Standalone Audio Room

[Grateful]

Hi,

I’m getting ready to design a custom home and want to build a separate structure for audio. I’m thinking something like 800 square feet with a 12’ ceiling. Is there a golden rule calculator, so I can nail the best dimensions?

About 20 years ago, I had Rives Audio design my current room. Who are the best audio room design firms today?

Much thanks!

 

[Al M.]

Those sound like very nice dimensions!

Here is a calculator (room dimensions in meters):

Room sizes compliance with international standards and recommendations

It is explained in this article, which is a long read but in my view excellent:

https://digistar.cl/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=557

 

[Kofi Baffour]

Hi,

I’m getting ready to design a custom home and want to build a separate structure for audio. I’m thinking something like 800 square feet with a 12’ ceiling. Is there a golden rule calculator, so I can nail the best dimensions?

About 20 years ago, I had Rives Audio design my current room. Who are the best audio room design firms today?

Much thanks!

reach out to Warp Audio Academy. He does incredible work. His website - https://vespers.ca/work-with-me/?v=6848ae6f8e78

Also, ratio can be a Golden ratio, a Sepmeyer Ratio, a Louden Ratio or a Bolt Ratio

Golden - 1 : 1.6 : 2.6
Sepmeyer - 1 : 1.14 : 1.39
Louden - 1 : 1.4 : 1.9
Bolt - 1 : 1.26 : 1.59 and 1 : 1.50 : 2.50

But I'd say discuss with Vespers

 

[Young Skywalker]

I would recommend plugging room dimensions (for a rectanglar space) into this website: https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc

You should look for well-spaced peaks for a given combination of length (x), width (y) and height (z).

I used this when deciding on room dimensions for my own dedicated listening room (650 cm x 480 cm x 300 cm). My listening position is at one third of the room length from the back wall. My speaker plane is one third of the room length from the front wall. Loudspeaker centres are one quarter of the room width from each side wall. This creates a near field listening triangle that is approximately 2.56 meters from ear to tweeter with tweeters approximately 2.4 meters centre to centre.

 

[Grateful]

Hi,

Thank each of you, very much, for your assistance!

Does anyone else have any advice and/or recommendations for the latest and greatest Rives Audio?

 

[DonH50]

In addition to Golden Ratio, prime or quasi-prime dimensions also work to reduce the impact of room modes. E.g. 1:3:7 or whatever. The main thing is to not have any dimension be a close factor or subfactor of any other.

If you are building a room, consider isolation to reduce sound leakage from and into the rest of the house. I use Kinetics IsoMax clips and used a minisplit for HVAC to avoid ducts into the rest of the house. (The ducts in the picture are existing and went to other rooms; no duct outlets or inlets in the media room to the rest of the house.) Construction notes pasted below. Isolating the media room is one of the best things I did IMO.

HTH - Don

 

[Grateful]

Hi Don,

Thank you, very much, Don!

I’m building a separate building (probably 60’ x 20’ x 12’). I’m thinking a 32.5’ x 20’ x 12’ listening room with the rest of the space to house music, extra gear, vinyl cleaning machines, etc. I’m going to have an HVAC and electrical panel solely for that building. I’m in South Texas, so it will be built on a concrete slab.

Thoughts, ideas, improvements?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

i have a stand alone room.

a few thoughts 21 years in.

keep in mind that the golden ratio does not scale for home audio sonics. small room acoustics don't work that way. maybe anecdotally it works at one size, and likely the variables in construction materials and methods will have a vote too. i would agree that intuitively the golden ratio is a good shape room to begin with though. my opinion is (1) that rooms that resemble symmetric ovals (interior shape) in some form or fashion do sound good. with (2) non flat ceilings. (3) soffits around the room at the ceiling and floor make a difference and don't cost much with new construction. (4) concrete floor, (5) great A/C grid is important. (6) -3- 90 degree turns for the air conditioning ducting to eliminate HVAC noise, and ideally (7) vents in the ceiling, (8) air returns near the floor on the wall for good air flow and flexibility in gear arraignment. i have a drop ceiling with chambers and the air ducting is able to run inside the drop ceiling. my air returns are in my front corners and help with the shape of the room (ovalize it) too. those returns go to the ceiling and act like bass traps. my rear wall is flared at an angle from a center rear door. then shelves are stepped into the middle helping with the oval shape.

