Custom dedicated audio room owners unite!

[Ronboco]

@Ron Resnick
Hello Ron. I was wondering why you didn’t go with your acousticians advice on the absorption ? What is your room size? My room is 16.5 ft. x 15ft. x 7.5ft. I had a acoustician design my room and I built it. There is no drywall inside the room to control reflections but there is some 1/4 inch pegboard on two walls. I mostly hear the direct sound from the speakers and the sound quality is superb without the reflections. I was curious about adding some reflections to get a more spacious effect so my acoustician designed some diffusers and they did add spaciousness without sacrificing sound quality.
Ron

 

[bonzo75]

I was going to suggest that if you want good sound, invite round your 50 closest friends and scatter them around the room. Holywell full of people is very good for 1748, only a decade after Covent Garden Mk1 and St John's Smith Square were built. My next two "ye olde" gigs are at St Martins, Sir JEG doing Handel minus Sir JEG (who is indisposed for doing what he's done for years) and the Dunedin featuring Hugh Cutting.

thought JEG was off performing for a year in therapy after slapping an opera singer

 

[SuperDave]

I'm currently planning a new build and starting to investigate listening rooms. I've read about issues with drywall, has anyone had success with a plaster listening room?

Dave

 

[ssfas]

thought JEG was off performing for a year in therapy after slapping an opera singer

He was doing a massive 80th birthday tour. He did the B Minor Mass at St Martins just before the Coronation, which was really excellent. The Handel was at the end of the tour. He has an associate conductor, a young Italian chap who may do it. I'm reliably informed that JEG has always had temper and I know people who won't work with him. Unfortunately he hit a tenor for, bizarrely, coming off the wrong side of the stage.

He did Orfeo & Eurydice at Covent Garden perhaps 7 or 8 years ago, with Juan Diego Florez and Hofesh Schechter choreography. One of the best things we've seen there. Did you see that one?

 

[ssfas]

Beautiful and very tastefully designed room.

Thank you. I was reading about your Dr Bonnie. Quite a lady. She says:
"“Architects and designers can think about sound in their design by asking clients if there are noises that bother them, and just as importantly, if there are sounds they would like to hear”

The Sound of Things - Technology Designer

By Sean O'Keefe The individual’s experience of a place starts with its purpose and then quickly flows through the instinctual repertoire of senses – sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Within a home, the expectations for a person’s experience of space are harmonized by a cadre of creative...

www.technologydesigner.com

I have a sound and light system through most of my house that has various wellness settings, combining different levels and colour of light with sounds like rain and, my favourite, a rainforest.
I often have the lighting on a Circadian setting, it changes colour and intensity throughout the day.

 

[Jetstream]

my custom room:
21x15x10. Minimal modes
hardwood floor over trusses (doubled at 1/3 & 2/3 length)
tongue & groove pine walls & ceiling
6 dedicated circuits
tube traps in all 4 corners and behind speakers
wall traps at all first reflection points and opposite walls behind speakers

 

[Jetstream]

That's kind of exactly what I am thinking about doing. Making the room smaller (albeit slightly).

Hear me out. I know I don't want a rectangle. I have that now. What I would like to do (or what I am thinking about doing) is to (see photo below) Take the rectangle and build walls within it. My theory is to have nothing in the room that is parallel, including the ceiling and the floor. The corners would be bullnosed and what I mean by that is rounding them out over the course of two feet, not just a couple of inches.

The ceiling would be sloped, moving up as it gets further away from where the system would reside. The walls would move outward from where the system would reside. I was thinking about building in wall acoustical treatments, as well as ceiling treatments for the room as well.

In the diagram below, the dimensions are totally whack. I just wanted to do a quick sketch of my idea....or where my thought process is at this moment in time.

I will be going from the current room, which is 13x15x8 to an area (that also needs a powder room somewhere in the mix) I can work with that is 22x24'x12. I would need to subtract about 4 feet from one of the area dimensions for the powder room, physical music storage, the RCM and other storage for the system (possibly the rack as well). So, while I may be taking away, going from the current room to this would be a huge change for me and would allow the dual Rythmik F-25's and the Tyler Acoustic Woodmere's to have a chance to finally breathe.

I am still in the planning stage, so I am open to ideas. The build will most likely start in about 3 months or so.

View attachment 104450

Tom

Doesn’t geo Cardas have a similar design?

 

[ADGold]

Almost complete

 

[Ronboco]

@treitz3

The sound room at the Boulder amplifiers facility is similar to how you are describing the room you are considering. Although their room is quite large. Have you consulted an acoustician about it?
Ron

 

[Glide3]

I'm currently planning a new build and starting to investigate listening rooms. I've read about issues with drywall, has anyone had success with a plaster listening room?

Dave

My home is 100+ years old and has lathe and plaster walls combined with good dimensions. (24dx18.5wx11.5) and I have been able to achieve good sound with a variety of systems (speakers) with minimal need to acoustic treatment. I consider the construction of the walls and ceiling (plaster) to be a contributing factor to this.

 

[treitz3]

Doesn’t geo Cardas have a similar design?

Yes sir. That's where I got the idea from years and years ago.

