New Dedicated Listening Room

I have steel lots of it lol.
I also dug the entire house down 2 feet to level it out
it had sub cavities for plumbing as well so in addition even lower for pipes
Then 6 inches of concrete with steel mesh
Then 1 inch insulation boards same as used in Madison square garden for ice ring
then 3/4 Marine 100% fill
This was shot into the concrete and glued
3/4 hardwood over this nailed
"Nothing succeeds like excess!"
 
lol it may looks this way but most of what I did I had to non audio
the floors were dug down to make a 10 foot ceiling About 9 when finished
My place in nyc so cold winters
if I did not insulate floors
The entire floor would radiat cold
even in dead of winter the floor can be walked on bare foot if heat is on
yes over done but I can play anything anytime
And no one knows
my Tennet directly above has a huge fish tank only ripples in his water is seen not heard lol
he also has a child with a emotional disorder
before I did the ceiling it was impossible for me to sleep
 
Have fun Kingrex! I am retiring at the end of the year, and we are moving into Seattle to support my daughter/husband and new granddaughter. They live in Ravenna. We are moving from Alabama, I have lived along the Gulf Coast most of my life. Seattle will be an adventure for us.

My current room is 9.5 x 14, and I expect another small room. I’m just hoping to have room for the vinyl rig and record storage, cleaning etc. I would love to find a decent basement. I can see how a blank slate room would be daunting to start with.

On the other hand, Seattle offers many things I don’t have easy access to, audio dealers, an actual audio society, and fellow audiophiles. My speakers were build in Ferndale, a bit north of Seattle. And easy access to wineries. We visited a winery on Vashon last summer!
 
  • Like
Reactions: the sound of Tao
I like your room. Sonically its calm and seems to play well. I am a bit nervous about doing anything that is burried. Rooms still feel like the wild west. I don't feel there is much consensus on what is correct. Maybe some basic ratios. I have seen people stiffen and damp the wall and floor structure. I don't believe this has been negative.

I was in one room with the RSC channel and double drywall and it had a bad metalic ring. Overly lively. Come to think of it, he had the plywood strips glued and screwed on the studs. It was on a slab.

I was in another room in a basement with concrete walls and a similar wall system. yet no wall stiffener. Just Home Depot 2x4 that were bent and floppy. It was fantstic. Also on a slab.

To Als poimt, I can sneak in floor stiffening if I'm in there running wire. I have the excuse opening it up gives me a path for data and power to the main house. I would like.to be able to walk and not have the needle skip.
Rex room acoustics are not super complicated - you just have to approach them systematically - I am sure you know most of this already.
First is isolation - do you want it - if yes then you can do it with varied decoupled systems and multisheet walls - the difference is the more they act as membrane absorbers the less predictable they will be in absorbing bass. If you want to keep all the bass in you need density and rigidity in your wall. The floor sounds like it might be quite a big membrane and stiffening will be good.

That will mean lots of bass absorption is needed - in all the corners including cornice - but it needs to go down to low fr and not have much impact above say 300hz - a few measurements will help
Once that's sorted your ceiling, front wall and floor first reflection points - I prefer redirection rather than diffusion or absorption as it keeps the reverberant field phase correlated with direct sound but any system that lowers db by more than 10 seems to be considered OK

Then you add absorption in non critical areas to tame the room reverb if needed - although overdamping is a killer
None of those steps are necessarily simple but it breaks it down into a logical process where you eliminate the big maskers first

cheers

phil
 
  • Like
Reactions: christoph
On the other hand, Seattle offers many things I don’t have easy access to, audio dealers, an actual audio society, and fellow audiophiles.
easy access to Mike Lavigne too
 
Have fun Kingrex! I am retiring at the end of the year, and we are moving into Seattle to support my daughter/husband and new granddaughter. They live in Ravenna. We are moving from Alabama, I have lived along the Gulf Coast most of my life. Seattle will be an adventure for us.
Unsolicited advice:
Don’t sell your house in Alabama until you’ve been in Seattle for a couple of years and the new “rhythm of your life” is something you’re comfortable dancing to.

