concrete vs. wood listening room

In my last (late, lamented) home I had a dedicated listening room w/carpet over concrete floor and framed walls. This is the best combo I've found. In a prior home, I had two concrete walls with a concrete floor. The floor is great, particularly w/a turntable. The walls were more problematic.

To deal with the wall issues, you may wish to follow the process I followed:

Pick up a whole bunch of absorbtive wall treatment (there are a lot of options out there and many are reasonably priced; e.g. area rugs) and experiment. Cover most of the wall surface to begin with and then incrementally reduce the treated area. Leave the first reflection surfaces covered throughout. You may want corner bass traps to complement. At some point, you'll find your best mix.

Good luck.

Marty

Chazzbo, I have Hartley`s book and will go back and read the section on room treatments. It`s been quite a while since I`ve looked through his book, and in fact, forgot that I had it. Sheesh. Thanks for the reminder.

Martykl, I too have two concrete walls, and by your suggestion, I`ll heavily damp them and then subtract accordingly. I have further issues in that it`s an L shaped room (living room and dining room).

Thank you both for your input.

Hi Capt369,

I've been living with my listening room for over 4 years. It is in a finished basement. Carpet over concrete, two sides frame and drywall over concrete block, the rest are frame and drywall. It is also an L-shaped room, which does present some challenges all on its own.

Definitely spike the speakers to the floor. I am also getting good results with sand boxes.

Since it is a living/dining room I'm guessing that you have even more limitations on what you can do. Just to give some encouragement I will tell you that I have been playing down the long end of my L with great success. The trick is to make the speakers "see" the same effects from side walls as much as you can.

For instance, in my setup one speaker is positioned at the break of the L and so it sees no side wall at all. What I did was make some simple absorption treatments for the opposite side wall so that the other speaker almost sees no wall at all. This has worked very well for me.

These irregular rooms are very common, very challenging but also provide many options depending on what you can do regarding the dual uses of the rooms.

Best of luck,

Dan

For instance, in my setup one speaker is positioned at the break of the L and so it sees no side wall at all. What I did was make some simple absorption treatments for the opposite side wall so that the other speaker almost sees no wall at all. This has worked very well for me

Dan, thanks for your input. I`ll try this positioning first.