Small Room - Mackie HR824 MK2

[datune]

The room I currently have available (ment to mix only, no recording), is really small: 3.6m x 2.05m x 2.7m.

Before moving from one country to another, I had a room which was large enough, but now, I can't stop wondering whether it makes sense to have those in this tiny room. (which is not yet treated at all, since I am undecided on how to best proceed).

My question is: Should I sell the Mackies and grab some smaller, cheaper nearfield monitors, who will move a lot less air or should I keep them?

The reason is cause I fear that this room will never provide the quality the mackies deserve, as such I think it's pretty pointless to have such expensive monitors.

What do you think?

[Glenn Kuras]

Keep them and just treat the room. You should be fine.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

Keep them and just treat the room. You should be fine.

I agree. Mackie 824s are great, with a ton of clean bass, and bass traps will keep them from being boomy and overbearing in a small room like that.

--Ethan

[datune]

Thank you for the answers, as always it is really appreciated. See, this is what I really value about gearslutz, entrepeneurs take time out of their busy schedule to help and share knowledge! How great is that, in a time where capitalism rules the world, along with greed, corruption, crime, despair and misery. Also, I really value that you uphold such high standards, not once have I ever felt like being fed a sales pitch, nor have I read any threads where I thought either was trying to make a pitch.

Don't nobody confuse honesty with naivety, I am well aware of lead generation, customer binding and so on, but every once in a while, credit has to be given where credit is due!

Today I went through the trouble of setting it all up, and the result is as I expected (with the exception of Billy Jean, that record just ALWAYS sounds great no matter where I play it, it's like magic...), the bass is WAY to boomy and overbearing, it's unbelievable.

It's not all that obvious when playing Kings of Leon or Coldplay and stuff, but as soon as I put on House music, it's literally game over. It's like I am enclosed by a cloud of boomy bass, just horrible.

My seating position and setup is as correct as possible, but I seriously doubt that I will ever be able to tame this room, bass trapping or not. As soon as I have removed all the current mess (packaging and stuff), I will take some pictures, and after that take some measurements. I think those waterfall graphs will look totally alien

I have attached the results from Ethan's (btw., thanks for that Ethan) ModeCalc, seems like I am doomed!

The bass is really terrible!

Also, if anybody knows Bruce Swedien's secrets, feel free to share

Ps: Please don't think that I am one of those people who has spent ~2k on speakers but nothing in room treatment. Up until recently I lived in Belgium, where I had Bass Traps all over the room (much bigger room btw.), but I was unable to bring them with me, so they are still in Belgium, and it would be way to expensive to bring them here. I have serious doubts about whether bass trapping will make a real difference in this room, let's hope I am wrong!

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by datune

I have attached the results from Ethan's (btw., thanks for that Ethan) ModeCalc, seems like I am doomed!

ModeCalc is meant for designing new rooms more than assessing how to treat an existing room. The more important graph to post shows what you measured using software like Room EQ Wizard or Fuzzmeasure.

--Ethan

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

like Room EQ Wizard .

--Ethan

Link:
Room EQ Wizard Home Page