We uprooted our lives to assist with child care, and after two years, and against my better judgement, we sold “the home place.”

Now, as child care is less necessary due to preschool and soon to come school activities displacing the need, a week doesn’t go by when I don’t think about home, friends, former haunts, and the perfect setup and setting we developed over many years. If I had it to do over, I’d try a quarterly rotation, keeping both “main” houses.

We love our family … but if you can afford it, don’t sell a longtime loved property in haste to pursue an adventure.

The one thing I got out of this move was a slightly better man cave and a significantly better system to fill it. Was that enough? Not for me. I have too many hobbies to be happy improving one while others languish.

Just sayin’ …
 
Have fun Kingrex! I am retiring at the end of the year, and we are moving into Seattle to support my daughter/husband and new granddaughter. They live in Ravenna. We are moving from Alabama, I have lived along the Gulf Coast most of my life. Seattle will be an adventure for us.

My current room is 9.5 x 14, and I expect another small room. I’m just hoping to have room for the vinyl rig and record storage, cleaning etc. I would love to find a decent basement. I can see how a blank slate room would be daunting to start with.

On the other hand, Seattle offers many things I don’t have easy access to, audio dealers, an actual audio society, and fellow audiophiles. My speakers were build in Ferndale, a bit north of Seattle. And easy access to wineries. We visited a winery on Vashon last summer!
PM me if you want a nice house. I am asking real $$$$. It is seattle.

Dealers here are ok. Nothing special. There are a few systems to see. Mike, Jazdoc, a few in Portland. And then there is a good aystem on Vashon Island:)
 
Unsolicited advice:
Don’t sell your house in Alabama until you’ve been in Seattle for a couple of years and the new “rhythm of your life” is something you’re comfortable dancing to.

We uprooted our lives to assist with child care, and after two years, and against my better judgement, we sold “the home place.”

Now, as child care is less necessary due to preschool and soon to come school activities displacing the need, a week doesn’t go by when I don’t think about home, friends, former haunts, and the perfect setup and setting we developed over many years. If I had it to do over, I’d try a quarterly rotation, keeping both “main” houses.

We love our family … but if you can afford it, don’t sell a longtime loved property in haste to pursue an adventure.

The one thing I got out of this move was a slightly better man cave and a significantly better system to fill it. Was that enough? Not for me. I have too many hobbies to be happy improving one while others languish.

Just sayin’ …
I know your talking to Bones, but I would never go back to Seattle. I have been here since 95. Had enough. I want new adventures. I would love a Florida place to fish and suffer in the heat. I like to Lizard out at times.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lee
Rex room acoustics are not super complicated - you just have to approach them systematically - I am sure you know most of this already.

phil
I know nothing about room acoustics. I know electrical power. I know what I like to hear. Thats it. I am going to have to learn how to use REW and send some freq sweeps to people that know. Then decide what needs to be done.

My gut says the floor. Maybe some of the walls with double rock. Then room treatments. I'm going to the house today. I will take some pictures.
 
I know your talking to Bones, but I would never go back to Seattle. I have been here since 95. Had enough. I want new adventures. I would love a Florida place to fish and suffer in the heat. I like to Lizard out at times.
Heh, had a condo on the Florida Panhandle (Rosemary Beach) for 17 years. It has gotten so crowded, and full of ungrateful rich people that we sold it recently. Great place to visit. If we were moving to Florida, I would want a few acres 30-60 minutes away from the beach. Really nice people are there, if you get away from the resort areas. My wife is not cool with rural though, and is determined to be near our daughter. I can be happy anywhere. We moved to Mobile in ‘90, so moving to Seattle is a new adventure for us, as will retirement.
 
