Music Room vs. Home Theater Design Question?

i have a separate 2-channel listening room. it has hardwood floors in the front third (1st 9.75 feet of a 29 foot length) of the room, thick carpet is on the rear 2/3rd's of the room. all the wall surfaces are diffusive, which eliminates beaming but does not reduce energy. it's not an accident that it resembles a concert hall with an audience. the hardwood is like a stage and the carpet is like an audience. the goal is to retain energy and allow it to bloom and decay naturally. how you treat a 2-channel room also has lots to do with size. smaller rooms still need some absorbtion to control refective energy or you can overdrive the room easily.

i also have a separate home theatre. there i use absorbtion and it does have carpet over the whole room floor. in a 7.1 theatre you are trying to reduce reflection so the 7 different sets of speakers have minimal interaction with each other. if the room is too reflective it will be very slappy as you raise the volume and you won't get much detail. decay of notes is secondary and is recreated thru the surround sound and not the room itself.

when one combines 2-channel with 7.1 home theatre compromises must be made as to what priorities are.

I think my best bet then is to go with carpet, but low nap carpet.

Thanks,

Josh

If you want to hear from the speaker what was recorded any reduction of room distortion (reflections) is desirable.

If you wish to "create" a specific type of "preferred sound" then shaping the sound with various sonic reflections from reflected surfaces and materials is useful.

My room is the exact same size as yours.I went with carpet and a good quality underlay to cut down on reflections and not have it too lively.

I have 78 inch high, 16 inch round ASC tube traps in all 4 corners with absorbtion at the 1st and 2nd reflection points.

Without doubt and regardless of size, room dimensions do have an influence on your system's sound.

But on the other hand sound is sound. Your system and room make no distinction between the sound of a music and a movie performance, nor should it. And neither should you.

As such, either room type should be relatively neutral if your goal is to capture what is in the recording and with minimal influence from you or your room.

That's assuming of course you're confident the majority of recordings themselves were sufficiently engineered (and do not require your help) and that your system is able to retrieve and process the vast majority of information embedded into the recording.

If you are, then why add your room's acoustic info on top of the ambient information that is already plentiful and embedded in the recording? It would seem there is nothing natural or authentic about such a strategy either in practice or in theory.

If you are not, then all bets are off anyway.

If unsure, then it would seem your best bet is to err on the side of neutrality. At least this way you have potentially one less variable to correct later.

-IMO