Wanna help with my room?


I am building an addition (1900+sq.ft) to my house and it is going to have a dedicated music listening room, no H/T invloved here. Size of this room isn't that much of a concern and it will have 9' ceilings in it. Do any of you audiophiles have tips you could give me on design ideas. How about demensions? I am up for your suggestions as I trust my fellow audiophiles here at audiogon and their opinions. Is a room totally treated with acoustical dampening a good idea or is that too "dead"? I will have several different pieces of equipment, from planar speakers to tri-odes, going through the room over the years I am sure so I can't give you a 100% positive descriptions of the equipment that will be involved. Looking forward to your help!
kgb540
I'd like to take a stab at it.

o For acoustics, the room should be retangular, not square.
o With a 9' ceiling your looking at about a 12' x 18' x 9' which are very good demensions for a music room 13'x17' might be a tad better. (mine is 12.6 x 18 x 8 and I don't believe I have any problems with it)
o Speakers should most likely be placed at the long end of the room.
o There is a special deadening material/wrap to put behind any sheetrock that will help silence any adjoing rooms.
o I'd probably consider insulating in any case.
o If you can afford for it, try to have the ceiling at about 8' directly over the speakers and sloping upward to 9' as the ceiling moves to the back of the room.
o Both side walls should be non-parallel if possible. Either from the bottom moving up and outward about 4 inches or from the ceiling going down moving outward 4 inches or so to eliminate initial reflections.
o Thick berber carpeting and thick pad should do the trick.
o No matter what is underneath the floor (concrete slab, crawlspace, basement), you really should have the room properly suspended by floor joists or if slab by 2x4's laying on the concrete. This should help immensely with the bass.
o If budget allows, install ceiling beams to break/catch the sound reflections as the sound works toward the back of the room.
o Install as few windows as possible.
o Install bookshelves on the front and back walls and load them up with as many different books as possible to diffuse sound.
o Find the best 10 gauge romex you can find and run dedicated lines for each component from your service panel to the wall outlets.
o Purchase FIM, PS Audio, or even Home Depots best 20 amp hospital/audio grade wall outlets for each component.
o Ensure that all dedicated lines are connected to the same phase of 115 volts at the service panel.
o Ensure that the amplifiers circuit breaker is a 20 amp circuit breaker (all others can be 15 amp)
o Real wood paneling on all walls is better than drywall, assuming that there are many grooves (tongue and groove, etc.) going vertically in direction.
o There should be little or no glass or hard shiny surfaces if at all avoidable.
o Use a 6 panel solid (outside) wood door for room entry.
o Because it's not the biggest of rooms, I would recommend staying away from any 4-way speaker system. Supposedly, most 4-ways require you to be some distance back (8 ft or more) for all drivers to gel as one.
o Unless you are using the very largest of speakers (I have Aerial 10T's full range speakers), speaker size should not matter.
o Any room treatments at this point may or may not be needed.

With these simple and inexpensive tricks, no matter what system you put in this room, you should experience the very best sonics that your equipment has to offer.

-John
Make the deminsions large enough so you can put the speakers in the middle of the room if needed. I am told by folks in the know (Joachim Gerhard at Audio Physic for example, I think the interview is at Speakerbuilding.com) that this is the best way to get clean sound but it is never done because of "aesthetic reasons."

"Totally treated with acoustical damping" would be well...very damp.

Two good sites to view on this topic are www.silcom.com/~aludwig and http://physchem.kfunigraz.ac.at/listeningroom

Both of these sites have all of the "magic dimensions" ect...

As you know, the room is crucial and resonates like a pipe organ. Without knowing more about your personal preferences it's a bit tough to get very specific.

Good luck.

Sincerely, I remain
I would HIGHLY avoid room dimensions of 9 x 12 x 18. You would have MASSIVE standing wave problems at multiple frequencies. For best results, none of the dimensions should be easily divided by a common multiple. As such, 18 is directly divisible by 9 and all three figures are divisible by 3. This would produce severe nodes with multiple points of reinforcement. Off the top of my head, something along the lines of 9 x 14 x 17 would be FAR superior. Many of Stehno's other suggestions are very good though.

I would HIGHLY suggest picking up a book or two by F. Alton Everest ASAP and doing some reading. He has several different books out about acoustics, designing and building your own studio / listening rooms, etc... It will be the best money that you ever spent. Sean
>