Heh, had a condo on the Florida Panhandle (Rosemary Beach) for 17 years. It has gotten so crowded, and full of ungrateful rich people that we sold it recently. Great place to visit. If we were moving to Florida, I would want a few acres 30-60 minutes away from the beach. Really nice people are there, if you get away from the resort areas. My wife is not cool with rural though, and is determined to be near our daughter. I can be happy anywhere. We moved to Mobile in ‘90, so moving to Seattle is a new adventure for us, as will retirement.
Figure the cost of housing in Seattle to double. We considered the West coast, and kept looking. Nashville, nope, Chattanooga nope, Iowa nope. We ended up South of Huntsville Al. Not much going on in the audio world, but the jobs and affordability are great.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20240419_092310.jpg
    IMG_20240419_092310.jpg
    72.3 KB · Views: 25
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Lee
I know nothing about room acoustics. I know electrical power. I know what I like to hear. Thats it. I am going to have to learn how to use REW and send some freq sweeps to people that know. Then decide what needs to be done.

My gut says the floor. Maybe some of the walls with double rock. Then room treatments. I'm going to the house today. I will take some pictures.
If your going to use REW you may as well step up to acourate or audiolense. Otherwise you are making simple corrections unless adding re-phase to the equation.
 
Figure the cost of housing in Seattle to double. We considered the West coast, and kept looking. Nashville, nope, Chattanooga nope, Iowa nope. We ended up South of Huntsville Al. Not much going on in the audio world, but the jobs and afordability are great.
Yes, we will be using the proceeds from both houses to buy in Seattle.
 
There are 2 tear down in my neighborhood. One is $650k and a small property. The other is $850 but big enough it will become a triplex.

Seattle is in a war with single family housing. They now limit the size of your house. You can't make it more than 50% the size of the lot. Figure most lots are 4500 feet. So the max size you can build is 2250.

But, you can basically ignore setback and build 3 single family houses on any 4500 or larger lot and land them 5 feet from the property lines. No parking required. No gas allowed. Only electric utilities. Wonder how you will charge your electric car thats down the street as there are no driveways.

I would avoid Seattle at all costs and go Redmond or Kirkland or some other area. Unfortunately the more affordabel suburbs like Northgate and Federal way are getting more gangs and general violence. Capital Hill is outright dangerous. The kids wont even go there. Shooting, fights, people driving cars down sidewalks. Its a mess you don't appreciate or hear about in the news. Much of the violence, theft and drug issues are insulated by the news that won't report on it.

You have been warned.
 
I know nothing about room acoustics. I know electrical power. I know what I like to hear. Thats it. I am going to have to learn how to use REW and send some freq sweeps to people that know. Then decide what needs to be done.

My gut says the floor. Maybe some of the walls with double rock. Then room treatments. I'm going to the house today. I will take some pictures.
Pictures and dimensions would be interesting
 
The room is roughly 30 feet deep by 20 feet wide.
 

Attachments

  • 20240512_073326.jpg
    20240512_073326.jpg
    1 MB · Views: 50
  • 20240512_073302.jpg
    20240512_073302.jpg
    1 MB · Views: 50
  • 20240512_073618.jpg
    20240512_073618.jpg
    857.3 KB · Views: 50
Heh, had a condo on the Florida Panhandle (Rosemary Beach) for 17 years. It has gotten so crowded, and full of ungrateful rich people that we sold it recently. Great place to visit. If we were moving to Florida, I would want a few acres 30-60 minutes away from the beach. Really nice people are there, if you get away from the resort areas. My wife is not cool with rural though, and is determined to be near our daughter. I can be happy anywhere. We moved to Mobile in ‘90, so moving to Seattle is a new adventure for us, as will retirement.
I would have taken a Briny Breeze place for temporary living. Part time that is. One was on the market for around $600K that had a dock outside. I would love to fish the inner coastal. Little 18 foot flats boat. There are a lot of nice fish in there. But I bet the water is sort of dubious with so much development around it. Basically, don't eat too much fish from it.
 
Congratulations on the new room ... I love the poodle!-- I have one myself.
 
The double window side will be the speakers.
The single window with wardrobe will have a plasma on the wall.
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing