Show Off Your Small Listening Space

My place defiantly qualifies as small and I tend to keep my system as simple as possible. I do mostly digital and streaming and my equipment isn't top end stuff. But it does a good job on both Video and Music so It makes me "happy."
The TV is a PANASONIC plasma. Amp and pre are both Emotiva. The Sony PS3 does Blu-Ray and CD and a Roku unit helps as well. The speakers are Polk SDA 2Bs and sounds good but are probably to big for my space.
The sub in a 10" Velodyne, older but still going strong.
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My room is tiny, just 8' x 12'. I had my hifi set-up with the speakers along the short wall, about 2.25' from the side walls and 4' from the back walls, per Cardas. It sounded decent, with pretty good imaging depth, but I was also getting ear fatigue and it felt a bit claustrophobic in there.



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I decided today to try it with the speakers along the long wall, which unfortunately necessitates having them closer to the rear wall. I still need to decide where to move my three acoustic panels for the best results, but my initial impressions are:

• more bass, with slight bloating (rear ports on the speakers)
• unpleasant to crank it as loud (which is OK with me)
• less soundstage depth
• the overall presentation is smoother, therefore more relaxing/less fatiguing
• room feels less closed-in/crowded, so the environment is more relaxing

With a small room, there are inevitably compromises, so it comes down to deciding what your priorities are. I'm going to live with it like this for a little while, play around some more with placement, and see how I like it. Almost certainly some treatments behind the speakers will be necessary.

Comments/suggestions are most welcome!

(Pardon the mess, I had to move a bunch of stuff out of the way to do this, and it ended up creating piles on the floor.)

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