If you have an almost square Room, is the "Rule" to let the Speakers face the long Side still as important or are the Benefits diminishing?
The Room in Question is 510cmx470cm.
Both the 470cm Walls are thick Brickwalls (like 1m) carrying the Building, as is one of the 510cm walls, but the second one is only a 20cm Brickwall to another Room of my Flat. So maybe it would be beneficial in this Room(even it wasn't almost square) to let the speakers face the short wall cause the Bass can partially pass through the thinner Wall?

 

Between my neighbour and me there's a ~25cm brickwall and when he parties, you know what I hear? In principle, nothing.

 

Really? My Impressions is that Walls have to be very thick, otherwise you always hear the lower Frequencies for sure.

 

Square rooms are pretty horrible acoustically.
Try to stick to placing the speakers at the short wall, with listening position at about 38% out from the short wall.
http://arqen.com/acoustics-101/room-setup-speaker-placement/

For bass/sound/energy transplantation it doesn't matter where you place the speakers. It's not like "oh, I place them here so the neighbor won't hear them". Sound is omni-directional. It's more of a matter of insulating the vibrations, like spikes or rubber feet. Or with a room in a room. But that is expensive.

1m wall thickness sounds like a lot though.

 

Last edited: Aug 22, 2018

What shall I say? He once came over to my place and apologized for the party noise at the weekend and I replied "What noise?"

 

Sounds like his idea of a party is different to mine, maybe it was just a dinner party.

 

Sure, i´d stick tot that usually, but for the Rest of the Furniture and with Doors/Windows, it would be more suitable to place the Speakers on the long side. That?s why I am asking, is the benefit of doing so still existent if the Room is almost square? The short Side has 92% of the long Side...

 

Not really. But you want to take advantage of as long wavelengths as possible and avoid standing waves as much as possible in such a "squarish" room. Maybe you need more diffusers (QRD, Skyline, broadband) than absorbers.

 

Square room is tough, depending on size I might try to move speakers to center of the room to get away from the resonant frequencies. If all else fails rent your studio out as an echo chamber instead.

 

I would honestly think that would make it worse.

 

When I work in similar situations I found the center to give a more honest sound. I'm not 100% on the science behind this but having the speakers close to any wall seems to cause sound waves to refract more noticeably affecting my mix. Furthur away from surfaces and mixing at low volumes I can get away with something like the more natural raw sound from open-back headphones, which color less for mixing.

 

Last edited: Aug 25, 2018

With limited options Question to what type of music your recording -mixing and the volume you're looking to reach
Just a Project studio for yourself? When questioning your space. Why not stup the monitors in 2 different locations and choose what sounds best to you in Your enviorment! ..General Philosophy and Theory is great. They are General Rules...in the end Ya gotta choose what's right for you!! Good Luck

 

Anybody has a guideline how much the benefit of long vs short side is diminishing as the length of the walls get more even?
Like a 4mx8m Room, the Sound beneftis over the whole spectrum massivley, you would be a fool to dont place the speaker facing the short wall. A 6x8m Room: You should still let the speakers face the short wall, but the benefits are less and only affect you bass above XXX hz.
A 7x8m Room: The Benefits are very small, if some others reason speak for doing so, you can let the speakers face the long wall, it doenst matter alle that much anymore.

 

if you put up some panels in the right places you will find that the dimensions are less relevant. that 40cm might not seem much, but that is the same wavelength as 860Hz. not that it matters in this case, im just pointing out how trivial things can be problems.

you will benefit mostly from a few acoustic panels in careful positions (on the walls between the speaker and your ear)

 

i would also recommend keeping the equal walls on each side, so the 470cm walls on left and right. although the difference is potentially minimal, there will be a measurable difference.

 

The best thing you can do is place bass traps straddling as many corners as you possibly can can. Wall/ceiling, wall/floor, wall/wall and tricorners.

Then add absorption panels in reflection points, - two side walls and ceiling. If you feel you have the space you can go crazy and add in floor reflection point absorption, but most people dont do this.

So basically the same as you do in more rectangular room. For small rooms you want as much bass traps as you can afford.

Hope this helps