How isolated is your hi-fi?

I guess I can see it both ways. For example: At the moment I'm trying to read all of these responses while listening to a great Roy Eldridge record. Simultaneously I'm being peppered with questions about appropriate cooking times for a chicken..... Guess what I'm only half listening too?

On the whole though, I think this arrangement works pretty well. Besides, I think i'd feel a little antisocial if I scurried off to my little hole all alone.

Chad, Since I know you're in the process of building your dedicated room, I'll be curious to hear how that works out in six months or so.

Thanks for all the interesting response.

I have my own space but it is not isolated. We have a two story house and there is a fairly large "Bonus Room" on the 2nd floor. The side/rear of the room is open to the upper stair landing. The picture posted with my system is from that landing. This is my space, the rest of the house is my wifes but it's my stereo only room.

My room is in the basement. The mistake I made is the walls go up to the floor truss and the cieling is constructed on the floor truss. I hear footsteps and the music can be heard upstairs. The walls and cieling will have to be disconnected from the floor truss and cieling joices will be placed on top of the walls for the cieling. Good thing it is a 9 foot basement. Other than that I hear no outside noises and the neighbors do not hear me. The source components, line stage and amps are in their own room also.

My setup is in the living room and there is no family room. I listen casually in the mornings, while others sleep late. All the serious listening is done when others are out. I move chairs around and pull the speakers out from the wall and I'm in business. The only problem is repeating the ideal speaker positioning. I'm thinking of buying a laser "chalk line" to repeat the best set up reliably.

I have a "music room" full of trumpets, guitars and a fairly powerful computer with PhotoShop and recording software. It's just a converted bedroom, but there's not enough room to add my high fedility system. I spend time alone in there everyday woodshedding, so one private room is probably the limit.

One day I'd like to roll it all together in one large room. Maybe some day...

Dave

My favorite room was a basement in my memphis home that was large enough for a hometheater setup on one end (complete with 7.1 sound) and a pool table on the other end. It became the best room in the house and could easily handle music and/or movies along with a pack of people playing pool. The room acoustics were pretty good as the room was 25 by 60 rectangle with concrete floors and concrete walls.

My current set up is a family room (had to leave memphis,ugh) so the setup is not as friendly I still have the 7.1 home theater and pool table but the room dynamics are not as good and the pool table is between the listening/seating area and the speakers. It is still the favorite room in the house and gets lots of use. I did have a dedicated room for music but found it did not get as much use since it was isolated.