if it's a separate stand alone building and your home is in a quiet area then sound elimination from the outside does not need super heroic methods. and there are very efficient products that can deliver good sound deadening such as Quietrock 545 to consider. i added this product to the front (speaker end) surfaces of my room 6 years in to equalize my room boundaries and it really helped. i then screwed 3/4" finish grade plywood over the Quietrock and never looked back. when i say 'i' i mean my contractor. he did hate me when he had to cut the Quietrock though. went through lots of saw blades and it's very heavy to work with.

 

[Grateful]

Hi Mike,

Thank you, very much, for your assistance!

Did you use Rives Audio for design? Do you have an opinion on who’s the prudent choice today?

What are your room dimensions? If you could do it again, would you tweak those dimensions?

Best regards,
Jeffrey

 

[Grateful]

Hi,

As usual, my posts are light on important details. My site is rather ideal. It’s a 45 acre fenced neighborhood with six home sites (mine is 1.3 acres on the flat top of a hill). About 37 acres are a permanent wildlife preserve. We have one pond but plan on adding a second soon.

The developers (good friends) replatted the hood for me. As a result, I’ll have my own electric transformer.

Thanks,
Jeffrey

 

[sbnx]

Hello, I also have a dedicated room. It was regretfully designed by Rives. Most of the "acousticians" are really recording studio people. They add way too much damping material to the room.

800 Square feet is a nice size room. Once you get the length beyond 28.5 feet the lowest room mode drops below 20Hz. Unfortunately, if you stick with 800 Sq feet then the width would also be 28 feet. If you go a little bigger to 875 square feet, then 35 feet long by 25 feet wide by 14 feet high yields a very nice distribution of room modes.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Hi Mike,

Thank you, very much, for your assistance!

hi Jeffrey,

my pleasure. excited for you that you can do a 'clean-sheet' room in a stand alone building. it's a dream opportunity. i truly enjoyed the process. for me it was an existing barn with horses. the home and barn were built in 1999, i bought the property in 2003, then converted the barn in 2004.

Did you use Rives Audio for design?

yes. but my room was more 'Chris Huston' than Richard 'Rives' Bird'. and in the first 7-8 years i did make some changes. as i mentioned above added the Quietrock. also removed some built in bass trapping. Chris had told me that until i lived with the room i would not know how much of the bass trapping was right. but it's really hard to add built in bass trapping, but easy to remove.

in reference to Todd's (@sbnx) comments above regarding Rives's design's being overdamped; my room was very live to begin with. almost zero damping in the original design. but the huge front bass traps were covered in fabric, and i did prefer the room balance after i removed those in 2010. later i added some light surface cloth treatments during the final fine tuning process. so like the bass traps, there is a tuning process and hitting the exact room balance right out of the box for a room aspiring to 'do it all' is not real world. it takes work and investigation. what is important is that the bones are legit.

Do you have an opinion on who’s the prudent choice today?

honestly no. I don’t know who is doing the best room design now.

if i were faced with the same opportunity again; i would have exactly what i have now. the room feels right. you can walk around the room with the music playing and it's great and balanced everywhere. it did take me until 2015 to really figure it out and dial it all the way in. i had to learn and grow before that could happen. it was a process for me. don't expect any room to be mature out of the box, or expect that there will not be a learning curve. embrace the process.

At certain points I would think it was perfect then later realize I had work to do. I had lots of helpful feedback along the way. From people smarter than me. I was humbled time and again. you think it's perfect, then hear something somewhere and you realize there is more to do to find that same thing. so you have to be open minded yet also enjoy the music along the way.

since 2015 i've been fully satisfied and not feeling that the room was not doing everything i expected it to. but that was 11 years into it.

