Dedicated room for DBL's

Sounds like a great plan.

Best not to sit against the back wall. You could get a boom effect.

ELKMAN70

good point, I'm sitting against the wall here out of necessity 

the bass on the DBLs is never boomy, it's very crispy in actual fact, never heard any other speaker make drums sound so real 

but your point is correct, if I build it out another 4ft or so at least I've got the choice. Far easier to move a chair than a wall in my experience !

Lyndon

Isn't there a golden ratio for room dimensions.

Here's a  link. It's not commercial so I hope it doesn't breaks forum rules.

http://www.acoustics.salford.a...izing/?content=index

Thanks Sheffield Grayham

i always look forward to a bit of RH Bolts & Gliffords theorum on a Friday night especially after beers and currently half a bottle of Chianti               A 2009 ( in case that affects how high the ceiling should be)

so using Bolts and assuming the 1.4 is the room width, then I have a ceiling height of 13ft and a depth of 24ft, this still does address the earlier point raised by ELKMAN70 i.e. Do I sit uptight to the rear wall

Thanks for your advice 

Lyndon

+1 for a bit more room behind your head. 3 or 4 feet ideally.

Solid wall construction greatly beneficial- especially the wall behind the DBL's.

Ideally, nothing in between the speakers. No fireplaces and not the system if you can avoid it.

In general it's a good idea for the room to be as symmetrical (in terms of doors, windows, furnishings etc.) as you can practically manage. 

floor construction also important. If you could pour concrete plinths to support the speakers it would be nice. 

Envious. Bon chance!

DBLs are incredibly tolerant of rooms. You want to be semi near field on them. 

And you *must* drive them actively. And get the bass drivers reconed whilst they are apart. 

I think the general consensus is to find speakers that fit the room.

Build a room to fit the speakers?  A novel approach. Good luck with that.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Have recently finished building my own dedicated listening room , there are many things to consider.

Is it to be a house extension or a separate building , I went the separate building. Made it much easier starting with a blank canvas. Also better for sound proofing to stop noise getting in and out.

Size of room , there are preferred sizes but within reason adapt to you requirements. 9 ft or higher ceiling would be good.

There is also a recommended listening position , seem to recall 37% of room length from rear wall. That's a starting point and didn't seem the best in my room.

Do you want to fire down or across the room.

Position of windows and doors , keeping symmetry in mind.

Construction , use special inner blocks to prevent noise transmission.

Insulated concrete floor.

Use acoustic plaster board internally , double thickness for ceiling.

Think about heating and insulation.

Electrics , own supply , 10mm cables , position of sockets.

Position of equipment and record/cd storage.

Will you want to use acoustic panels for room treatment . Allow for this when position windows/ doors / equipment.

Planning permission.

All things to think about , and probably others ive forgot.

Keep it as domestic and as usual within most house set ups. Most gear has been designed to sound best within such.

Try getting mathematical with lengths, widths and aspects would probably get too complicated unless you have an acoustic installation team behind you with recourse to exactly the gear your using.

dont have DBLs, but the question begs common sense.

Build large, you can easily make it smaller.

Must admit i'd love to have a go at building a perfect music room:

First design/build the music room, then design/build the rest of the house around it  

Debs

The house will already be there, I will buy one that has enough space around it to build the right sized extension as the Hi-Fi room 

this will be my last UK house so I'd like to get it right as once you leave London there's no coming back 

lyndon

lyndon posted:

The house will already be there, I will buy one that has enough space around it to build the right sized extension as the Hi-Fi room 

this will be my last UK house so I'd like to get it right as once you leave London there's no coming back 

lyndon

 

Buy a house in South Yorkshire. You could buy a helicopter with the residual and commute. 

the specs of the IEC listening room definition are a very good place to start in terms of dimensions, ratios of width/height/depth, reverb times at various frequencies, and noise floor maximum. 

I'd tell you what they were, but thats against the law. And the spec costs 130 quid. For a 10 page PDF of a photocopy of a 30-something year old specification. You can complain to your MP if you like....  sigh...

