A last! My listening room. A good day.

[Pano]

A very good day today. The new listening room is up and running and the even new kitchen is mostly in. Phew! What a lot of work that has been.

The listening room is a converted garage that was a workshop. Kinda rough, but good acoustics. After a lot of work, it a new space. It has:

• New floor
• New carpet
• 4 new walls - 1 of them a decoupled soundproof wall
• All new electric, ethernet, cable, phone and surround sound.
• New lights
• New ductwork and ventilation
• Fresh paint
• Some new furniture

All but the new floor real DIY, (I did not pour the new slab) The rest I did myself.
Of course I ruined the acoustics in the process, except for the much lower noise floor. Will have to start acoustic treatments soon. Bare walls don't sound good.

I may try to start a thread about the acoustics.

[tomchr]

Do you have forced air heat? If so, what do you do to limit the noise from the air moving through the vents?

~Tom

[lowpoke]

You know what they say ... pics or it never happened.

[c2cthomas]

Originally Posted by panomaniac

All but the new floor real DIY, (I did not pour the slab)

Drat! Ya missed a chance to do one of those massive underfloor IB sub's!!!

Annnnnnnnd no pictures means that several of us will need to drop in and confirm this "rumored" listening room too!!!!!

[Pano]

Hey guys, Yes I have pix. Just got to sort thru them.

Forced air heat? Check. No noise because I'm a long way from the furnace. But not enough heat, either. Gotta work on that. I've just added R30 insulation to the attic and that does help.

No underfloor subs, but I did think about it. New concrete slab is only about 4" thick to smooth and level the old floor.

What I do miss are the old acoustics, mostly the cedar single walls. It was really nice, now it sounds like a hollow, empty room.
Mainly I'm just glad the system is up and running again, was beginning to feel like it never would be.

[SY]

Is it all Tiki-themed?

[Pano]

The house is, but not my room - yet.

[kevinkr]

I remember when my wife and I were building what ultimately became my man cave.. Still a work in progress years later, but it is a good room acoustically (quite by accident) and has almost enough room for my stuff..

Congratulations on getting your room up and running..

[Pano]

Thanks Kevin! It was partly your own "Cavern of AliBaba" that inspired me.

I need to get all this documented and start posting. Seems like almost as much work as the room itself.

[kevinkr]

Originally Posted by panomaniac

Thanks Kevin! It was partly your own "Cavern of AliBaba" that inspired me.

I need to get all this documented and start posting. Seems like almost as much work as the room itself.

These days I pretty much take pictures of everything I do of consequence, partly so I know what I've done, and partly as I figure that it might be slightly useful to someone else.. It is work though, but the critical moment you need a detail that can be found only in one of those photos its all worth it..

The cavern is kind of chilly this time of year. Something to do with the wet, sloppy stuff outside. This time next year I should be able to add a couple of thousand btu to warm the room when the GM70 amps are finally running..

In terms of room treatments I've found the LEDE approach to be a good recipe for lifeless sound.. I just try to fix the most obvious flaws and find the listening sweet spot, I got lucky it was all so incredibly convenient.. Since I don't believe in wide dispersion drivers any longer I have had little trouble getting the imaging I want in real rooms despite their flaws.. (Of course there are other trade-offs I am more than happy to live with..) Mike of course knows what I am talking about, I use horns and choose hardware that has deliberately controlled directivity to reduce early reflections and the like.