Room Ceiling Height for 2 channel listening - is taller always better?

congrats on your project. very exciting. i went through that 18 years ago in 2004. since then i have made changes to my room as i learned more. but i’m happy with the fundamental ’bones’ of my design. you can see pictures of it on my system page. my room is in my barn, not my house. so i could go nuts, which i did. it’s a room inside a room.

my clean-sheet-of-paper purpose built room is 21’ x 29’ x 11’.

don’t get hung up on the golden ratio. it does not scale up and down. acoustics are not that predictable. so many variables in construction.

16’ ceilings will add lots of volume and make it much more challenging to pressurize. but a larger space has more potential for energy if you are up to the task of figuring it out.

your speakers won’t ’hook-up’ as effortlessly where the bass feels physical. besides that that height will multiply the challenge of busy reflectivity. more surface area to develop reflections. the surfaces are farther from your ears, but harder to tune. and tune you will, as you learn your room. look at a concert hall with those high ceilings but you see diffusion everywhere to control reflections. that is what you will be dealing with.

small room acoustics and domestic speakers are not voiced for ceilings that tall. if you were using horns or dipoles where the sound is more directed straight forward or back that is less a challenge.

my room is oval shaped, so no right angles. lots of built in diffusion. built in floor to ceiling bass traps in the rear of the room. it’s cocooned in two layers of 5/8ths sheetrock, with a 6 inch concrete floor. everything is built on top of that cocoon. in the front of the room i added Quietrock 545 (with a layer of 3/4" finish grade ply over the top of that) after 6 years in my room to more fully establish room boundaries for bass hook-up. in my perfectly symmetrical room, i had one side (outside structural wall) with different bass than the other side. the Quietrock equalized the sides.

my front 1/3rd is hardwood over concrete, the rear 2/3rds carpet.....think concert hall stage/audience.

To a point I agree. Just remember that open floor plans are the death knell of a high end audio system.

I am interested in the feedback you get here as I’m in the very early stages of designing a new listening space. In particular, my room will also feature a vaulted ceiling so am trying to figure out how to do this in a way that doesn’t create problems. If the room I am designing is 18 wide by 23 long what would the optimal maximum height of the ceiling be? I can stop the upward slope at a variety of points  and come straight across with a flat section—what height would be optimum given the width and length specified? BTW the speakers will be on the short wall positioned about 4-5 feet into the room. I want the room to work with both dynamic and dipole electro stats. Any feedback is welcome that will hopefully apply equally to the OP. 
 

OP: To your assumption that bigger is generally better I had a friend with lots of experience say this “big room, big problems” to which my experience would largely agree. I’m trying to go as big as I can without losing intimacy in the space or the ability to drop some nice Sound Labs in that will have plenty of room to breath!

A friend of mine is in the custom install business and I have helped him with setting up audio systems in various rooms.  The most problematic rooms were those with extremely tall ceilings and rooms with large open spaces.  It is hard to get decent bass in high ceiling rooms and the sound becomes thin and lacking in weight.  In his own listening room, this friend went through the trouble of installing a structure to lower his 16' ceiling.  I would look to something in the 8'-11' range of height.  

It still boils down to treating that room for that issue. There is no getting away from the 8, 9, or 10 foot problems unless you're a horn guy (which kind of helps) and room treatment. Above 12 feet, lower the ceiling. Open floor plans get some roller panels and or heavy floor to ceiling acoustic theater curtains. You can open or close to dampen more or less.

Regards