Most important fundamentals in your built/modded listening room?
When we finished our family basement in the early 1960's my father did not enclose the ceiling in order to avoid additional property taxes on "liveable space". In Des Moines, @ the time, this was how it worked. We instead sprayed the ceiling and ductwork with flat black paint and the open ceiling was not very noticeable. DeKay |
@hide45 Regarding the ceiling, I agree one could leave it open. Might consider incorporating bass traps where ceiling meets walls. Maybe insulate some sections and cover with fabric as per MCs suggestion. Also spray a thin layer of closed cell foam insulation to round out edges where joists meet subfloor above. Basically having diffusion and some absorption installed into ceiling. Allowing for the 9' ratio reference. I would mount TV flush to wall behind speakers. Maybe elevate it above speaker height. Cover with absorption products when not in use. Might frame it in for this purpose. If video electronics are not in use when music system is used then one dedicated line could be used for both. In your case the position of the dedicated outlets will need to be well thought out regarding topology of A/V systems. Just some thoughts, I am enjoying thinking on your project. |
@mesch Thanks so much. Let me be clearer about the space.
In a larger renovation, a couple years from now, we will move the staircase and get it out of that room entirely. So, this post is about working through what to do to improve Section A. Yesterday, I spent many hours thinking about room dimensions. Alas, it is very hard to build the perfect sized room (Bolt-area-wise) within the room without messing up the re-sale potential of the home. I suspect that we will create a large media room that contains both listening and TV in it. That will be easy to sell. So, I appreciate and can use your suggestions. Because it is not feasible to create a listening room within the larger room (as a set-off box in a box, so to speaker) there is greater need to get the ceiling height as high as possible to make the other dimensions easier to work with. That ceiling does have pipes running through it but I assume many of them can be raised up a bit to accommodate a slightly higher ceiling. (I suppose the rafters might have to poke through? Unsure.) Because if I did put double drywall or whatever under the current rafters, I wind up with a ceiling that is probably 7' 9" or so. And 8' 6" ceiling is way more forgiving. Here's something close to the best I could hope for with 8'6" ceilings. https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc?l=24&w=15&h=8.5&ft=true&re=OeNorm%208115-3%20musi... That said, what I CAN do NOW is deal with the fundamental construction elements so as to tee up good sound later. Thanks for your help with that. |
Great tool. Has more information than I have been able to absorb in this short time. In the past I have plotted modes for my room, though not accessed this program. My room that I will be moving into is 8.3 x 11.5 x 16.5 having the ratio of 1, to 1.3, to 2.0. Lower bass nodes are well distributed. I agree that to keep the room size as large as possible while keeping the most ideal ratios, it would be best to leave the joist exposed and box in whatever plumbing is exposed using acoustic adsorption materials. Thereby considering the 9' ceiling as the reference. Would is possible to divide the basement into 2 more equally sized room and accommodate your dedicated A.V objectives? |
Thanks -- a combination of boxing in some things within the ceiling and leaving other things exposed would be fine, especially if all is covered by a homogenous screen of some kind (fabric). A redivision of the room is possible but depends on many other factors. We’ll see. Your new room’s fundamentals look great. I saw a house in my neighborhood with a gambrel roof (#8) and wondered, "Is that the perfect roof for audio?" |
