Building a dedicated listening room

After 18 months of design work and a major relocation within the design envelope my new home and dedicated room are under construction. I did a very deep dive on size, materials, construction techniques, electrical service, the works. What I learned is that there is no end to the lengths you can go to design the "perfect" room and there is a corresponding limitless amount of money you can spend. 

One thing I can share is be sure to identify your goals. What are you after? I had three goals in mind:

1. Make the room sound good without expensive treatments and without the room looking like an audiophile man cave. I wanted the room to be pleasing to the eye and look like any normal room in a house. (Albeit one with a kick ass stereo system and a bunch of record albums);

2. I did not want the sound to migrate from the room. I want to be able to listen at volume and not disturb my family--any time of day or night;

3. I did not want noise from the house, including from the mechanical systems, entering the room. 

The room was relocated from over the garage to the basement. That was huge. Instead of a suspended floor and wood framing/sheet rock, now I have concrete floors and 2 walls with sheet rock over steel studs (Superior Wall foundation). I was able to land the golden ratio and 9'6" ceilings. 

Ultimately, I only went so far with the wall construction: Staggered studs on walls common with the interior of the house, Rockwool insulation in the cavities on all four walls, two layers of drywall (1/2' and 5/8") with green glue between, walls and ceiling. Entry door with acoustical seal, acoustic putty around all the outlets and switches.

Multiple dedicated lines on the same phase, high quality but not insane outlets (Pangea Premier Series). Siemens panel with copper buses, copper coated ground stake, orange 10 guage wire to the dedicated lines. 

I am working with the HVAC guy to minimize noise from the system and have all the mechanicals isolated in a separate sound mitigating room. 

I could have done a lot more with unlimited funds but was determined to approach this with an eye toward diminishing returns and to not overdamp the room or have it look uninviting. I'll be running Sound Lab stats so reflections are less an issue for the sidewall, floor and ceiling. I'll lightly damp behind the speakers and diffuse on the opposite wall and then experiment from there. 

Fingers crossed I made good choices. I hope this helps you to do so as well!

P.S. I had lots of help from the folks here throughout the design process and am tremendously grateful for the support!

I built a music room and theater room in a 1400ish sqft basement. You may want to have a brief consultation with someone like Matthew Poes, Poes Acoustics. The type of info you need may be outside the scope of just a forum thread.

This is an older article on @mikelavigne ’s amazing listening room, which has continued to evolve (as has his system). I don’t know it there are any more recent articles. I haven’t been to it, but it and Robert Harley’s rooms certainly must be two of the best in-home rooms out there. Enviable! I wish you luck, and I hope to do this someday, if more modestly.

https://positive-feedback.com/Issue16/lavigneroom.htm

Here is a more recent forum post about a visit to Mike L’s room.

thanks @patrickdowns

when I read that now 19 year old article, I get very uncomfortable. building a room is a very exciting opportunity to do the one thing that very few get a chance to do. make the room right.

to begin with I was in lust with my room, but along the way I went through some ups and downs.

in 2004, after I built my perfect room, it only took me another 11 years to finally get it right to my ears. along the way my ego got dumped on regularly as I found I was not where I thought I was.....multiple times. yet it was a great labor of love and these past 8 years since 2015 I have not touched the room. so in the end it was wonderful.

so be humble and nimble and open minded that where you start might not be where you end up.

agree that the golden ratio is just numbers. predicting small room acoustics is not an exact science since there are just too many build variables to know. so be prepared to go through some tuning before you are home free. I was fortunate that my speaker type and overall musical compass did not change over those 18 years. my epiphany with music reproduction happened prior to my room project.

6-7 years into my new room I did reduce my built in bass trapping. later in 2015 I reduced it some more. my room designer told me he was over spec’ing the bass trapping as it is hard to add it later.

as far as fine tuning; here are links to what I did in 2015 to reach my room nirvana.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/almost-free-and-4-inches-the-final-1.17389/

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/almost-free-and-4-inches-the-final-1.17389/page-3#post-314941

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/suck-out-fixed-i-think.18116/

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/suck-out-fixed-i-think.18116/page-2#post-329496

@randypeck

not everyone will put the time and effort into really going all the way in the room tuning department. but this whole process is like peeling an onion, and until you get to the point where you know where you are going, and you trust your ears, it’s hard to get that last few percentage points.

if you want to talk on the phone happy to hook up with you. or if you want to visit you would be most welcome.

congrats and good luck.