Klipsch RP-280f boomy base

[latts]

Due to my limited space in my current room, I need to put the speakers almost against the wall.  This cause unwanted boomy base on some tracks.  Is there anything I can do to remedy this?  Can I put some damping material behind the speakers near the port to help with my problem?  Any thought/suggestions are appreciated...

 

Frank

[Don Richard]

Pull them out away from the wall as far as possible and aim the speakers toward the listening position. Do you have bass and treble controls on your equipment?

[Ceptorman]

Like Don said, they need to breathe a little. You can experiment with placement, away from the wall, angle, width, etc. You can try with material behind the port, against the wall, inside the port. Or like @Don Richard said, bass and treble controls can make a huge difference. What's the room like, flooring?

 

 

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[Peter P.]

Obviously, the speakers' rear facing port is part of the problem, as is the position of the speakers and how they're interacting with your room.

 

Lets pick this apart.

 

Rear facing port: Can't do anything about that. If they're new speakers, perhaps you can get your money back and try a front ported design, front passive radiator, or acoustic suspension. Same thing if you trade them in for a passive radiator design. It may be you're better off with a sub/sat system with hopefully more flexibility in smaller footprint subwoofer's location  to alleviate the boom.

 

Position of the speakers: Since you're limited by your room's configuration, I would say JUST FOR THE SAKE OF TESTING, move the speakers away from the wall 1 foot at a time to see if there's improvement. If there is, at least that will tell you it's a viable solution and that at least THERE IS A SOLUTION. It's just that you can't work it and at least you'll know it's not a flaw in the speaker.

 

Room interaction: Smaller rooms will increase bass response (read: bass levels). Your room could also have "nodes" where certain frequencies are reinforced, to the detriment of other frequencies. To test this, temporarily imagine your speakers are subwoofers. First, you're going to move about the room while playing material that causes the boominess. See if you hear it more so in some locations vs. others. I like telling people to stand tight up against a corner of the room so they understand how and where these nodes might appear. Next, if you can, try placing the speakers at your listening position (much like experimenting with subwoofer positioning) and move about the room, even crawling along the floor with your head inches off the floor. It may reveal to you that your speakers' original position is the problem, as you've reversed your position-your speakers vs, your listening position.

 

The tone control suggestions offered are very good ones. I'll go one step further: If you turn down the bass control and it cures your boom, then I recommend you get an equalizer which will separate the low frequencies into several bands. You may be able to tame just the boomy frequency while leaving the rest of the bass spectrum intact. In fact, there are many subwoofers that come with outboard analyzers/active filters that measure room response of the subwoofer and apply filtering to the largest offending node. This is proof that maybe all you need is a little sound shaping to cure your ill. Perhaps you can borrow an equalizer to test, or buy one cheap on eBay or craigslist.

 

Report back if you're successful in taming your problem, and if you've decided to sell your RP-280F's at a ridiculously low price. Forum members would be all over that!