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Converting two-car garage to listening room. What would you do?

My wife is angling to get my mountain of audio gear out of the living room and I have graciously consented. :-) So off to the two-car garage I go, but first it has to be made livable, and we've started talking to contractors. It's not a huge space: roughly 18 x 19.5 feet, with a vaulted ceiling that crests at about 16 feet. I'll be leaving the basic structure in place but everything else is up for grabs: I can play with dimensions (a bit), lighting, where I put the (20 amp) outlets, acoustic treatments, and so on.

My main question is currently if I should "toe in" the walls so as to not make them parallel. Would it help the acoustics if I had four walls that measure, say, 18 feet and 17 feet on the shorter sides, and 20 and 18.5 feet on the longer sides? In that case, no corner would be at precisely an 90-degree angle. I read somewhere that that will eliminate or reduce room nulls and peaks, but I don't know much about this stuff. However, I'm willing to learn! Any acousticians here? Words of advice? Thanks!
passthedutchie
asctim
500 posts
 
Non parallel sidewalls and a sloping ceiling helps to reduce what we at ASC call "head end ringing." With parallel sidewalls and floor and ceiling sound emitted sideways from the speakers gets trapped at the front of the room and relatively slowly oozes it's way toward the listener. A 10 degree angle or more between the sidewalls and the floor and ceiling will greatly reduce the problem. 
https://www.acousticsciences.com/media/head-end-ringing

The problem with building that way is it tends to be more difficult and waste space. Head end ringing can also be dealt with by using bass traps in the front of the room, especially the two front corners but also directly off to the sides of the speakers.
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
passthedutchie


This gave me fantastic pinpoint imaging right across the room and depth way out into the backyard. Nothing between the speakers as I said in my last post, yet still gave bass loading from the short walls behind the speakers
https://ibb.co/LhGsmw6
Cheers George
russ69's avatar
russ69
3,523 posts
 
Fully finish your garage with sheet rock on all walls and ceiling, still keeping the garage functional. set your rig up in one corner and have easily moveable furniture in the other corner. That way you'll have room for a car if you need it. Insulated garage doors will help. My 3 car garage had great acoustics with the doors opened or closed. 
passthedutchie OP
46 posts
 
I don't need room for a car, we'll build a separate garage later on. This is going to be a dedicated listening room.
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