Building a room from scratch

[Speed]

There are some suggested layouts for listening rooms on the Cardas Audio website that may be helpful.
http://www.cardas.com/content.php?ar...oom+Dimensions

[Paul W]

Floyd Toole: Sound Reproduction, Loudspeakers and Rooms

Loaded with practical information. Amazon allows you to preview sections on-line.

[marekst]

The size depends on speakers you build the room for. I have 3500 cubic feet room for my Lowther horns and 1W of power. "Bigger" speakers like bigger rooms - I would double the size of the room for big 3-way speakers. The shape is important (I have "trapagon"), but you still need a lot of absorption and diffusion. The Master Handbook of Acoustics by F.A. Everest is a good book.

Marek

[marekst]

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[Thawach]

like diffusers, u can build and use it on ceiling. it can use some foam to build. mmh....don't forget about the length of room is enough for low frequency.

[Brett]

Wow, great room Marek.

Bet you must be cheezed off that you could have had excellent performance by merely applying some tape to the corners in a magic pattern.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showt...07#post1833507

[Ron E]

Originally posted by Speed
[B]There are some suggested layouts for listening rooms on the Cardas Audio website that may be helpful.

http://www.stereophile.com/finetunes/171
Do you really want to believe in anything said by a person who sells cables and doesn't cite references?

Originally posted by planet10
The AES did a lot of work and, for a rectangular room, the golden ratio was choosen.

In a presentation i attended at an AES convention the fellow suggested that sloping the roof in 2 axis...

http://www.stereophile.com/finetunes/171/index2.html

from link above
AES has, at this time, only one standards publication showing a listening room. AES20-1996, "AES Recommended Practice for Professional Audio—Subjective Evaluation of Loudspeakers," contains only sets of minimum and maximum distances for the listening arrangement. It does not contain a "standard listening room," and, in fact, the reports of the AES Standards Committee (AESSC) WG-07 Working Group on Listening Tests tend to deprecate such a standard room.

A link to a description of an actual room standard
http://ims-ism.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/asp/list_room_e.html

[Ron E]

Originally posted by Brett
Wow, great room Marek.

The only thing missing is a way in or out

[Ron E]

Originally posted by Professor smith
The problem with my current room is that its not symmetrical so the imaging is not either but more significantly its not of the correct dimensions which means I get horrible harmonics all over the place.

You don't get "harmonics" from bad dimensions.

Post a drawing, maybe someone can find a good speaker/listening position. Note that nearfield works even in very bad rooms.

Originally posted by Professor smith
...I am considering building a room from scratch.
The main question is what size and shape should it be?

There has been a lot of research on this over the years, the most frequently cited authors are Louden, Sepemeyer and Holt. All of these references are quite old and all agree to some extent. This may be because they found a good answer, or it may be because they had reviewed each others' work before publishing and all went down the same path. Note that Art Ludwig (referenced by GM above) did some calculating and found that pretty much all rooms are bad

If I were spending money on a room, I'd do my own research rather than take recommendations from people I didn't know. The Master Handbook of Acoustics is one good reference, I would expect the Toole and Davis references above to also be good.

AS far as my experience goes, the best rooms I have been in have been dead behind and beside the speakers and diffusive behind the listener - as in the LEDE concept - rather than any specific dimension ratio. Nonparallel walls greatly reduce flutter echo, which is a good thing, but don't really change standing waves much - don't let anyone tell you that they do.

[marekst]

"The only thing missing is a way in or out"

LOL…., I don't let anybody in, the sound doesn't drive me out.
The room looks crazy because I did not hide the DIY acoustic treatment, anyway I show the pictures only to the freaks.

Multiple ways out (fire exits) are extremely important.

Marek