Hi, I’m thinking of moving up to 600s from 400s and was wondering about the size of my room - whether it is too small. Size is : 21x12x7 feet (Length x height x width).
Will be driving them with 282 hicapDR CB 250. Noticed on older threads that people went from 250s to 300s with them.
Eventual aim would be to go Active (if still possible at the point in time).
Thanks
Alan
I have S600s. We drive them with a SN1 quite satisfactorily. Your 250 should be more than fine.
Our room is weird in that it is double height with a mezzanine level and is open to the kitchen (and dining room) along one full side. But in terms of the configuration, ours are about 7’ apart and my chair is about 12’ from the speakers. Surprisingly, they seem to work best fairly close to the wall. I pulled them forward a bit but didn’t like it.
Hindsight, I wish I’d gone for the S400s, though. Just a better match for the amp, I think. The 400s seemed to be generally better received at the time, although we don’t really find anything wrong with the 600s.
If only you lived closer, we could swap !
Interesting you say yours like to be close to wall, mine are about 5-6 feet from back wall and 3-4 feet from side walls and sound pretty good like that. Best I’ve found so far anyway.
Thanks for information. If it were possible to go Active with the 400s then I’d probably keep them.
Alan
Errata : 12 feet wide by 7 high
I run my 600’s active (4x135). They are as close to the stone wall as I can get them. They are 2.5 apart and I sit 2.2 from them. I thought that they might be too large for the room, but they blend in well and don’t dominate the room.
My room is similar to yours I think, with low ceilings; the sound field is mainly direct, which I think is a benefit. The floor and walls are stone, although one wall is lath and plaster.
I am also active with 3 x 300’s. My room is 6.8 m x 4.2 and the speakers fire across the room just 30cm from the back wall and 1.8 m from each side wall. Great sound and have not found any speaker to match them (including Titan 707, albeit in passive mode).
Isolation is key with either Townshend Pods or IsoAcoustics Gaia.
My room is 5,5 x 4,5 x 3,5 meters, opening to other rooms on two sides. Speakers are 3m apart, placed on the long side of the room.
They seem to like some space to the sides.
The 600s are easily able to make the music come alive in this setting, very pleased.
Thats interesting. I thought the built in suspension was enough isolation? Would you care to elaborate on the improvements you found using the Gaias? Amd what kind of floor do you have?
Initially the speakers were spiked into a concrete floor. The sound quality was good but bass boom was evident on various tracks and quite severe on a few. I initially thought that this was due to room modes but I read an article promoting speaker isolation rather than spiking, and as an experiment removed the spikes leaving them resting on the carpet. This did make some improvement with the bass problem. Soon after this, I attended a HiFi show in Brighton in 2014 where Max Townshend was demonstrating his speaker bars. I decided to give the a trial and found that they not only improved the bass response but also overall sound quality.
Later I removed the carpet and laid suspended flooring with no change to bass response but with some glare in the higher frequencies, mitigated to an extent by adjusting the Snaxo BMR. I would have kept this set up, but neither my wife or I really liked the aesthetics of the speaker bar, and I tried the Gaia 2’s. My first imperssion was that the bass was ‘heavier’ than the Townshend bars but without the bloom. Several months on I do now much prefer them, the bass is solid and the slight treble glare removed.
Very happy now with the sound quality
First of all thanks for all the replies and the 600s do look promising.
I also have the seismic bars under my 400s. When I originally bought the 2nd hand 400s there were no spikes and I had them straight on the floor. Sound was ok but nothing special. I then put some spikes on them and got immediate improvements but not happy with the bass. Eventually put them on the seismic bars and everything improved again to the point where I’m happy with them. Soundstage is fantastic And I’m now thinking some room treatment will yield pleasant results.
The bars were initially a treat for myself during lockdown and led to a whole other List of upgrades. So, having just spent £1300 on the bars which won’t support the 600s I am questioning myself hard about another upgrade. I’ve emailed Townshend about replacing the load cells only and will wait to see what they say.
Alan
I have found Townshend to be very flexible and accommodating, I use their Pods under my turntable, when I upgraded the turntable to a heavier model they did an exchange free of charge.
Incidentally, the Pods under the TT are very effective, the TT is not sprung but is totally isolated from the floor and stand.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I have my Ovators on standard spikes and chips, suspended wood floor and no bass issues at all. Maybe if a find a reasonably priced 2nd hand set of Gaias I might give them a try, just for curiousity.
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