Despite having an excellent custom built listening room, my living room has outstanding sound characteristics despite the filmy curtains on a row of 4 french doors on the right and open to the foyer on the left. It is 20X20X10 with cotton or other tufted material mounted and polyester material covered large wall boxes on the remaining side and both front and rear walls. Carpeted. The sound dispersion is fantastic using just Legacy Signature IIIs. Comparable to my Von Schweikert VR9 SE Mk2s. My neighbor does not have the same walls or treatments but same dimensioned room (same architect) with outstanding sound as well with YG Sonja 2.3s. My fireplace is behind and between the speakers with a glass/brass grate. It technically should not sound good but it surprisingly does.
Buyer Beware: Dennis Foley and Acoustic Fields
- Thread starter James Cohen
- Start date
Just curious why you custom - built a room that's a square with the ceiling that's a multiple of the length and width?
I had no choice. In the City of Los Angeles, on 3/17/2017, the mayor and city council passed the anti-mansionization ordinance. The purpose was to prohibit large, multi-story single family homes adjacent to small one story homes. That is exactly not what the ordinance did. Instead, on R-1 zoned lots, one could build 50% of the lot area under 7,500' lots and 45% of a lot area over 7,500'. Hence, a 3 story, 4,500' home could overlook/shadow an adjacent 1,200' 20th century home next door. BUT, they implemented a new restriction on R-A lots which require 18,500' lots or larger. They restricted building to lot area at 25% under 20,000' lots and 20% above 20,000'. My entire tract has 82 lots of 18,500'. Homes built in 1988 to 1990 ranged from 4,500' to 7,800'. Nearly 80% of the homes are now legally non-conforming. My home was 5,250' on the ground floor. I had 4 garages and a 2,500' attic. 2 of the garage areas counted as well as the attic and attic space height above 14' counted at 1.5 times the ground floor/attic area. I was WAY above the legally conforming size. Hence, when I applied to build out a vacant portion of my lot for a separate 25 X 20 X 14 listening room, I was summarily denied. So, I was permitted to remove 2 garages and build my listening room into them. That's why they are 19'8" X 14'10" X 10' net interior area with 16" constrained damped walls, 12" 3000 psi steel reinforced slab floor.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. Sounds like significant over regulation. At least you have a concrete floor and a nice sized room that, as you said, sounds very good.
FYR - Denis Phony told me the same about my room, it'll never sound good, LOL. Measurements and my and others' ears beg to differ. ;-)
My living room has outstanding sound despite the windows and openings. My speakers are only 1 foot from the rear wall and on either side are two large glass/wood display cabinets. The padded walls, thick carpeting and rear tweeters eliminate the negatives of the room. You can achieve excellent sound without him.
How was what he recommended nonsense and how would you be able to judge whether or not it was nonsense? Yeah, I know he can be rude at times, but I have found his advice to be rock solid, despite his business practices and his personal character traits.
I know from the last time I had contact with him that he was going to be moving to Nashville, this was about two years ago. He had finished an audio show room, which can be quite chaotic, so, just because his calendar wasn't filled, he could have had other things he was busy with.
As far as your different route, there's no way of knowing if his route would have been better since there's no way of comparing without having both rooms built, measured and etc.
one thing I can attest to, is that the two demo rooms I spent time in where flat out the best rooms I've ever been in, and I've been in many rooms over the decades I've been both an audiophile and a musician. Albeit, they were listening rooms, one two channel and one multichannel Home Theater room.
It's too bad to hear about the recent issues with his business practices, but in terms of quality of product/performance, I haven't found anything better.
Recent issues? The guy's a charlatan who's FOS which is well - known, read the many posts.
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My expensive custom built listening room is nearly 100% his design because my contractor worked with him on a few projects then dropped him. NO plans were ever presented. His ideas are generally sound. The carbon filtering was suggested by J.Gordon Holt of Stereophile. I thought it was a good idea and it is. The problem is with Dennis Foley. I did submit my room dimensions and construction for analysis to GIK Acoustics and they found some problems with Foley's design. I am satisfied with my room but would HATE to work with Foley again.
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