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Is a 12' X 16' room big enough for stereo?

Dear fellow audiophiles:
I am in the process of building a house. Our builder went over the floor plans with us yestreday morning and there is an bonus room which I planned on making a dedicated sound room, I am strictly into 2-channel stereo, and my speakers aren't that big, the Thiels CS1.5 driven by Pass Aleph 5. This room measures 12'X 16'. Not sure about the height yet. Is it big enough? What is your opinion?

Thanks
Francis
yslee
drrdiamond
671 posts
 
Your biggest problem may not be how small it is but the relationship between the dimensions. If it is 8ft high then you have 8X12X16 which could be terrible at certain frequencies. They are all evenly divisible by 4 and two are evenly divisible by 8. This will reinforce certain frequencies. You may need some type of tube traps.
I once had a friend living in an old Victorian apt. with a room 12X12X12. WOW, did he have problems!
Richard
alexc's avatar
alexc
265 posts
 
The last post is right on the money. The key will be the ceiling height. I had a room built in my basement, which has 8 foot ceilings. Though I could have gone much bigger in lenght and widt, I ended up with 14 ft by 12.75 feet after crunching some numbers base don the formulae in The Master Handbook of Acoustics and using the room mode software posted on the Stereophile Web Site. I use SF Guarneri Homage speakers w/ a REL subwoofer and get reasonable flat response down to 20 Hz (measured w/ Rat Shack SPL meter and a test CD), other than a (not unpleasant) bump of about 5 db at 40 Hz or so. After trying many different arrangements, I settled on a nearfield arragnement with the speakers 8 feet apart, 3 feet from the side and over 4 ft from the back wall. I sit about a foot away from the front wall w/ RPG diffusers behind my head. All the first order reflection points are treated w/ RPG foam. This works VERY well!! Net, it's more important to get the room ratios "right" and use sound treatment than to buil a larger room w/ lots of nodal problems.
edle
235 posts
 
You are lucky a man! My listening room is only 12ft x 14ft. But I'm also lucky, the room have a cathedral ceiling(highest point is 12ft and lowest point is 8ft) and after a few years of experiment with different room treatments. The cathedral ceiling that I have is like a pyramid(look sideway). The sounds now is very very nice. Your 12ft x 16ft room is good enough with your tiny Thiels CS1.5. If you can try to build a cathedral ceiling or some kind of sloping ceiling(not parallel to the floor). Both the cathedral and the sloping ceiling will eliminate one of the three standing waves that are created by the 3 demensions of the room. Then you have only 2 standing waves(from the length and the width) to deal with. Send me an e-mail, I will send you an image and detail regarding the my speakers.
mikec
199 posts
 
Hi, drrdiamond and Alexc are giving you the proper advice. Those dememsions will cause problems. Keep the demensions unequal and NOT divideable by even or odd numbers. The room is big enough, just the wrong demensions. I suggest you do some research on room accoustics and speaker placement before you commit to your plans. Happy Labor Day
sutts
702 posts
 
you guys are killin' me here! MY listening room is only 8' x 12". Try and work with THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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