Room Treatment for a Small Rom with a 9.1.4 sound bar

[Nordo]

I know a sound bar is NOT a good system for a home theatre, but please no flames.

I had a great dedicated home theatre with 7.1 system and extensive room treatments.
We are now downsizing our house (moving to a smaller house).
The new house does, however, have a room that will be our "media room" (not quite a home theatre).

The video source is now a TV screen, not a projector, and the awesome sound system will now be a Samsung Atmos capable HW-Q950T (9.1.4) sound bar.
The sound bar comes with two wireless rear speakers, and a relatively small wireless sub.

The sound bar relies heavily on hard surfaces at the first reflection points, as well as a hard surface for the ceiling.
The room is 3.8m (11') x 4.0m (11'8") x 2.4m (8'6") high.

My question is :-
What would everyone recommend would be a suitable approach to maximising the sound in this room?

I'm familiar with speaker placement, seating placement, heavy floor rugs between the sound bar and the MLP, etc.
Perhaps I should be looking at bass traps only, with may some absorption behand the tv and sound bar, and perhaps some diffusion on the rear wall?
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I think your best bet for improvement will be to replace the sound bar.

 

[ddude003]

Without telling us about what you like or dislike about your system's sound, what could we offer? With an almost square room there will be some issues... Post up some REW frequency sweeps (.mdat file please) and maybe we could guess at some suggestions...

 

[Nordo]

I think your best bet for improvement will be to replace the sound bar.

I haven't actually bought the sound bar. And we haven't actually moved into the new house yet.
We are living in a small apartment at the moment (only for 10 days) while waiting to take possession of our "new" house.

As ddude003 noted, the so-called "Media Room" is almost square. So even if The Boss allows me to set up all my old gear in there, the room is very small, and the dimensions are going to be hard to deal with. BTW, I've left all my acoustic panels and screen in the old house.

In order to keep the peace, and because of the size of the room, I have accepted that It's not going to be a home theatre, but more like a TV room, with a better than normal sound system.
If I installed all my old gear in the room, and added treatment at the first reflection points, plus bass traps, etc. I think the room would become too small for comfort.
Treatment would be almost like tackling a car sound system - which I know nothing about.

I guess you can hear come frustration in my posts, but I'm hoping that a new 65" 4K TV (instead of an old PJ), and a half reasonable sound system would satisfy my entertainment cravings (90% movies; 10% music).

BTW, the sound bar I've been looking at is the Samsung HW-Q950T, which has been recently superceded.

 

[ddude003]

I don't know if Samsung is a big player in AV Sound Systems... And I don't know your budget and you might look at the Martin Logan Motion series... You might be able to build out a small Motion 5.1 system...

 

[Nordo]

I don't know if Samsung is a big player in AV Sound Systems... And I don't know your budget and you might look at the Martin Logan Motion series... You might be able to build out a small Motion 5.1 system...

Some MLs would be my dream - but not my wife's.
Being that I don't have a proper home theatre any more, but just a small room, I have reconciled to the fact that there are going to be some compromises.

 

[ddude003]

Have you seen or heard the tiny Motion 2i Bookshelfs? I use 4 of the Motion 4s in my surround system and they really can hold their own as mains too... You could start with a pair of 2i and a small 400 sub... A little later add a center and another pair of 2i... Sell off some of that old stuff to fund a small Martin Logan Motion 5.1 system...

 

[Nordo]

Mmm, thanks ddude003, I'll look into that.
Whenever I think of Martin Logans, all I can visualise is Sonnie's set up.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

Certainly you could still do some small speakers with perhaps a 5.1 setup. Look at the SVS 5.1 systems they offer. I've owned a small SVS setup, and a large one... and heard the small setup in more than just my room. It's really a very good system. This is a very small and non-intrusive system that you will be much happier with vs a sound bar.

SVS Prime Satellite 5.1 Surround Sound System | Home Theater Speakers

Compact SVS Prime Satellite 5.1 surround sound speaker system with SB-1000 Pro subwoofer punches well above its class sonically.

www.svsound.com

 

[Nordo]

Thanks Sonnie.
Just have to figure out the WAF.
Once I get a 5.1 set of normal speakers, I would be compelled to start adding sound treatment. And the whole cycle would start again.
Bugger, I'm starting to sound like my wife.