What are your room dimensions?

my room is cocooned in 4" x 6" studs on 12" centers, then 2 layers of 5/8th sheetrock screwed and glued......on all walls and ceiling. then the whole room is finished inside that. no painted surfaces, it's all 3/4" finish grade plywood and solid cabinetry......including the ceiling. the finish dimensions are 21' x 29' x 11'. as my room is an oval those are the maximum distances. it narrows at both ends. the height of the drop ceiling is 9'6". the floor is 6" of concrete; in the front third is wood veneer glued to the concrete, the rear 2/3rds is carpet.

even my ceiling is 3/4" finish grade plywood, including all the drops. heavily screwed together. so it's very solid. and i think all the wood surfaces in the room contribute to it's natural sonic character.

this pic shows huge floor to ceiling bass traps in the front corners i eliminated in 2010 which is when i added the Quietrock to the speaker end.

If you could do it again, would you tweak those dimensions?

no.

i would build it the same size. but i'm now retired. not sure i could afford it. it's daunting to think about what it would cost today to build it at that level of finish. and maybe i only have one ultimate room effort in me for my lifetime. and i've done that. more likely i would look for a nice existing space and try and optimize it according to my feel. but if you can do this, for sure it's the ultimate.

the only thing i would do different has to do with record storage. and if i could have made my hallway along the right side of the room wider and put 29 feet of floor to ceiling Lp storage that would have made my life easier as i own 12,000 records now and have had to buy lots of shelving. then the room would have been a foot narrower and Chris would have had to figure that part out.

as it is i can store 2800 Lp's and 3000 CD's on the built in shelves inside the rear of the room. but that is not enough.

Best regards,
Jeffrey

you are welcome to fly up here to Seattle and hear it for yourself.

 

[DonH50]

Hi Don,

Thank you, very much, Don!

I’m building a separate building (probably 60’ x 20’ x 12’). I’m thinking a 32.5’ x 20’ x 12’ listening room with the rest of the space to house music, extra gear, vinyl cleaning machines, etc. I’m going to have an HVAC and electrical panel solely for that building. I’m in South Texas, so it will be built on a concrete slab.

Thoughts, ideas, improvements?

Consider sound leakage to and from the outside in determining if you wish to isolate the listening room, and be aware a conventional HVAC with blowers and such can be noisy. The additional cost to add heavy floating walls is probably not huge for new construction so I'd just do it rather than wonder later. I would use a minisplit that puts the noisy part outside the room, and you could build a small attached sub-shed for it for protection and further noise reduction.

I wouldn't bother doing anything with the floor other than flooring (pad and carpet would be my choice). You can easily float the walls and ceiling during construction for isolation (and it is almost impossible to do later). Track lights minimize holes in the walls that can bleed sound, and the usual technique for outlets and in-wall lighting is to seal the back (they make fabric or composite covers for the backs of outlet boxes), pack the boxes with insulation, and caulk (acoustic caulk if you wish but normal caulk is usually OK) the edges around the boxes to minimize sound leakage. A heavy solid exterior door with full weather sealing will help reduce noise through the door and is much cheaper than a purpose-built studio door. Make it wider than usual for those speakers and listening couches, plus just makes it easier to haul gear in and out.

I would specify 200 A or better service just to get larger wiring, and 20-A outlets everywhere. Several of my outlets have the lower AC outlet tied to a switch near the door so I can scatter a floor lamp or two around rather than putting lights in the ceiling or on the walls (fewer holes, fewer things to rattle).

You could consider a secondary room as part of the build that serves as storage for boxes, manuals, spare cables, and all the other "stuff" that accumulates. Most minsplits are dual so you could install a second heat/cooling unit in the storage area independent of the main listening room.

For room treatment, I prefer a fairly "dead"" room, but have somewhat of a studio background so it's my preference. I usually suggest adding absorption or diffusion at first reflection points on the side walls and ceiling, same behind the listening position if the rear wall is fairly close, then living with it a while before going any further. That usually means a couple of side panels, another couple suspended from the ceiling, and maybe two to four behind the listener(s).

