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New House: Audio room/Office

In my current house I have a bit of a love/hate, or maybe dislike, relationship with where my stereo system is, in our living room.

What I like is that is it a good size room that is very open. (I also like to mute TV a lot while listening to music, though that is another issue that doesn't need addressed here.)

What I dislike is that our living room doesn't look as nice as it could because of the dominance of the stereo system and we (I) work everything around it; I am also restricted in how far I can move my speakers from the back wall, as they are coming too far into the living room.

We are considering building a new home, not because of my stereo. :) In contemplating what we'd like in a new home we have discussed making one room my office and putting my stereo in there; I work from home so I could enjoy my system through the day.

We do not have an unlimited budget so I am concerned of not having enough room and struggling to make the system sound good. At "best" the floor plans we have considered gave me a room of about 15x13, and that slightly modifying the plans we were looking at.

I would love to hear tips, advice and thoughts on this. It would be very unfortunate to plan on this and then be unhappy.
brianmgrarcom
newbee
4,767 posts
 
I was lucky (I think!) I designed my own home. When I built my home I set up a floor plan with a more traditional living room and family room well separated from each other. The thought was that it was a floor plan that would resell easily to anyone not looking for a great room/open home style. I made the family room large and family friendly and that is where we live. I made the living room dimensions audio friendly and that is where I have my music/audio room. It is off the hallway/entry and can be closed off by pocket doors. Not perfect, but it works well.

I think a 13x15 audio only room could work but you'd have to scale back expectations a little bit on big/loud music, and to optimize results you'd probably end up with a near(er) field listening setup so you would have to be very careful in selecting speakers and avoiding any with an uptilted mid-high FR or that is too 'fast'.

FWIW. Hope that helps a bit. BTW, my audio room is 13.5 x 19.5 x 9 and my setup sounds pretty good - 10'equilateral triangle with speakers 5.5ft from the back wall.
brianmgrarcom OP
1,317 posts
 
Thanks Newbee. If you could change anything in your room, what would it be?
newbee
4,767 posts
 
I have a room dimension or build out issue which causes a suck out of 6db at 40/50 hz and a small rise at 80hz of about 3db. Otherwise my FR is fairly flat thru the mid-range. I should probably be happy.

This might be corrected if the room was a bit longer I think, maybe 1 1/2 feet or so, and/or I might remove an open archway behind the listener chair. But, I worry that a solid wall behind the listening chair, even 5 to 6 feet, would still facilitate the bouncing frequencies from the side walls and make the room a bit reverberant. As it is now I have 6x7' openings on a side wall and a back wall - it really has helped with getting a very clear sound, the only down side is that the otherwise fine sound stage is restricted to the front 1/3d of the room (wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and deep though). But I guess I could always add some rear channels to fill in the other 2/3ds of the room.

BTW, I've used and carefully set up panels and electrostats in this room and was never able to get close to what I know these speaker types can do in a large(r) room. Listening to dynamic speakers in a nearer field has been the most successful for me in this room.
brianmgrarcom OP
1,317 posts
 
Well your comments concern me already, as your room is larger than what I am looking at; I think I need to try and find a living room setup that would work well with my stereo in it and have the office room something separate.
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