A few tips:
1) Hire an expert in acoustical engineering. I used Rives (of Rives Audio) for my dedicated two channel optimized Home Theater and I recommend him heartily.
2) A great book is "The Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F. Alton Everest. It contains everything you need to understand acoustics, but it won't give you the practical first hand experience that a degree in the subject and/or years of designing rooms in the field will give you (refer back to tip #1).
3) You can check out my AVScienceForum thread on building my own room from the Rives Audio schematics. I went with a level 2 consultation, but if you can afford to do it, I would go with the level 3. Looking back, this would have been the best choice to ensure that the utmost care was taken in all the construction. It ended up being a lot of insane work on my part to understand everything being done with the F. Alton Everest book, since I decided to General Contract my own room. I wanted to make sure everything was done according to exact specifications so that the acoustics wouldn't get botched by over-creative builders who thought they could sometimes use any material lying around to create approximations of the designs instead of using materials specifically mentioned on the schematics (or specified by myself or Rives).
4) It is better to do it right the first time, than to be unhappy with the mistakes and results that are the product of amateur/unexperienced work and design (refer to tip #1).
1) Hire an expert in acoustical engineering. I used Rives (of Rives Audio) for my dedicated two channel optimized Home Theater and I recommend him heartily.
2) A great book is "The Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F. Alton Everest. It contains everything you need to understand acoustics, but it won't give you the practical first hand experience that a degree in the subject and/or years of designing rooms in the field will give you (refer back to tip #1).
3) You can check out my AVScienceForum thread on building my own room from the Rives Audio schematics. I went with a level 2 consultation, but if you can afford to do it, I would go with the level 3. Looking back, this would have been the best choice to ensure that the utmost care was taken in all the construction. It ended up being a lot of insane work on my part to understand everything being done with the F. Alton Everest book, since I decided to General Contract my own room. I wanted to make sure everything was done according to exact specifications so that the acoustics wouldn't get botched by over-creative builders who thought they could sometimes use any material lying around to create approximations of the designs instead of using materials specifically mentioned on the schematics (or specified by myself or Rives).
4) It is better to do it right the first time, than to be unhappy with the mistakes and results that are the product of amateur/unexperienced work and design (refer to tip #1).