Need some advice/recommendations. At home mixing

[Solarflares]

Longest wall all day. You can damp rear reflections, but not negate tunnel-effect of short wall setup - where side reflections reach you quicker.

He’s working strictly nearfield. Best not to butt up against a wall. Better to set up in the middle of the room.

Changing the feel of a room is exactly what cheap, thick throws do. Rubber-backed Carpet too.
I’m not talking about a sheet and some flimsy mats.
I’m also fully aware that floor and wall-treatment would have to be over 12” thick to do much of anything, but we want to improve his experience on a tight budget. The compromise might well be to monitor tighter at quieter levels - well away from the wall.
However, rudimentary bass-traps are cheap, and easy to make yourself. So why not.
A foam-lined umbrella overhead is a game-changer.
Mind you, once you put a large computer monitor in between a pair of speakers, and fire over a desktop filled with gadgets, then I’m out of the discussion.
So either soffit mount, or get bass traps - or find a bigger room for those 6” mega bass monsters.

But of course you are correct and accurate about deadening to a large extent.
With his budget, there are plenty of apps for him to at least analyse his room and placement, and get an idea what’s going on. That would be a good starting point. He might be able to work around his limitations.

I hope you are aware that the human brain can distinguish between delayed reflections and direct signals. It adjusts for you, and rejects a lot of stuff.
But the case here is interference or limited throw of that direct lo-end signal. Why? That’s the problem to solve.

Perhaps a cheap DSP is his best route - short of strapping the speakers to his sodding head.
Bottom line is that the Kali 6” is a fucking pile of shit.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Longest wall all day. You can damp rear reflections, but not negate tunnel-effect of short wall setup - where side reflections reach you quicker.

No. You can treat the 1st reflections on side walls, and the effects of the room modes won’t be as bad. If you set up along the longest wall, the room modes will be more troublesome.

He’s working strictly nearfield. Best not to butt up against a wall. Better to set up in the middle of the room.

No. Even moreso a reason to have the speakers against the wall. They’ll be more efficient in the low end and have less distortion.

A foam-lined umbrella overhead is a game-changer.

Foam is almost entirely useless. A proper ceiling cloud however is well worth it. Foam cannot help low frequencies to any meaningful amount.

SBIR demands that speakers be placed a quarter of the wavelength of your lowest frequency away from a wall.
So either soffit mount, or get bass traps - or find a bigger room for those 6” mega bass monsters.

Or just put the speakers against the front wall. SBIR is also affected by the side walls, ceiling, floor etc. So you can’t just avoid bass altogether and pretend it doesn’t exist.

I hope you are aware that the human brain can distinguish between delayed reflections and direct signals. It adjusts for you, and rejects a lot of stuff.
But the case here is interference or limited throw of that direct lo-end signal. Why? That’s the problem to solve.

Yes it can. If the difference is large enough, then our brains can interpret it as distinct echoes. When they are close together in time, we get comb filtering and all sorts of audible havoc that we can absolutely hear the effects of. We can’t hear the reflections as distinct echoes from the direct; but that does not mean we can’t hear the effect of those reflections.

Bottom line is that the Kali 6” is a fucking pile of shit.

I’m on Neumann KH420’s and ATC’s in a very well treated room. The Kali’s are fantastic monitors and better than anything in the price range by some distance.

 

[Solarflares]

It is possible that the rear dip-switches are not optimised for his application.
The Kali will always be light in the lowest frequencies.
More experience with them might improve his situation.

 

[newholland]

mirror- i think theres a happy place between what youre saying and solarflare.

IME, sbir is more of a thing in big spaces and medium to far field listening spaces where its DEFINITELY a thing and midbass gets effed hard. but... 40cm is definitely in the hell scenario zone for midbass destruction.

but im also of the mindset that treatment can be less necessary- not NOT necessary, just LESS... if you nearfield. but thats me. id rather have six feet behind monitors than have them on the walls, tbh.. but who has that much space?

 

[Solarflares]

id rather have six feet behind monitors than have them on the walls, tbh..

No reason the OP couldn’t set up in the living room or barn for one day, and try the rig with space all around it.

 

[Solarflares]

To be honest, you could get these, stick ‘em in any room with a Bryston 14B3 - and just get on with it.

 

[Solarflares]

mirror- i think theres a happy place between what youre saying and solarflare.

I seriously think reducing the overall brightness and liveliness of a room goes a long way.
Speaker placement is then paramount.
Only then investigate specific room-treatments, but that is impossible to complete on a super-low budget.
Problem could be the dispersal of that woofer, compounded by wrong Mini-dip settings.

Using an APC UPS to ensure ripple-free mains, could also be beneficial to bottom-end clarity.
Isolation pads under the speakers.

 

[Sleezy E]

Well.. looks like all the interwebz Audiophiles have assembled.

Guess we'll just wax poetic about "treatment" for the remainder of the thread.

Buy the sub.

Be happy.

Sleezy out!

 

[Solarflares]

Well.. looks like all the interwebz Audiophiles have assembled.

