How would you rate your listening room?

Like Jazzcat my room absolutly sucks. It is a T shaped basement area. The room is 21' long. At one end it is 11.5' wide and at the other end it is 21' wide. In the 11.5' end the ceiling is 7' and then jumps up to about 7.5' at mid point. The hi-fi is setup so that 11.5' wall is the front wall. The room widens from the 11.5' width to 21' at about the mid point of the 21' depth. The partition walls are flimsy 2x2's with cedar paneling. The front wall (11.5' wide wall) has a door in the right corner. Open the door and guess what......washer, dryer, furnace and water heater. I have hung a small picture on the front wall, on good bass thumps I can see the picture shaking. The room sucks but.....it's mine. This room is off limits to her decorating ideas. It's not off limits to her, we both love listening, just no decorating unless I do it. Doug

i'd have to give my room a class "a" rating, yust cuz of its size. while not perfectly rectangular, the dimensions are approximately 25x38x8.5. w/its slightly off-kilter shape & large size, i really don't need much acoustical treatment. the speakers can be out from the back wall, & they're way-far from the side-walls. as the floor is carpet over concrete, not much early reflections here, either. i guess i could treat the ceiling, that's about it. i've been here ~4 years now, & as this is the 1st really decent room i've had, i can really say it's easily the most important piece of audio equipment i've got.

and, craig, i suggest ewe go for those monitors - if ya like full-range sound, couple 'em w/a pair of vmps original subs (should be more than enuff for your room), & an excellent outboard x-over, like the marchand deluxe xm-9. yule be able to position each for best response, w/o compromising the other. when i 1st got my subwoofer set-up (prior to my current class "a" room), i was using thiel 3.5's. at +/-2db from 20hz to 19khz, these are truly full-range speakers, all by themselves. even so, they benefitted from being run w/a subwoofer set-up. crossed over at 70hz, the midrange got cleaner as the driver dint have to work so hard. and, the bass w/my subs is in a different league altogether. i'm currently using meret re monitors on stands in the main room, w/the subs, & it's great.

regards, doug

I would rate my room a B plus or A minus at best. The dimensions are 19.8' wide, 33' long and 12' high. It is presently treated with 4 tube traps, 6 RPG panels and has 15 dedicated electrical runs, each with their own breaker, star ground system and Hubbell hospital grade outlets. The Analog system is all on one side of the 220V three phase electrical panel and the digital is on the other, to avoid interaction. I have two acoustic engineering companies working on the construction plans for this room right now. There will be a total room treatment performed that will address reconstruction from the wall studs out. There will be acoustic damping of any bad first and second order reflections, as well as standing waves. This all began because of a low flow water leak that slowly destroyed my foundation. Since it is necessary to tear the room out completely, past the pier and beam and down to earth, this is the ideal time. The extra (acoustical) work will be accomplished at my expense, at the same time the other construction is being done. Included are plans for audio grade, non conductive conduit to be run under the floor. These will allow safe passage for all the long runs of audio and video cables. There will also be a full feradine copper screen cage for the walls and floor, to stop RF and EMI, plus a patented acoustic treatment will be sandwiched between the triple layer sheet rock walls. On top of that goes one to four inches of 6 pound recording studio grade fiberglass, same as is going in the new NFL studios ( the same engineer is doing that job), and then acoustically transparent cloth goes on top of that. Cosmetically, the walls will appear to be covered in decorative fabric, less the welting and staples. This type of treatment is very new, using a guide track system that allows a razor thin line between the widths of fabric. The special fabric is pressed into each locking rail with a thin edged roller, with no other fasteners needed. I also have plans to build my surround sound speakers into the walls at this same time, so my current speakers hanging into the room on brackets will be sold. I am still trying to figure out what surround speakers to build into the walls, and am seeking advise from friends in the audio business. When this project complete in approximately 4 or 5 months from now ( I not beginning right now! ) I have hope that my room will become as close to A plus as a home can get, short of rebuilding the entire house from scratch. The hardest part of this will be removing and replacing my stereo system and all my software. My suffering during the construction will be made even worse by the equally long period of no decent music. I can only hope that in the end it will all be worth it.

I was just given a room in our soon to be built out cellar. The dimensions are 16x 18x 8. It is 6 inch brick walls with a concrete foundation. I just had an acoustician look it over. He plans 2 layers of 5/8 acoustic paneling with an acoustic ceiling suspended from springs(?). He also plans to treat the walls with acoustic fiberglass. Because of the large size of my speakers and the relatively small size of the room, he feels that some time allignment will be necessary, probably in the electronic domai. The dealer recommends the Accuphase unit. I will investigate this, as well as the Sigtech stuff.

David

I would rate my room as a B+ if I could set things up the way I like. However, have a SO makes that difficult and I'm ending up with a B-. My room is 19x25x8.5ft. When we first moved in it was MY room. Speakers 7 ft out from the short wall, 5.5ft from each side wall. No windows at reflection points. Family has now encroached and I have had to put my system along the long wall at one end of the room. Speakers are noe 6.5ft from the "front" wall and 4 ft from one side wall and 12 ft from the other side wall. That last part is what reduces my grade. We've argued about this enough thð¡e agree that the next house WILL have an AlbertPorter style room.