 

[ddude003]

@Nordo are you saying that if you got a sound bar that you would not be tempted to upgrade anything including room treatment? Seems unlikely no matter which way you lean...

 

[Nordo]

Well, a sound bar relies heavily on utilising first reflections from side walls and ceiling, especially a 9.1.4 sound bar, which I have been looking at (Samsung HW-Q950T).
Hence my initial post, on opinions of what treatment would be worth doing in a small room with a 9.1.4 sound bar.

However Sonnie and you keep tempting me back to the dark side ("feel the power").

 

[ddude003]

The dark side... After a long look at the Samsung HW-Q950T it seems to have a lot of speakers in that "center channel" bar and rear left and rights and a sub?... Shame on you... What did you tell the wife? Its a sound bar and rear what's and naw thats not a sub...

As far as your interest in treatments... I would think you would still need to get some measurements before too many suggestions could be made...

Some of the comments on the Samsung product page lead me to believe there are still some kinks to be worked out...

 

[JStewart]

@Nordo , you might find these threads interesting. They are home theaters in a smaller than typical room.

Tower Cinema (9.1.6 in 12x12 room)

www.avsforum.com

Mini 7.2.4 Home Cinema (smallest ever?)

www.avsforum.com

My room is 11x12.5x10. 92” screen. 5.4.4 atmos (for the moment). Wish I knew starting out what I know now.
My experience in my room is If you want good even bass you’ll need 3 or 4 subs and a miniDsp. They won’t need to be big though.

 

[Nordo]

The dark side... After a long look at the Samsung HW-Q950T it seems to have a lot of speakers in that "center channel" bar and rear left and rights and a sub?... Shame on you... What did you tell the wife? Its a sound bar and rear what's and naw thats not a sub...

As far as your interest in treatments... I would think you would still need to get some measurements before too many suggestions could be made...

Some of the comments on the Samsung product page lead me to believe there are still some kinks to be worked out...

As sound bars go, it's packs a lot into a small package. But apart from the sub, the drivers would all have to be quite small (which is a worry).
The reviews are very good (rtings, etc.).
But as you said, the User ratings are not good. Seems to be mainly loss of wireless connection to the sub and the rears.
But other user ratings (who obviously haven't experienced any problems) are very good.
The latest firmware upgrade was released only late this April, so I'm hoping, if I go ahead with the sound bar, that they have finally sorted the wireless connections.

BTW, I definitely intend running some REW tests, once I have the room initially set up (with whatever system I end up with).

 

[Nordo]

@Nordo , you might find these threads interesting. They are home theaters in a smaller than typical room.

Tower Cinema (9.1.6 in 12x12 room)

www.avsforum.com

Mini 7.2.4 Home Cinema (smallest ever?)

www.avsforum.com

My room is 11x12.5x10. 92” screen. 5.4.4 atmos (for the moment). Wish I knew starting out what I know now.
My experience in my room is If you want good even bass you’ll need 3 or 4 subs and a miniDsp. They won’t need to be big though.

Thanks for the links.
I would really love to work on the room and get the best out of it. But as I have already explained, there is some internal opposition to that.
However, if I can sell all my old gear (except maybe the receiver), I might be able to create at least a hint of a home theatre, without ruffling too many feathers.
Problem with selling what I have, is that all the old speakers (7 two way speakers) are DIY. Now even though they test and sound very good, I am not the best cabinet maker in town.

 

[Nordo]

Well I went ahead and bought a 2nd hand 950T.
Got it going but it sounded a bit harsh.
Using the centre channel, I ran a REW (with ASIO4All drivers) test at my MLP.
The SPL had a big peak at around 15kHz and a broad low from 200 to around 900Hz.
Putting the soundbar in Standard mode and using the basic equaliser in each channel, I added a -6 filter at 10Hz (the highest freq adjustment available), and a +6 filter at 600Hz.
Ran REW against, but the SPLs were identical. ie the equaliser doesn't work.
I then tried to adjust the response using the Treble adjustment, but again, there was no change to the SPL.

Has anyone else had this problem, or has any idea how to get the equaliser working?