Ideal room dimensions. Best ratio is?

My room is 22 feet by 13 feet and we sit and listen the "short way."  I can sit about 8 feet from my speakers which seems ok, and the speakers have a lot of room sideways which I do think helps the imaging.  But it's not as if I designed the space; it is what it is.  Also it's not a "box" -- the rear wall against which we sit includes large openings to other rooms on either side; this helps prevent the build-up of standing waves I think.

Probably best to make it as large as you can.  You can always make it smaller by adding stud walls.

I don't have expertise in this but I suspect making it a shape other than a rectangular box would be good. So the wall you are going to build doesn't have to be square to the others and the ceiling could be other than flat. I don't think constructing a smaller space with stud walls after building the biggest space possible is terribly attractive because damping those stud walls would be a real challenge I guess.

best

David

My living is LxBxH 10x4x2.8 in meters. Sounds wonderful.

But, why not think different: pentagonal?

Really good listening spaces are often irregular, so there may not be any rectangular room that is ideal. I would try and avoid parallel surfaces wherever you can to reduce flutter  echoes and standing waves, and consider the type of wall you use - do you want it to reflect bass back, in which case you run the risk of comb filtering and bass cancellations, or absorb bass in which case you need to know what you are doing.

I wouldn't myself be that bothered about golden ratios,  just a rectangle that seems like a normal size for an average room.  Going with crazy angles wouldn't make me wanting to spend a long time in there.   Just make it the size you would intuitively guess being comfortable with.

Some of the suggestions seems to suggest that your Shahinians may hold a clue: designed to avoid standing waves....

The advantage of a ‘golden ratio’ is minimising problems, making room layout easier - though of course it has nothing to do with other room issues like near reflections etc.

So if I was building a rectangular room I would indeed look to that approach ... however if it was achievable I would be much more interested in a room without flat parallel walls or flat horizontal ceiling , though I’d mant to keep left/right symmetry.  And I’d build it relatively large (relatively because there would be a need to heat it, and for it to feel a bit more homely than a hifi system and a sofa in the middle of a vast hall!

Innocent Bystander posted:

The advantage of a ‘golden ratio’ is minimising problems, making room layout easier - though of course it has nothing to do with other room issues like near reflections etc.

So if I was building a rectangular room I would indeed look to that approach ... however if it was achievable I would be much more interested in a room without flat parallel walls or flat horizontal ceiling , though I’d want to keep left/right symmetry.  One option I would consider is indeed pentagonal, as Ardbeg suggested, And I’d build it relatively large (relatively because there would be a need to heat it, and for it to feel a bit more homely than a hifi system and a sofa in the middle of a vast hall!

I would think a pentagon shaped room, with no  walls in parallel to reduce any standing waves to minimum, and with vaulted ceiling,

doesn't need to be strictly equal length room sides but with a nice decent open floor space of anything from 15 to 50 square meters: to depend upon how powerful the amp and how big the speakers are : )

Regarding that pentagon, you'll be in good company. The Berliner Philharmoniker is pentagon-ish:

Don’t go for a flat roof, they always leak sooner or later!

Not a properly done fibreglass roof! Though I suppose that will eventually, but eventually is likely to be a lot later than a tiked roof is likely to have needed repair!

Michael_B. posted:

Some of the suggestions seems to suggest that your Shahinians may hold a clue: designed to avoid standing waves....

true Mike

Shahinian’s have their own rules as you well know. As others have suggested, listening across the room may well be my best option. As far away from corners as is possible is Shahinian’s advice. 

To another point raised above, I once asked Dick Shahinian himself a few questions about acoustics and the ideal room. He didn’t go as far as pentagons, but he suggested making opposite walls just very slightly less than parallel by ‘drawing forward’ one corner of the room so that the 2 walls it formed the junction for were just a few inches shorter than the walls opposite and the angle in that corner would be 92 degrees or so, rather than perfectly ‘square’. He thought this would be enough to thwart standing waves without really being noticeable. I could do something like this with the fourth wall and/or the ceiling perhaps. 

Innocent Bystander posted:

Not a properly done fibreglass roof! Though I suppose that will eventually, but eventually is likely to be a lot later than a tiked roof is likely to have needed repair!

That was the advice of my Architect this morning IB: To go for fibreglass.

You can certainly make leakproof flat roofs, but that isn't the point. The ceiling shouldn't be square to the floor. A bit of a vault, even just s few degrees, would likely sound much better.

best

David

4x5.5x3 is not that large. Might be worth looking at options for a higher vaulted ceiling.   With nice large Velux windows to help brighten it up.   You don't want to feel your sitting in a converted garage.

Although I’ve never been inside the club myself, maybe triangular like the Village Vanguard. Every recording I’ve heard from there sounds wonderful. 

I like the idea that a golden ratio theory should fit around the dimensions of self.

Size of head. Distance between ears. Ear distance from shoulders. Type of haircut. Ear distance from seat of sofa.  Size of chest. Capacity of lungs. Weight ratio between muscle and fat. Diet. Etc.

Ones golden ratio could be another's space disaster. Golden really is relative to being first. Number one. The winner. The Self. 

TOBYJUG posted:

I like the idea that a golden ratio theory should fit around the dimensions of self.

Size of head. Distance between ears. Ear distance from shoulders. Type of haircut. Ear distance from seat of sofa.  Size of chest. Capacity of lungs. Weight ratio between muscle and fat. Diet. Etc.

Ones golden ratio could be another's space disaster. Golden really is relative to being first. Number one. The winner. The Self. 

Not to distract, but I have this exact picture in my media room ???? - which is 3.8 x 5.0m, speakers across the narrow, low ceiling and floating wooden floor with carpet, sounds nice.

Materials are indeed important too. A profi told me years ago that good sounding concerthalls often use different materials. He gave as an example that churches being build from only stone are usually overaccoustic, but when there is a mix of stone / stucwerk and wood, the accoustics often get right. He also said that there are no hard rules in this and he gave some examples of buildings entirely build of stone which were sounding dead.

Fwiw, my living - which is sounding very nice - has a oak suspended floor, stucwerk on the walls and ceiling.