, but I've listened to towers in a stereo store's listening room. I think you'll be happy with them, in both your current residence and future (larger) residences. Perhaps a little sound-proofing (those foam wedges etc.) might help focus the sound in a smaller room so that the towers don't overpower your listening experience.

[J Larsen]

Thanks - looks like its going to be the 704s. They will be hooked up to a Rotel 1062 integrated amp, which brings me to another question: I'm probably due for new speaker cable (the cables I have now are whatever Circuit City sold me 12 years ago). Here is what the store by my house sells, is any of it worth buying? I'm a little put off because I've been told Monster isn't a very good brand:

http://www.stereoexchange.com/catalogue/su...ubcategoryId=41

[tatifan]

I have a room about the same size that has become my dedicated audio room (away from the video stuff in the bigger room) and I got the Revel Concerta F12s

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/speakersystems/1205revel/

and they are VERY comfortable in a smaller space. They are not as wide as they are deep, which helps for space saving as well. They are efficient as well (I'm told -- I've got them on a 10 yr. old 200 wpc Adcom amp and Conrad Johnson preamp) I find they sound wonderful with so many different types of recordings, and preserve the individual quality and flavor of those differing periods of recordings and different genres of music really well. Not that I'm trying to steer you away from the B&Ws, but if anyone else wants a full range speaker in a smaller room they're worth checking out for the pretty reasonable $1300.

[J Larsen]

My speakers are at the store and ready to be picked up in the morning!

Any last-minute advice on speaker cable?

Thanks.

[Ron S]

My speakers are at the store and ready to be picked up in the morning!

Any last-minute advice on speaker cable?

Thanks.

For speaker cables, you may want to try Audio Advisor. They're in Grand Rapids, MI--home of Randy Marsh, so you know they've GOTTA be good--and are one of the, if not THE, biggest internet retailers of high-end audio equipment and accessories. I've ordered several things from them over the years, and have always had good luck. In fact, I bought a pair of their AudioQuest Type 4 Speaker Cables with "No Frills" Packaging (they terminate them to your specs at the store), and they seem to be an excellent value.

[erhodes]

My speakers are at the store and ready to be picked up in the morning!

Any last-minute advice on speaker cable?

Thanks.

Speaker cable can be a tough nut because speakers, cables, and amps sometimes interact in unpredictable ways. Shooting from the hip, though, I recommend Kimber 4TC. It's a true audiophile cable ($6-$7 foot?) but it's not highly capacitive and reacts fairly neutrally with a wide range of speakers and amps. Not the ultimate in transparency but you'd probably have to spend more to do audibly better. And if you were going to spend more, you need very good and specific advice with regard to interactivity.

[J Larsen]

Thanks - based on this I think I'm going to just get whatever they have on the presumption that it has to be better than whatever I already have, and then invest in a cable upgrade once I've had time to do a little research.

Thanks a lot for all the help. I should have the speakers in my house by noon!

[Ron S]

My speakers are at the store and ready to be picked up in the morning!

Any last-minute advice on speaker cable?

Thanks.

Speaker cable can be a tough nut because speakers, cables, and amps sometimes interact in unpredictable ways. Shooting from the hip, though, I recommend Kimber 4TC. It's a true audiophile cable ($6-$7 foot?) but it's not highly capacitive and reacts fairly neutrally with a wide range of speakers and amps. Not the ultimate in transparency but you'd probably have to spend more to do audibly better. And if you were going to spend more, you need very good and specific advice with regard to interactivity.

Audio Advisor carries these--more than twice as much as the AudioQuest Type 4. Audio Advisor has pretty good telephone customer service--you should give them a call and get their input.

[chris]

Before spending too much on speaker cable you might want to check out a few resources such as:

www.roger-russell.com/wire.htm

and

www.audioholics.com/techtips/setup/interconnects/DIYSpeakerCablesp1.html

I am EXTREMELY happy with my cat5 cables and my most reliable audiophile friend thought I'd upgraded my previous ($9 per foot) cables...

[J Larsen]

Thanks for the tips - based on these comments and advice from the one stereo store dude in NYC that I trust (Anthony at Stereo Exchange), I went with the Kimber 4TC. They told me that the speakers and cable will sound better after 400 hours of play - if that's true, I'm really excited to hear what they sound like in a few months, because they're already incredible to my ears (with the only drawback being that I can now hear imperfections in some of my favorite recordings that I had never noticed before).

[chris]

Let us know how it goes... the only cable I've so far tried that sounded as good as the cat5 was Kimber 8tc-- but I could't affcord it

[J Larsen]

So far it's going great! From the very first track I played through the new speakers, the high-end detail was unbelievable - on a good recording, it sounds like the cymbals are right there in the room. Of course, this is a mixed blessing with poor quality recordings (I finally understand why people on the boards have complained about certain discs in the past), but overall I'm a very happy camper.

I am finding that the bass quality is subtly changing as I break them in. The low end seems much more present tonight than it did yesterday afternoon... so far, so good, but if it becomes too much more present I may experiment with the foam plugs.

[J Larsen]

Man, I'm afraid I'm really going off the deep end now... I just upgraded the interconnect cable going from my CD player to my amp to the Kimber Hero, which cost more than a normal person spends on a CD player! I notice a *huge* improvement in the sound quality over using the stock cable that came with my CD player though; almost as big of an improvement as I got from swapping my Infity speakers for the B&Ws. I just have to make sure this doesn't develop into a habit...

[Claude]

I am finding that the bass quality is subtly changing as I break them in. The low end seems much more present tonight than it did yesterday afternoon... so far, so good, but if it becomes too much more present I may experiment with the foam plugs.

When I got my Dynaudio Contour s3.4 speakers, which I use in a 40m² room, I found the bass a bit too boomy on certain frequencies, which was confirmed by running through a frequency sweep test CD.

I started building a "bass trap" on the Helmholtz resonator principle (a box with a bass-reflex tube, calculated to absorb a certain bass frequency range). When the box was ready after a few weeks (I hadn't done any thorough listeing during that time), I found that I didn't need it anymore, as the boomyness was completely gone. Breaking in can change the loudspeaker sound quite a lot, especially in the bass department.

Edited October 28, 2006 by Claude