Advice on building a dedicated listening room.

Buy F. Alton Everest, "Sound Studio Construction on a Budget", and learn why the 15' x 30' is bad, among a lot of other things. The book covers all kinds of listening rooms and should be a bible for all audiophiles, and especially for ones fortunate enough to build a listening room from the ground up. If you want DIY designs for room treatment devices, mostly ala RPG, please get in touch.

The length of the room should be 1.6 times the width, or 24 feet. The 6 X 15 foot area left over could be handy for your workbench and leave plenty of storage space for your cartons. You might want to consider a ceiling height of 9' in the center of the room and maybe 7 1/2' on the ends. This would give you some non-parallel surfaces, while flat ceilings can cause some nasty reflections. My .02 worth.

I began with excellent equipment and then realized that I'd never get the room as right as a pro. I kept working on better design and finally threw in the towel and hired Reeves Audio. Give some serious thought to professional help. While there is abundant experienced advice, to date I have only heard one room that I consider superb and that room is not to my taste.

There is no way to know what your economic and design commitments are, if you are at the out of control end of the equation, write me an we can talk about our experiences.

Best wishes,

Bill E.

lakefrontroad@earthlink.net

All good comments above. The one point I'd add is to think about building the room with ASC "Wall-Damp IsoWall" panels, or something comparable. See the following link to ASC's web site for more info about "Wall-Damp IsoWall":
http://www.asc-hifi.com/products/isowall.htm

Having the correct dimensions for your listening room, with proper speaker placement, etc., is certainly vital, but if you are going to build a dedicated room, do it right and be sure your walls are acoustically dampened.

I'll second and third the following statements:

15' x 30' is NOT a good way to start things off. How you fill in the space and / or section off part of it

You should at least pick up one of F. Alton Everest's books and / or consult an Engineer familiar with room acoustics. I think that Rives gives free initial consultation and can quote you from there.

I would also have everything planned out in terms of knowing EXACTLY what i wanted to do / achieve BEFORE starting any type of construction. Taking on such a project is very time consuming / expensive. Having to re-do things that were initially overlooked is both expensive and frustrating.

Don't overlook the importance of sound damping / absorption material above the ceiling. This will allow you to "crank it up" at times that would otherwise annoy others in the house. This also allows those above the basement to enjoy themselves without annoying you. Kind of a "win / win" situation : ) Sean
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