The listening room

How the room sounds

Bring a favourite album and settle in. We tuned the room for balanced sound across the sofa.

Book the room

Inside the room

A sofa, your music and art on the walls. Look around the room before you visit.

Open the 3D room
Plan of the listening room, to scale, with the area Dirac Live corrects across the sofaThe 5.30 by 3.37 m listening room from above, to scale, front wall at the top. A pair of KEF LS50s stand either side of the television, facing the L-shaped sofa against the rear wall, its chaise along the balcony side, with a side table in front of it. The centre seat is where the stereo image centres and every timing correction is set from; the band across the sofa around it is shaded where Dirac Live measured the room at 17 points and corrects it. Each speaker faces straight down the room, not turned in, its axis dashed ahead of it, with wavefronts spreading from it across the whole sofa; each of the 17 positions Dirac Live measured is marked with a cross, those at two heights joined as on a microphone stand, the first, the centre seat, in a ring. One KEF KC62 stands at the front wall and one at the rear, at the balcony end of the sofa. Taking in sound: GIK panels on the front and rear walls, a GIK TriTrap over a PSI AVAA C214 in each rear corner. The gate to the dining room is open in the right-hand wall and the glazed balcony door is in the left-hand one. Each absorber’s tag opens a plot of what it takes in across frequency: the GIK FlexRange 244, first taking in half the sound reaching it at 98 Hz, its half-absorption frequency; the GIK FlexRange Monster, first taking in half the sound reaching it at 81 Hz, its half-absorption frequency; the GIK TriTrap, taking in at most 1.2 square metres of absorption each, at 80 Hz and 100 Hz.
Absorber

Rear-corner trap

At its most, at 80 Hz and 100 Hz, it takes in as much sound as 1.2 m² of open window.

Absorber

Rear-corner trap

At its most, at 80 Hz and 100 Hz, it takes in as much sound as 1.2 m² of open window.

Absorber

Front-wall panels

They take in half the sound reaching them at 98 Hz, their half-absorption frequency, and less below it.

Absorber

Rear-wall panels

They take in half the sound reaching them at 81 Hz, their half-absorption frequency, and less below it.

25 mm tweeter at the centre of a 130 mm cone

70 Hz high pass

2.45 m from the centre seat

from 11 to 200 Hz within ±3 dB

45 Hz low pass

15 to 160 Hz

Ø 21 × 64 cm

17 Dirac Live points

The first of them: Dirac Live sets every timing correction from here

miniDSP UMIK-1

The listening room from above
Equipment and tuning

The system

Measured and tuned at positions across the sofa, with acoustic treatment to control reflections and bass.

Speakers

Speakers
A pair of KEF LS50 Wireless II
Subwoofers
Two KEF KC62

Treatment

Active bass absorbers
Two PSI AVAA C214
Acoustic treatment
Broadband absorbers and TriTrap corner traps from GIK Acoustics

Correction

Room correction
Dirac Live on a miniDSP Flex Digital

Sources

Streamer
WiiM Pro
Screen
An LS50 Wireless IIAn LS50 Wireless II on its S2 stand, side and front, with its Uni-Q driver.
An LS50 Wireless II
An AVAA in its cornerA rear corner: an AVAA column under a TriTrap, in plan and elevation. Each absorber’s tag opens a plot of what it takes in across frequency: the GIK TriTrap, taking in at most 1.2 square metres of absorption each, at 80 Hz and 100 Hz.
Absorber

Rear-corner trap

At its most, at 80 Hz and 100 Hz, it takes in as much sound as 1.2 m² of open window.

An AVAA in its corner
The listening room from behind the sofaLine drawing of the room as a camera sees it from just under the ceiling behind the sofa, on its centre line, the rear wall cut away as in an architect’s section, the same view as the 3D model’s, looking down over the sofa’s cushions, the rug and the side table to the television between the two LS50 Wireless II on their stands, GIK panels on the front wall and a KEF KC62 subwoofer on the floor at the front right, with a PSI AVAA C214 column in each rear corner, the second KC62 at the rear left, beside the balcony end of the sofa, its outline dashed where the sofa hides it, the door from the hallway standing open, through the open gate, the dining table and its chairs, and, through the glazed balcony door, the balcony’s parapet and the rose planter by the door, its rose bush in outline. A band across the sofa’s seat at ear height is shaded where Dirac Live measured the room at 17 points and corrects it. Each speaker faces straight down the room, not turned in, its axis dashed ahead of it, with wavefronts spreading from it across the whole sofa; each of the 17 positions Dirac Live measured is marked with a cross, those at two heights joined as on a microphone stand, the first, the centre seat, in a ring; the centre seat, midway between the speakers, is where the stereo image centres and every timing correction is set from. Each absorber’s tag opens a plot of what it takes in across frequency: the GIK FlexRange 244, first taking in half the sound reaching it at 98 Hz, its half-absorption frequency.
The listening room from behind the sofa
The front wallThe front wall seen from the seat, 5.30 m wide and 3.18 m high: the television on its unit between the two LS50 Wireless II on their stands, three GIK panels behind them, a KC62 subwoofer on the floor and the door from the hallway, drawn to scale. Each absorber’s tag opens a plot of what it takes in across frequency: the GIK FlexRange 244, first taking in half the sound reaching it at 98 Hz, its half-absorption frequency.
Absorber

