Hearing bass amp in small practice room

[SpikeyB]

When I practice in my roughly 13'x13' room, I have trouble hearing the output. I have my 4x10 cab and my Rumble 500 head positioned diagonally in one corner. When I stand close to one of the walls near the speaker I get the best sound. When I stand in front of the speaker, either directly in front or up to about 10' in front, the sound is severely muffled.
I know about the dynamics of the bass wave and I imagine that's what's happening. In the small room maybe I can't get far enough away for the wave to resolve. What does the hive mind think?
Is this a common problem? Are there suggestions for cabinet placement in this scenario?
What possible insults can you think of for such an innocent and reasonable question?
Thanks in advance!

 

[AGCurry]

Insults? How about "Clean the wax out of your ears!"

Seriously ... it's all about the room and the location of the speaker. A room that is square is inherently challenged acoustically, and "in a corner" is often the worst spot for a speaker. Try putting the speaker away from the corner and the wall, and elevate it.

 

[SpikeyB]

Yeah, that makes sense. It's pretty elevated but I'll try moving it around. Thanks.

 

[KenB]

You might try an old "audiophile" trick for optimizing speaker placement for bass...

Basically, you "switch places" with your speaker. The audio nut would place his speaker in his "listening chair", with the woofer approximately in the location and height that his ears would normally be. Then he'd put some music on, and move around the room, listening with his head at various coordinates (including height) until he found a spot where the bass sounds balanced. Then you locate the speaker with the woofer in the spot where you heard the best sound.

To do this, figure out where you would ordinarily stand or sit while playing, and place your speaker cab with the drivers in the approximate location where your ears would ordinarily be. You might have to put the cab on something to raise it up off the floor.

Then you play your bass and move around the room until you hear a balanced sound. You might have to kneel or squat down so your ears are at the height that your drivers are normally. Or, if you find that you hear best sound when standing that means you might have to raise your cabinet off the floor (on a stand, other cab, etc.). Remember, this is to hear the bass well in THAT room.

Then, re-locate your cab to the spot you heard the best sound, and go stand in your normal location and play.
You never know, it's worth a shot!

Hopefully you won't have to hang the speaker from the light fixture...

 

[N. Kentucky Bass]

Can't hear yourself in a small room? Wait till the band is there with you! (Get a high pass filter or turn down the bass EQ.)

 

[Al Kraft]

Just try some different cab and/or playing locations as suggested above. I strongly suspect you are unintentionally positioning yourself and/or the cab in a spot where you are experiencing the artifact of reflected and direct wave cancellation. In any acoustic environment there are locations where the direct and reflected sound can meet 180 degrees out of phase and cause noticeable volume dropouts/cancellations at one or multiple frequencies.

 

[Alban]

There is no minimum distance to stand to get a "fully resolved bass wave", this is not really a thing. It is however quite possible that standing waves are interfering with the cab in such a small room.
Also, if the best sound is heard when you are standing off-axis relative to your cab, it might be worth checking if all four speakers are in phase with each other. Standing right in front of your speaker should give you the brightest sound, not a muffled sound.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Get you amp out of the corner.

 

[Rooster009]

Or you could leave it in the corner and face the speakers towards the wall instead of towards the center of the room. Sounds odd I know, but it’s worked great for me before.

 

[bigdaddybass12]

Place the cab facing the wall 4' away

 

[BarfanyShart]

Small practice rooms are weird, you're going to have to try a bunch of weird things until you get something to work. Amp pointed at wall, pointed at drummer, pointed at ceiling, up on a chair, middle of the room, dampening material behind the amp, dampening on top of the cab - who knows what is going to work? HPF is a solid idea, always. When I practiced in a garage I found that the amp at a 45 degree angle between me and the drummer, and just loud enough to give us the "feel" we wanted - and then line out to the PA (PA speakers on stands at ear level) for the rest of the band. In retrospect, I realize that part of why that worked so well is that the PA was HPF-ing.