Guess we'll just wax poetic about "treatment" for the remainder of the thread.

Buy the sub.

Be happy.

Sleezy out!

Yeah right.
Spend $599 on enhancing bottom-end on a puny $350 active system that already has boom, because it’s so close to the wall? Retail therapy is all very well, and the shitty Kalis would appreciate the heavy-lifting a sub provides. But let’s try and improve their lot as they are, before splashing out more cash - especially since Tannoy System 10 DMT mk2’s are to be found for a mere $800.
Bringing those speakers out a few inches might help push cancellation up the frequency band, and slightly reduce boom. 40cm estimate was slightly too much. 15-30cm should be better. I’d say 30cm if possible. But do check those mini dip-switches on the rear panels. They are crucial.
Otherwise it should be 6ft or more from the wall.
All articles I’ve read recommend up to 6” of Mirror’s broadband acoustic panelling behind the speakers, and floor to ceiling bass traps if in proximity to the corner of the room. Although I like to trap the area on the floor between the speakers, and address ceiling reflections.
My main problem here is a little node on the left side at around 800hz. That’s a proximity to the side-wall French windows issue. But closing my curtains reduces that slightly. It’s most evident on Allan Holdsworth recordings, but he used bags of mid on his lead-tone. I don’t have any other problems, despite minimal wall-throw deadening and rudimentary triangular foam squares running up the corners - which probably do nothing.
But I’m lucky in that my current speaker’s projection is tight and focussed, and I get permanently pulled into the huge soundstage very quickly
When I used original K-Rok’s, which are a very good speaker, the things preferred to actually be on a bookshelf, with books either side. There’s something to think about.

I went from 6” K-rok’s 6ft apart, to 12” point-source Tannoys 5ft apart, and never had a problem listening moderately loud from 6ft away, in a 9ft by 11ft room. Whole room was covered in thick throws. But Tannoy projection is tight.
The K-rok’s had wider dispersal on the woofers, and were far from ideal in this room.
Amplifier’s damping-factor also has a huge bearing on bass proceedings, and this is often overlooked. Keep those cones under control.

 

[Sleezy E]

Yeah right.
Spend $599 on enhancing bottom-end on a puny $350 active system that already has boom, because it’s so close to the wall? I’ve got a treatment for you. It’s called Colonic Irrigation. Although afterwards, they could probably fit what’s left of you in a matchbox. Lol. Retail therapy is all very well, and the shitty Kalis would appreciate the heavy-lifting a sub provides. But let’s try and improve their lot as they are, before splashing out more cash - especially since Tannoy System 10 DMT mk2’s are to be found for a mere $800.
Bringing those speakers out a few inches might help push cancellation up the frequency band, and slightly reduce boom. 40cm estimate was slightly too much. 15-30cm should be better. I’d say 30cm if possible. But do check those mini dip-switches on the rear panels. They are crucial.
Otherwise it should be 6ft or more from the wall.
All articles I’ve read recommend up to 6” of Mirror’s broadband acoustic panelling behind the speakers, and floor to ceiling bass traps if in proximity to the corner of the room. Although I like to trap the area on the floor between the speakers, and address ceiling reflections.
My main problem here is a little node on the left side at around 800hz. That’s a proximity to the side-wall French windows issue. But closing my curtains reduces that slightly. It’s most evident on Allan Holdsworth recordings, but he used bags of mid on his lead-tone. I don’t have any other problems, despite minimal wall-throw deadening and rudimentary triangular foam squares running up the corners - which probably do nothing.
But I’m lucky in that my current speaker’s projection is tight and focussed, and I get permanently pulled into the huge soundstage very quickly
When I used original K-Rok’s, which are a very good speaker, the things preferred to actually be on a bookshelf, with books either side. There’s something to think about.

I went from 6” K-rok’s 6ft apart, to 12” point-source Tannoys 5ft apart, and never had a problem listening moderately loud from 6ft away, in a 9ft by 11ft room. Whole room was covered in thick throws. But Tannoy projection is tight.
The K-rok’s had wider dispersal on the woofers, and were far from ideal in this room.
Amplifier’s damping-factor also has a huge bearing on bass proceedings, and this is often overlooked. Keep those cones under control.

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That's a lot of words.

I have a fully treated "home studio"

I speak from experience as well.

 

[Solarflares]

I don’t have a fully-treated home studio.
Just incredible gear, and great ears - with a few throws for luck!
The gear now tells me quickly if there are any issues, but it was a long-haul to get to that point.
Not the perfect room I’ll admit, but the equipment is lovingly modified and dialled-in. Capable of serious work.
Had I have gone full treatment, the process might well have been quicker, but the learning curve for me was huge, and used gear only arrives sporadically. I finished the monitor system tweaks in September ‘25, when I added the Bryston DAC, and some minor room treatment is planned for this year.

Best ‘mod’ I ever did was to train my ears to listen ‘flat’.
That paved the way for final mods and tweaks, to achieve proper linearity from this stuff.