Wanna help with my room?


I am building an addition (1900+sq.ft) to my house and it is going to have a dedicated music listening room, no H/T invloved here. Size of this room isn't that much of a concern and it will have 9' ceilings in it. Do any of you audiophiles have tips you could give me on design ideas. How about demensions? I am up for your suggestions as I trust my fellow audiophiles here at audiogon and their opinions. Is a room totally treated with acoustical dampening a good idea or is that too "dead"? I will have several different pieces of equipment, from planar speakers to tri-odes, going through the room over the years I am sure so I can't give you a 100% positive descriptions of the equipment that will be involved. Looking forward to your help!
kgb540
I would HIGHLY avoid room dimensions of 9 x 12 x 18. You would have MASSIVE standing wave problems at multiple frequencies. For best results, none of the dimensions should be easily divided by a common multiple. As such, 18 is directly divisible by 9 and all three figures are divisible by 3. This would produce severe nodes with multiple points of reinforcement. Off the top of my head, something along the lines of 9 x 14 x 17 would be FAR superior. Many of Stehno's other suggestions are very good though.

I would HIGHLY suggest picking up a book or two by F. Alton Everest ASAP and doing some reading. He has several different books out about acoustics, designing and building your own studio / listening rooms, etc... It will be the best money that you ever spent. Sean
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Sean is right. The room dimensions really need to avoid being devisable by a common denominator. The Everest books are fantastic and can give you "golden ratios" of rooms that work well. In addition to this there are many other considerations. Outlets, wiring, isolation, absorption material vs diffusion material and when to use which--it varies greatly depending on the room size. There is so much you can do with a room being designed from scratch, it really becomes a matter of budget and taste. For example--John is right about minimizing windows for acoustical purposes--but for me, I like natural sunlight and would not sacrifice having windows, but I would make them acoustically sound (no pun intended). You have to decide what your goals and budget is and then do a complete design incorporating those goals.
Hi, when you have decided on the room dimensions take some time to model it--ie. the furniture placement, floor, ceiling and wall covering choices--with speaker/room modeling software. I used a Cara 2.1 program and achieved excellent results. I changed my original design plans about 30 percent after reading the software results.
Check out www.cardas.com for a discusion of room dimensions.
Go to INSIGHTS then ROOM SETUP. He suggests 10 x 16 x 26.