FWIWFM - Don

 

[Grateful]

Hello, I also have a dedicated room. It was regretfully designed by Rives. Most of the "acousticians" are really recording studio people. They add way too much damping material to the room.

800 Square feet is a nice size room. Once you get the length beyond 28.5 feet the lowest room mode drops below 20Hz. Unfortunately, if you stick with 800 Sq feet then the width would also be 28 feet. If you go a little bigger to 875 square feet, then 35 feet long by 25 feet wide by 14 feet high yields a very nice distribution of room modes.

View attachment 154972

Hi Todd,

Thank you, very much, for your assistance!

Thanks, I can make 35’ x 25’ x 14’ happen! I could build a 50’ x 25’ x 14’ stand alone structure. Should I slope the interior ceiling as Mike mentioned?

Best regards,
Jeffrey

 

[Grateful]

This place is freakin’ incredible! I have definitely found a new virtual home!

 

[Young Skywalker]

Hi,

Thank you, very much, for your assistance!

I definitely hear ya about Rives.

Thanks, I can make 35’ x 25’ x 14’ happen! I could build a 50’ x 25’ x 14’ stand alone structure. Should I slope the interior ceiling as Mike mentioned?

Best regards,
Jeffrey

While non-parallel surfaces (wall-to-floor; side wall-to-side wall; front wall-to-back wall) is a good idea from a reflectivity perspective, I do wonder if this doesn't create a seemingly infinite number of closely-spaced primary room modes. Maybe this creates a more uniform frequency response as a result?

One school of thought is that shoebox-shaped (rectangular) rooms have a more predictable influence on the sound one hears and thus, placement of speakers and listening position and any low-frequency room treatments can be better tailored.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Most of the "acousticians" are really recording studio people. They add way too much damping material to the room.

+1

35 feet long by 25 feet wide by 14 feet high yields a very nice distribution of room modes.

If I were building a room from scratch these would be my target dimensions! If only Tinka would've let me move our kitchen into the living room, then I could've had five more feet of listening room width. If she had let me get rid of our pool I could've had 10 more feet of listening room length.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Should I slope the interior ceiling as Mike mentioned?

Best regards,
Jeffrey

Jeffrey,

my comments about the ceiling were not about a slope, although that can work. it's just about having something not just flat and bare. take a look at the link at the bottom of my post, and observe the shape of my ceiling. a flat painted sheetrock ceiling will have a severe influence negatively on the sound. especially in a large room at high energy with speakers moving lots of air.

some driver types do reduce that issue.

there are many ways to deal with the ceiling. you just have to realize all the reflective surface that is there and have a plan. and since you have a clean sheet of paper you don't have to try and solve a problem after the fact. you can get ahead of it.

 

[Grateful]

hi Jeffrey,

my pleasure. excited for you that you can do a 'clean-sheet' room in a stand alone building. it's a dream opportunity. i truly enjoyed the process. for me it was an existing barn with horses. the home and barn were built in 1999, i bought the property in 2003, then converted the barn in 2004.

Hi Mike,

Thank you, very much, for your incredibly helpful post, advice, and kindness!

yes. but my room was more 'Chris Huston' than Richard 'Rives' Bird'. and in the first 7-8 years i did make some changes. as i mentioned above added the Quietrock. also removed some built in bass trapping. Chris had told me that until i lived with the room i would not know how much of the bass trapping was right. but it's really hard to add built in bass trapping, but easy to remove.

Very true! My current corner bass traps are merely insulation with cloth covering. I could remove them quickly but couldn’t match the pecan glued to concrete floors. Next time, I’ll run the wood floors the full length of the room, so I can easily add or subtract dimensions. Thanks!

in reference to Todd's (@sbnx) comments above regarding Rives's design's being overdamped; my room was very live to begin with. almost zero damping in the original design. but the huge front bass traps were covered in fabric, and i did prefer the room balance after i removed those in 2010. later i added some light surface cloth treatments during the final fine tuning process. so like the bass traps, there is a tuning process and hitting the exact room balance right out of the box for a room aspiring to 'do it all' is not real world. it takes work and investigation. what is important is that the bones are legit.

honestly no. I don’t know who is doing the best room design now.

if i were faced with the same opportunity again; i would have exactly what i have now. the room feels right. you can walk around the room with the music playing and it's great and balanced everywhere. it did take me until 2015 to really figure it out and dial it all the way in. i had to learn and grow before that could happen. it was a process for me. don't expect any room to be mature out of the box, or expect that there will not be a learning curve. embrace the process.

