I'm going to move forward with it and will chime in again after it's done to follow up. The door will be a nice solid wood one- not one of those hollow ones.
Thank you all for your input. I appreciate it.
Leave it Open or Close it Off: A Listening/ Living Room Dilemma
We are doing a bit of remodeling and I have the option to add a pocket door to close off an open hallway in the rear left of the room. My setup is 2qty floor standers and 2qty REL S/510 subs. The room is 15x20 with an 8' ceiling. My speakers aim down the long wall. The room has a TV but it's mostly a listening room with minimal furnishings: 1 normal sofa and 1 end table behind the listening position.
Here's what I'm thinking: if a 40hz soundwave is 28ft, wouldn't it be better to leave the hallway open so that the soundwave has more room to do its thing?
On the other hand I'm thinking having a decently sealed 3' wide solid-wood pocket door there instead of an open hallway might pressurize the room better?
Has anyone been in this situation or have enough knowledge about acoustics/ physics to know which would be the better choice?
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I think you’re making the right choice to install the doors. One thing I’ll add is that I find a real time analyzer app like Spectrum really useful for system setup—both for ensuring equal loudness from both sides and optimizing speaker placement. Spectrum is in the Apple App Store. It or something similar must be available for Android. |
Wow, what a coincidence. I just downloaded the Spectrum app earlier in the day yesterday. Up until then I was using Decibel X. Thanks @kokomo |
I guess it depends on where the door goes, but I should think there are practical reasons outside of sound quality to have the option of a door. If my listening room didn't have a door, my family would have hung me by now. My listening room is open at the back, or I suppose a better way to describe it would be a C-shaped bonus room with the listening room being the top half of the C. Where it narrows to go to the other part of the room is open. I have found that adding a subwoofer in the back of the listening area really stabilized the bass in a way that has centered the music in the room better. |
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