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View Full Version : JBL's all gone, but need help



Regis
05-30-2006, 12:21 PM
Hi all,
Circumstances beyond my control forced me to sell the XPL-200's and relocate the L-300's to my brother here in SoCal. He has both pair now and all the associated equipment. My technical question is related to the living room. He's had the XPL-200's for a month and when I initially set them up, they sounded fine until you put some power to them and then you'd get a very noticable bass bloom. In reality, the acoustics suck and these don't sound as good as they should. When I moved my L-300's in their place, they too, exhibited the same behavior and sounded lousy too. They are about 12 inches from the wall.

The system is set up along the longest wall, lengthwise in a narrow room approx. 10 feet by 20 feet. THere is carpeting, but no wall coverings on the opposing wall ten feet away (I know it's not much room, but the layout limits where you can put anything...). The couch is facing the system with a large ten foot patio door to the right with vertical blinds. No ceiling treatment either.

We moved the XPL-200's and the Perraux to his room, which is a perfect square, 25x25 and they sounded beautiful, tight clean bass even at volume. Any suggestions as to what we should do to the living room to improve the sound. I did do a search and came up with bass traps, wall coverings and EQ fixes (I did play with the bass adjustment on the receiver, and while it tames the bloom, it taketh away too...).

Thanks!

Regis

mech986
05-30-2006, 07:17 PM
Hi Regis,

Sorry to hear about the change in circumstances, your thread on redoing the L300's diaphragms was a great one. I hope the JBL gods and Karma will shine on you again soon. If I or others can help, let us know.

Sounds like the previous room placement led to some room nodes getting really excited. If the speakers were placed nearer to the corners, they likely got a lot of reinforcement in the bass. I'd suggest actually bringing them a lot closer together, maybe only 3 to 5 feet apart. The bare walls/patio on the opposite side probably doesn't help a lot either, especially in the midrange.

A couple of "off the wall" suggestions, see what happens when the patio door is open. Also, consider raising the speakers up off the floor by 6-12 inches. This may help settle whether room modes can be modified by the room acoustics or the positioning, at least in the limited areas you can put things.

Otherwise, you may have to put them along the short wall and see if that works at all (firing into the long dimension may actually work halfway decently but I suspect the imaging will be all off due to side reflections). Again, you may have to place the speakers much closer together than usual in order to make them work. The ideal listening spot will likely be very narrowly defined.

Good Luck and maybe a pic or two would help.

Regards,

Bart

Regis
05-31-2006, 10:45 AM
Thanks for the great advice Bart! I'll look at placement and also raising them (tho' that's going to be a good one at over 100 lbs apeice!).:D