Building a house

Completed my two channel listening room a bit over a year ago. The quality of silence is surprising; guests remarked upon it as soon as they entered, in pre-Covid days.

Dimensions. Snake oil abounds. Fortunately, the real science has been done, at the University of Salford (UK), in their School of Acoustics. The famous Cox teaches there. They ran 100,000's of simulations to arrive at optimal ratios - they found that MOST rectangular dimensions are bad, a quarter are OK, and a few percent are good.

Stereophile ran an article about two years ago on construction techniques. They stressed rigidity and glue. I used an elastomeric glue that never quite dries, and it's elastomeric counterpart caulking, called Build Secure and M1 respectively (from Chemlink).

Walls and ceiling used 6 layer drywall including an embedded layer of sheet steel, called Quietrock 545. The manufacturer is knowledgeable and very accommodating. Construction techniques are also discussed on their website.

Isolation transformers tend to hum when they are doing their job. Best to site them outside the listening room. Don't forget air lines - you just may end up with an air bearing TT or tonearm, or both.

Good luck!!!

Absolute Sound, not Stereophile, my mistake.

Lots of good suggestions here. I incorporated many/most of them when I built a 38x28 addition on the end of our home. Concrete floor with extra foundation against earthquakes (it IS California!). Double offset stud walls using 2x6s, soundproofing, double door into room from remainder of house with one door constructed with internal sound deadening, etc. The only suggestion I would add that I did not see above is to avoid a flat ceiling (maybe I missed it); mine ranges between 8 and 10 feet peaking off center. Sonics are superb and my son's blues band uses it for practice and recording. Good luck.

Thanks again everyone - now discussing with the architect