room design help

Chsmithmd: I'm glad to hear that your dimensions aren't the ones posted earlier. I had to tell this person how important dimensions are and an idea of dimension ratios but at the same time it appeared an insult to your room. It had left me feeling with somewhat mixed feelings.

If I had it to do over again I'd buy traps from Ethan and send him pics and call him to discuss it. I don't make that much money to afford a consultant to come out but having Rives help I'm sure is worth the investment.

Overall my acoustics are outstanding, at least I've not heard a better sounding system. I'd love to hear another system in a well done room, but done differently than my own. After doing this room and learning how much improvement can be made I'm sold. It's not like you have to "try" to hear the improvement.

In my other house I added a bit of treatment, that helped, so I added more and more. My living room looked horrible but had decent acoustics(I was single). When I fired up my same system in this room it took a while to sink in how incredible the sound was. For the money I consider room treatment a bargain.

Fortunately in my case I had to build a room in the basement of my new house but the dimensions worked out to 12'2"W x17'1"L x 7'2"H. These are decent dimensions. Good thing as I didn't have alot of latitude.

thanks for all the help, I was away for a few days , hence delay.I contacted Rives but their preprinted form is for someone that has a room and not for a new room, I filled it in as best i could but it looked ridiculous so I threw it in the bin. Maybe an email to Ethan is the best. Im stuck with about 300 sq ft max and a height of 8 ft or a little more, so what I want is a suggestion as to the best golden dimension and some ideas on what to build in to the construction. I read acoustic 101 , but there is a lot of really really detailed stuff, which is beyond my grasp. willie

In my experience, your room should be about 16' wide. Mine is appx. 14.5' and seems a little narrow. Double sheetrock and a weatherstripped solid wood door is invaluable. For the ceiling I would opt for the more expensive specialty drywall that is available. There is also a barrier that you can use between the layers of sheetrock that will increase the wall mass without the bulk but I forget what that product is. A nice troweled-on layer of silicone between the sheetrock layers should also help. A length of about 21' should suffice for most applications. If you build your bass traps into the corners from the start it will save you money on treatments. An effective way is to kind of round the room corners with sheetrock and if you can get insulation into that void space created helps tremendously. Just a few thoughts.

Willsandbills, Rives also designs new rooms. You mentioned that your ceiling height may be 8 feet. If so, you do not want a 16' width as Twc recommended. When a dimension is a multiple of another, your standing wave problems generally increase. Since you have an opportunity to build a listening room from scratch, why not maximize the acoustics by consulting an expert.

I am now in correspondence with Ethan and hopefully he will design the room and supply the various bits that he has designed.thanks all,