Tom

 

[treitz3]

@treitz3

The sound room at the Boulder amplifiers facility is similar to how you are describing the room you are considering. Although their room is quite large. Have you consulted an acoustician about it?
Ron

Unfortunately, I am not on the pay level of many of you on this forum. Flying in an acoustician or two just to give me measurements and recommendations is something that at this point in my life, I would rather spend on vacations for the family.

I have gotten where I am along my audio journey by ear and a lot of experience. It is this that I am "hopefully" relying on. That and a boat ton of research.

It may cost me in the end but it has GOT to be better than my current room, which is the old master bedroom of the house. 13x15, with 8 foot tall ceilings and VERY limited real estate for gear.

Thank you for the suggestion. I have considered it.....*sigh*....but other obligations/family/life presents a delicate balance. One that is more important to me than anything else. TBT.

Tom

 

[Ampexed]

My dedicated room overall 20' x 30' with cathedral ceiling which goes from 8' to 11'. The system uses analog active crossovers (with the exception of the four 18" subwoofers which use a DSP crossover) so the tuning is flexible. When tuned for flattest response at the listening position, this is a typical result.

 

[ssfas]

Unfortunately, I am not on the pay level of many of you on this forum. Flying in an acoustician or two just to give me measurements and recommendations is something that at this point in my life, I would rather spend on vacations for the family.

I have gotten where I am along my audio journey by ear and a lot of experience. It is this that I am "hopefully" relying on. That and a boat ton of research.

It may cost me in the end but it has GOT to be better than my current room, which is the old master bedroom of the house. 13x15, with 8 foot tall ceilings and VERY limited real estate for gear.

Thank you for the suggestion. I have considered it.....*sigh*....but other obligations/family/life presents a delicate balance. One that is more important to me than anything else. TBT.

Tom

I'm about 10 leagues below most people here. My wife did our house design, I did all the management, buying materials, hiring skips and equipment, organising the builders, plumbers, decorators etc. I used to do a lot of that myself years ago. We'd much rather spend our limited funds travelling. I got the acoustic design guidance from the materials supplier, who usually do the design for their customers.

What is enlightening is setting up an audio system in a bare room that has just been plastered, with otherwise bare walls and floors, and hearing how dry and hard the sound is. Ultimately for most people the wall covering and furnishing contribute most to the acoustics, just as the audience contribute much in many concert halls. You see plenty of acoustically treated rooms with hardly any furniture, which is just one way of doing things.

If you're going to put two stacks of subwoofers in a room you're asking for trouble that will likely need professional acoustic assistance. I can't get even a single subwoofer to work in my room, but my speaker/amp combination works fine. There is normally a dropout somewhere in the bass, but the brain tends to compensate for it. So these ultra-flat response lines don't mean a lot to me because they don't represent what our brains process.

My room posted above is a similar size to yours - about 18x13x9. I used to have a much larger space and I had a system with lots of components. I now have my hifi in one stack measuring 450 mm x 480 mm with a record player on top. I'm very pleased with the outcome and have heard $1m systems that have sounded terrible (to me). My wife tells me I'm a born optimistic and always look at adversity as an opportunity.

I'd rather spend my money on vacations. Some people take their private jets to the latest hip hotel, some of us are happiest when we can just get a nice cup of tea.

 

[Ronboco]

@treitz3
I too have nowhere near the means as many/most of the members here. I sent pictures and dimensions of the area in my unfinished basement I was going to use to my acoustician and he did the design and sent them back to me. His price was very reasonable (under1k in my case) and I am extremely happy with the result. Perhaps at least consultation with someone would be worth it. My acoustician is Jeff at hdacoustics. Good luck!

 

[ssfas]

@treitz3
I too have nowhere near the means as many/most of the members here. I sent pictures and dimensions of the area in my unfinished basement I was going to use to my acoustician and he did the design and sent them back to me. His price was very reasonable (under1k in my case) and I am extremely happy with the result. Perhaps at least consultation with someone would be worth it. My acoustician is Jeff at hdacoustics. Good luck!

Hdacoustics looks like a really great resource.

 

[vernonwtx]

Should EMF and RFI interference be a consideration in building a dedicated room? I once designed/built a data center that was next to high power lines. IT dept was concerned about frequency interference in the Telecom demarc rooms. However, the engineers said you would have to identify the interference frequency before a copper mesh could be installed, as the frequency dictated the mesh spread. Someone came up with the idea of installing lead-lined sheet-rock used in xray rooms, which we did...

 

[Ronboco]

I would say unless you do live close to high power lines the the materials used on the room construction would not need to address it. I would however plan for dedicated circuits for the room. My acoustician didn’t ask about high power lines.

 

[ssfas]

Should EMF and RFI interference be a consideration in building a dedicated room? I once designed/built a data center that was next to high power lines. IT dept was concerned about frequency interference in the Telecom demarc rooms. However, the engineers said you would have to identify the interference frequency before a copper mesh could be installed, as the frequency dictated the mesh spread. Someone came up with the idea of installing lead-lined sheet-rock used in xray rooms, which we did...

I once had to deal with some litigation by a guy who had a recording studio near a railway line and it was affected when the rail company upgraded some of its switching equipment.

 

[ssfas]

My usual listening environment