Before You Buy New Speakers, Fix the Room

A conversation with Steve DeHarde of Bedrock Audio on speaker choice, room acoustics, bass, and why setup matters more than most upgrades

There is a familiar cycle in hi-fi.

You buy a new component, enjoy the rush of improvement, settle into the system, then eventually start wondering what is missing. Maybe the soundstage feels flat. Maybe the bass is bloated. Maybe the speakers do not disappear. Maybe certain records sound exciting for a few minutes, then become tiring.

The first instinct is usually to upgrade.

New speakers. New amplifier. New DAC. New cables. Something has to be the weak link.

But what if the problem is not the gear?

In a recent episode of Chasing Better Sound, David Bianco and I were joined by Steve DeHarde of Bedrock Audio to talk through one of the most overlooked parts of any home audio system: the room itself. Steve brings decades of experience as an audiophile, former hi-fi salesman, electrical engineer, and speaker designer. His view is simple, direct, and worth taking seriously.

Before you spend another dollar on equipment, make sure your room and setup are not holding the system back.

Start With the Room, Not the Speaker

When someone is building or upgrading a system, the first question is often, “What speakers should I buy?”

Steve would start somewhere else.

How loud do you listen? How large is the room? Is it open or closed? Are the floors concrete, hardwood, or carpeted? Is the room square, rectangular, or irregular? How far are the speakers from the walls? Where is the listening position?

Those questions matter because speakers do not operate in isolation. They energize the room, and the room becomes part of what you hear.

A great speaker in a bad room can sound ordinary. A modest speaker in a well-managed room can sound shockingly good.

That is the part many people miss. They compare speakers, amplifiers, and DACs while leaving placement, reflection points, flooring, furniture, and bass behavior almost untouched.

Loud Is Not Always Better

One of the most important points from the conversation was listening volume.

Many audiophiles associate louder playback with better sound. The system feels more alive. Bass fills in. Details seem more obvious. But that can also be a trap.

Steve pointed out that a good speaker should maintain dynamic contrast at lower and moderate levels. If a speaker only “comes alive” when pushed hard, that may be a sign of limited low level dynamics or poor setup.

There is also the obvious issue of hearing safety. Sustained high volume can damage your hearing, and once that hearing is gone, no equipment upgrade can bring it back.

For many listeners, a lively and engaging level is lower than they think. Moderate volume can make it easier to hear tonal balance, imaging, and detail without the body physically reacting against excessive loudness.

Protecting your hearing is not separate from chasing better sound. It is part of it.

Small Rooms Need Different Thinking

A lot of listening rooms are not purpose built. They are spare bedrooms, offices, finished basements, bonus rooms, or shared living spaces.

That matters.

A small square room can be especially difficult because room modes can stack up in ways that create severe bass peaks and nulls. You may hear too much bass at one frequency and almost none at another. Moving the speakers or listening chair even slightly can change everything.

In smaller rooms, Steve made a strong case for not automatically choosing large full range tower speakers. A smaller main speaker that naturally rolls off around the lower bass region can be easier to place for imaging. Then bass can be handled separately with one or more subwoofers.

That may sound counterintuitive, especially to two channel purists, but the logic is sound. Place the main speakers where they image best. Place the subs where they produce the smoothest bass.

Trying to make one pair of tower speakers do everything in a difficult room can force compromises.

Nearfield Listening Can Be Excellent

Nearfield listening also came up in the discussion.

A nearfield setup places the listener close to the speakers, often in a small triangle. This reduces the influence of the room because the direct sound from the speakers dominates over the reflections.

For someone listening alone at a desk or in a small space, nearfield can produce outstanding results without requiring a massive room or expensive treatment plan. A good pair of compact monitors and a properly integrated subwoofer can be extremely satisfying.

But nearfield has limits.

It is usually a one seat experience. It does not easily create a shared listening environment. If your goal is to sit with friends, family, or other music lovers and enjoy records together, a more traditional room based setup may be the better path.

That distinction matters. The “best” setup depends on how you actually listen.

Signs Your Room Is the Problem

So how do you know whether your room is hurting your sound?

Steve offered a useful test: listen for imaging and spatial placement.

Can you hear instruments clearly placed in space? Is there depth? Does the system create a believable stage? Do vocals and instruments feel naturally located, or does everything collapse toward the speakers?

If the imaging is vague, flat, or unstable, the problem may not be the speaker. It may be placement, first reflections, or the room itself.

The room can create comb filtering, where direct sound from the speaker combines with reflected sound from nearby surfaces. This causes peaks and dips in the frequency response and makes the brain work harder to interpret what it is hearing. That effort can lead to listening fatigue.

This is one reason a system can sound detailed at first, then become tiring over time.

The issue may not be too little detail. It may be too much unmanaged reflected energy.

The First Reflection Point Matters

One of the simplest setup checks is finding the first reflection point.

Sit in your listening position and have someone move a mirror along the side wall. When you can see the speaker in the mirror, that spot is a first reflection point.

