Listening Room Design

Hi Kurt,

Try my conversions page for starters and let me know if you have more queries.

M.

"Height =1, width =1.6, length =2.3" - "This combination eliminates standing wave problems"

Unfortunately not in my case (18 x 7.8 x 12.4).

Eeek

Bosh - are you saying you have major problems with your room. I'm slightly alarmed because I'm planning a similar sized room as part of an extension and was working on 1:1.6:2.33 as having fewer inherent problems (5.825*4*2.5M).

Regards
Steve

If you really want an insight into what happens when you make noise in a room, and how the resultant soundfield behaves, possibly the most concise website for hifi purposes isArt Ludwig's, especially the room acoustics page. Well recommended - take the time to digest the contents.

'Magical proportions' do not dispense with standing wave problems - they merely help spread them about in the least intrusive manner! Rooms are simply cavities which will have resonances; the art is in minimising the interference which results. It's more a matter of fitting, furnishing and speaker positioning choices than a structural issue.

M.

"Are you saying you have major problems with your room"

YES!!

The point I would make from experience is that contruction makes a massive contribution. The listening room in my old place was same length, height and 6" wider ( as near as damn it the "ideal ratio" too) but sounded fine. Walls were thermal blocks all round as opposed to dot and dabbed plaster board on three walls and stud on one at the new place.

Thanks Martin and Bosh

Fortunately I wasn't expecting miracles from special dimensions, just wanted to get the best start I could. I'm planning to make it solid with plaster rendered the old fashioned way and a totally clear long wall for speaker placement. Would also like a toilet and fridge to either side of the listening position al la Fosters ad but may have to compromise for WAF reasons.

Cheers
Steve

Kurt,

take a look at www.cara.de.
Their software can simulate the acoustics of a room. In addition to various graphs and technical numbers, you can also feed in a track from a CD and hear how it will be upset by the room, in combination with your particular speakers. (You must listen on headphones for this). It does a pretty good job.

I would suggest you simulate your current room to satisfy yourself that it gives reasonable results, then play around with multiple 'possible' room sizes & designs.

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne at Dial.Pipex.com

quote:

---

This apparently eliminates standing waves.

---

No it doesn't. Making a room non - rectangular doesn't free it from standing waves. Standing waves are just resonances and you can make the air in containers of any shape resonate. Who hasn't made an empty glass Coke bottle whistle by blowing across the mouth of it? That's a resonance (185 Hz as I recall) yet the bottle has no parallel surfaces. You might want to look at chapter 13 of F. A. Everest's Master Handbook of Acoustics in which he discusses splaying walls. He states "splaying one or two walls of a sound - sensitive room does not eliminate modal problems'" and "making the sound field asymmetrical by splaying walls only introduces unpredictability in listening room and studio situations". He does note that "flutter echoes definitely can be controlled by canting one of two opposing walls."

I'm willing to admit that acoutsics is a fairly well understood science. But, I also get this sneaking suspicion that following the textbook on designing a listening room will lead to the most horrible sounding room anybody could ever concieve of.

Here's what i would do. Think back to whatever room you last remember your system sounding the best in (ah, my apartment, 1st year of law school), and duplicate it.

judd

would a raked ceiling help in any way?
Pete

Do you have to burn in a room as is nessessary with cables? If so is a scorching sufficiant or is only a full gutting the only way?
ps only joking.

You don't need to burn them in but you have to remember that rooms are directional. Getting this wrong can lead to unpredictable results.