Thanks for that Jon

not sure, if my MP would be overly concerned to be honest so I won't bother him.

Likewise I'll keep the 130 quid and just go for an ideal target of 18 x 20 x 9-10

i may have to adapt this depending on availability 

this wont be for a year or two but best I have my ducks in a line now so to speak 

although I would like to think I've thought of everything before I undertake this, experience tells me that's rarely the case and I'm sure others on this forum may well mention something that I've completely overlooked 

lyndon

Lyndon,

You could try the BBC program:

We could all watch as you progress to find your perfect property...

Must have a lounge at least 18' x 20'

Detached residence and out of range of any noise abatement society neighbours.

Walls made of brick or stone, and this to include the internal walls too.

A concrete foundation.

Not too far away from an electric substation.

<>

Happy house hunting : )

Debs

In a room with parallel facing sides the seating position around 37% of the width (or it may be length, though it is often suggested that 'firing' across a rectangular room is best) is one I have seen recommended, and in my problem room I found that about 40% of the width gives the most neutral sound. For a distance of 15ft from the speakers that starts to be a big room, especially if firing across rather than down the room. In general, room effects reduce as it starts to become very large, with reduced early reflections from side walls as well, and if possible a higher ceiling than the standard 8ft for the same reason. (Of course, heating costs increase, and 'cosiness' decreases at the same time...) The very best I have heard my speakers (actually the ones I had before my present ones) was in the garden with hedges behind and to the sides and lawn/veg&flower beds between speakers and listening position, the only hard surface being a patio at the back of the garden, on the front edge of which the speakers were sitting, raised up on crates, and the house wall 100ft or so away in front of them - in effect removing virtually all room effects.

An alternative approach to minimising the adverse acoustic effect of a realistic size room, though challenging to design nicely, would be to avoid parallell surfaces, while keeping left/right symetry. Lack of parallel surfaces includes floor and ceiling, though a sloping ceiling may be preferable to a sloping floor! 

Sounds like a self-build project -and certainly not a typical modern mass-produced house, a high proportion of which seem to go in for ridiculously narrow lounges.

Without proclaiming to be an expert on room acoustics i would have though the ideal room shape for most audio loudspeakers would be almost retain the typical and practical oblong room but turn it into an irregular pentagon shape [ or perhaps a variation of this theme with any number of walls from at least 4 ] that do not have any parallel opposites.

A sense of ideal would be to retain an almost oblong shape with one deliberate longer side for the intended speaker position wall, and other sides to simply offset any chance of parallel opposition.

Debs

Curiously, a pentagon had occurred to me as well! However and I don't know whic way round would sound best - listening position with back towards the apex as you suggest, or back towards the wall opposite the apex, which could sound very different, of course depending on how far from the wall/corners the speakers are placed (and indeed on the speakers themselves -the OP was for DBLs, which I believe like backs to the wall, in which case possible listening position facing the apex might be best. Other speakers my be different.) Add maybe a ceiling with a central apex, which would reduce early reflections from the ceiling as well as the standing waves, and I think it could be a nice looking room as well, subject to windows.

IB, Debs,

(Perhaps) Interestingly, I once asked a similar question of Dick Shahinian, designer of my favoured speakers, when I thought I had an opportunity to build a bespoke room. That room sadly never transpired, but Dick's sage advice was along similar lines to your above idea, albeit a little less extreme.

He suggested building an almost normal rectangular room, but 'pulling forward' one of the corners slightly (perhaps only 4 inches or so)  into the room such that the angles at the 4 corners would be something akin to 94degrees, 88degrees, 90degrees, 88degrees.

He said he had seen it done and it was enough of an angle to eliminate any standing waves yet was visually subtle enough for it not to be obvious to the dweller that anything was abnormal with the room. He also reckoned that it could be achieved by an artful paneler/plasterer, rather than require a special build. 

Just a thought. 

(BTW, my tips earlier in this thread also owe much to Dick's advice at that time)