Re: Room sizes
In a small room, the surround effects and the correct M&E / dialogue balance are available to a small (one or two) viewing public, whereas a larger room quickly allows for a larger audience.
A small space can't contain the longer sound waves (=the ultra lows) A subwoofer can go "thump" but not "Woom". This can be handled by active bass trapping, but it is an expensive and labour intensive technique, normally not attempted except by fanatics. However, these frequencies are relatively unimportant for comprehension of the film, and merely make the experience more impressive.
There is a much higher risk of a small room having a resonance in the audible region, which has to be tuned out. This can be partly eliminated by choosing non-harmonic eigenvalues – room dimensions which are not small multiples of each other, or of any smaller value, but since room sizes are frequently set by the architecture rather than personal choice, changing dimensions is not a reasonable option.
Small spaces tend to distort at high sound pressure levels.
All that said, one can have a very satisfactory (if solitary) listening experience in quite a small space, if one respects speaker distances and has a none too reflective environment.
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