Front-wall panels

They take in half the sound reaching them at 98 Hz, their half-absorption frequency, and less below it.

The front wall of the listening room, seen from the seat

The signal chain

Music, or the sound of whatever is on screen, stays digital until the LS50s turn it to analogue and amplify it. The deepest bass goes on to the subwoofers as analogue, and they amplify it themselves.

  1. WiiM Pro, for music

    The streamer. It plays from AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect and Roon, at up to 24-bit/192 kHz.

    Out: coaxial S/PDIF

    LG 42C4, for the screen

    The television sends the sound of whatever it shows: a film, a game, a music video on YouTube, or a device plugged into it.

    Out: optical S/PDIF (TOSLINK)

  2. miniDSP Flex Digital

    The DSP. It tailors the sound to this room. Dirac Live corrects frequency response and timing from measurements taken around the sofa. It takes either source on its own digital input. This version has only digital outputs, so nothing is converted to analogue on the way through.

    Out: coaxial S/PDIF

  3. KEF LS50 Wireless II

    Active speakers built around KEF’s Uni-Q driver with MAT. Each speaker processes the signal itself, in what KEF calls the Music Integrity Engine, tuned to the Uni-Q, then turns it to analogue in a DAC for each driver and drives each driver with an amplifier of its own: 100 W Class AB for the tweeter, 280 W Class D for the cone. KEF gives its loudest output as 108 dB.

    A Linkwitz-Riley crossover sends the deepest bass to the subwoofers instead, so each LS50’s cone, which also plays the mids, moves less and plays them more cleanly. Each speaker has a third DAC for its subwoofer output, so that bass leaves analogue, and unamplified.

    Plays everything but the deepest bass itself, and passes that on. Out, to the subwoofers: KEF subwoofer output, mono, over a QED Performance subwoofer cable

  4. Two KEF KC62 subwoofers

    Each has two 6.5-inch drivers facing opposite ways, so their forces cancel and the cabinet stays still. Each processes the bass digitally, in KEF’s Music Integrity Engine, and amplifies it for its drivers itself: 2 × 500 W Class D. KEF specifies them from 11 to 200 Hz within ±3 dB. The main one stands by the front wall and takes the LS50s’ mono bass; it passes the same signal on to the second, by the rear wall, diagonally opposite. Driven with the same signal from opposite ends of the room, they cancel some of the room’s lowest modes instead of exciting them, so the deepest bass changes less from seat to seat than it would with one subwoofer.

    Out, from the main to the second: mono, over a QED Performance subwoofer cable

, so a second here is in the room. The cables carry the signal in a few billionths of a second, so each one lights all at once; the pauses areits delays are the devices working on it: about 12 ms in the Flex, where Dirac Live runs, and up to 6 ms in the LS50s. Each KC62 adds about 0.5 ms, as long as sound takes to cross 17 cm of air: far too little to hear.

How this room was tuned

  1. Room modes

    Why the walls of a room this size shape its bass more than the speakers do, and where each low note peaks and all but vanishes.

  2. Active bass absorbers

    How the two PSI AVAA C214s in the rear corners take in the bass notes the room exaggerates, with electronics rather than bulk.

  3. Room correction

    How the system was measured across the whole sofa and how Dirac Live corrects its tone and timing, with Dirac’s own demo to listen to.

  4. The Uni-Q driver

    Why the LS50 Wireless II plays its treble from the centre of its cone, and what absorbs the sound behind the tweeter.

  5. Sound in the room

    The room from above, with its sound worked out as you watch: how the bass, the mids and the highs spread, reflect and fade.

Hear it for yourself

Bring your favourite music. The room is yours for the session.

Book the room

Want this sound at home?

Our acoustic consultancy brings the care behind this room to yours.

Plan your room