That area may need absorption or diffusion depending on the room, speaker type, and distance from the wall.

The same concept applies to the floor and ceiling. A hard floor between the speaker and listener can create a strong reflection. This is why a good rug or carpet can make a meaningful difference, especially in rooms with hardwood, tile, or concrete floors.

Not every room needs to be covered in acoustic panels. In fact, overdeadening a room can rob the music of life. But the early reflections need to be understood and managed.

Furniture, Books, and Records Can Help

Room treatment does not always need to look like a recording studio.

Bookshelves, record shelves, rugs, couches, curtains, and irregular surfaces can all help shape how sound behaves in a room. Books and records can act as natural diffusion, scattering sound rather than simply absorbing it.

The key is balance.

Too much absorption can make a room sound dead. Too many hard, bare surfaces can make it bright, echoey, and fatiguing. The goal is not to remove the room entirely. The goal is to manage the room so it supports the music instead of fighting it.

Symmetry also matters. If one side of the room is heavily treated or filled with furniture while the other side is bare, imaging can suffer.

Different Speakers Interact With Rooms Differently

Speaker design changes how you should think about placement and treatment.

Most traditional box speakers are monopoles, meaning most midrange and treble energy radiates forward. Bass still spreads more broadly, but the upper frequencies are more directional.

Dipoles radiate forward and backward, with the rear wave out of phase with the front wave. Open baffle speakers and many panel speakers fall into this category.

Bipoles radiate forward and backward in phase.

Omnidirectional speakers radiate broadly into the room.

Each design interacts with the room differently. A dipole or bipole may benefit from diffusion behind the speaker. A traditional speaker placed too close to a sidewall may need absorption at the first reflection point. An omnidirectional speaker may need room to breathe because its design depends on broad room interaction.

This is why generic advice can fall short. Speaker type, room shape, placement, and listening distance all work together.

Bass Is Usually the Hardest Part

Bass is where many rooms fall apart.

Boomy bass, thin bass, one note bass, or uneven bass are often caused by room modes, speaker placement, listening position, or a combination of all three.

Steve described boominess as too much energy in the wrong frequency range, often around the mid bass region, combined with energy lingering too long in the room. The result is bass that sounds swollen instead of tight.

This is where subwoofers can help, even in a serious two channel system.

That may be controversial in some vinyl circles. Some listeners believe records and subs do not belong together. But a well recorded record can contain meaningful low frequency information, and a properly integrated subwoofer should not call attention to itself.

The goal is not more bass. The goal is better bass.

Properly placed subs can smooth the bass response across the room. Multiple subs can be even more effective because they introduce low frequency energy from different locations, reducing the severity of peaks and nulls.

The problem is that many people have only heard poorly integrated subwoofers. Too loud, crossed over incorrectly, out of phase, or placed for convenience rather than performance.

When done right, subs should not sound like separate boxes. They should make the entire system sound more complete.

DSP Can Help, But It Is Not a Cure All

Digital signal processing came up as well.

Steve is not against DSP, especially for bass management. Many modern subwoofers include built in room correction, microphones, and setup tools that can help tame low frequency problems.

But he was more cautious about using DSP higher up in the frequency range. Above the bass region, timing, tone, and spatial cues become more sensitive. Acoustic treatment and proper placement often produce a more natural result than trying to correct everything electronically.

That is an important distinction.

DSP can be useful. It can solve real problems. But it should not become an excuse to ignore the physical room.

Setup Can Beat Spending

One of the strongest takeaways from the conversation was this: a properly placed, well matched, and thoughtfully treated modest system can outperform a much more expensive system that was simply dropped into a room.

That should make every audiophile pause.

It is easy to spend money. It is harder to move speakers, measure, listen, adjust, add a rug, experiment with the listening chair, find reflection points, and learn the room.

But those steps may unlock more performance than the next component upgrade.

Before replacing your speakers, ask a few questions.

Are they placed for imaging?
Is the listening position sitting in a bass null or peak?
Are nearby walls creating early reflections?
Is the floor untreated?
Is the room too live, too dead, or unbalanced?
Are you listening too loud to compensate for something else?

The answer may not be a new speaker.

It may be a better setup.

The First Thing You Should Do

After watching the conversation, the first practical step is simple: listen critically before buying anything.

Put on a well recorded track. Sit in the listening position. Ask whether the performers sound placed in space. Listen for depth, tone, bass clarity, and fatigue. Then start experimenting with speaker placement.

Move the speakers. Adjust toe in. Change the distance from the front wall. Try a slightly different listening position. Add a rug if the floor is bare. Use the mirror trick to find first reflections. Listen again.

You may be surprised by how much performance is already sitting inside the system you own.

Watch the Full Conversation

This article only scratches the surface of the discussion. Steve, David, and I went deeper into room size, nearfield listening, speaker types, subwoofer integration, first reflections, slap echo, and why the room may be the most important component in your system.

Watch the full episode here:

Because at the end of the day, we are all chasing better sound. And sometimes the next step is not buying something new. It is finally hearing what your system can already do.