Exactly, my main focus now is creating the best skeleton possible! I’m fully expecting many gens of internal tweaking which is relatively easy, inexpensive, and something I can do. It’ll be an awesome, interesting, and highly beneficial learning opportunity.

At certain points I would think it was perfect then later realize I had work to do. I had lots of helpful feedback along the way. From people smarter than me. I was humbled time and again. you think it's perfect, then hear something somewhere and you realize there is more to do to find that same thing. so you have to be open minded yet also enjoy the music along the way.

Tru dat! It’s so easy to slip into focusing on your room, gear, and recordings while completely forgetting our singular purpose… enjoying the music! I’m going to need some serious manhole covers to keep me from falling down those rabbit holes again and again!

since 2015 i've been fully satisfied and not feeling that the room was not doing everything i expected it to. but that was 11 years into it.

Congratulations, Mike, a decade and counting of pure bliss!

my room is cocooned in 4" x 6" studs on 12" centers, then 2 layers of 5/8th sheetrock screwed and glued......on all walls and ceiling. then the whole room is finished inside that. no painted surfaces, it's all 3/4" finish grade plywood and solid cabinetry......including the ceiling. the finish dimensions are 21' x 29' x 11'. as my room is an oval those are the maximum distances. it narrows at both ends. the height of the drop ceiling is 9'6". the floor is 6" of concrete; in the front third is wood veneer glued to the concrete, the rear 2/3rds is carpet.

even my ceiling is 3/4" finish grade plywood, including all the drops. heavily screwed together. so it's very solid. and i think all the wood surfaces in the room contribute to it's natural sonic character.

this pic shows huge floor to ceiling bass traps in the front corners i eliminated in 2010 which is when i added the Quietrock to the speaker end.


View attachment 154977

no.

i would build it the same size. but i'm now retired. not sure i could afford it. it's daunting to think about what it would cost today to build it at that level of finish. and maybe i only have one ultimate room effort in me for my lifetime. and i've done that. more likely i would look for a nice existing space and try and optimize it according to my feel. but if you can do this, for sure it's the ultimate.

That’s absolutely awesome! I’m also retired and doubt I can afford your incredible level of wood and cabinetry finishing. Nevertheless, I’ll give it my best and try to get fairly close.

the only thing i would do different has to do with record storage. and if i could have made my hallway along the right side of the room wider and put 29 feet of floor to ceiling Lp storage that would have made my life easier as i own 12,000 records now and have had to buy lots of shelving. then the room would have been a foot narrower and Chris would have had to figure that part out.

as it is i can store 2800 Lp's and 3000 CD's on the built in shelves inside the rear of the room. but that is not enough.

Again, congratulations Mike! A 12k vinyl collection would cost a small fortune at today’s prices. I’m extremely happy for you!

you are welcome to fly up here to Seattle and hear it for yourself.

Thank you, very much, Mike, for your extremely kind and generous offer! As always, it’ll take me a while to get my act together but I would love to fly up and make it happen!

Much thanks,
Jeffrey

 

[Mike Lavigne]

+1


If I were building a room from scratch these would be my target dimensions! If only Tinka would've let me move our kitchen into the living room, then I could've had five more feet of listening room width. If she had let me get rid of our pool I could've had 10 more feet of listening room length.

35' x 25' does great things, but finding intimacy in a room that big and being able to give the bass some leverage will be a challenge. so make sure you are willing to pony up to measure up to the challenge. many speakers will sound lost. most speakers are designed to have some room reinforcement.

those really nice mid powered tube amps will run out of steam unless you have 110db efficient speakers.