Finally, I'll be able to have my listening room

Dear friends,

After many years of "audiophile exile", I'll be able to have a dedicated listening room!

We won't be moving to our new apartment until April approx., but as you can imagine, I'm very excited about it. Even though there's still plenty of time, I have lots of questions and I wonder if you all can lend a hand

The apartment is our nephew's (we are going to rent it), but he doesn't mind if I tear down a wall (a la Pink Floyd ) to join two small bedrooms into a bigger one and fill the walls with acoustic treatment.
Good thing is my wife can suggest, but cannot forbid It's MY kingdom

The measurements of the room will be roughly 4.35m (14.27 feet) L x 3.50m (11.48 feet) W x 2.50m (8.2 feet) H
I know it's not a very big room, but do you think it will be enough to enjoy music? As I said, I'll use acoustic treatment, but I guess it'll take me a while to adjust my system to the new room.

Where do I have to place my system? Between the speakers?, on one side of the room?
Do I use diffusers or absorbers? (or both?)

Too many questions, I know.

Thanks for reading

 

Congratulations
You will have just as much fun setting up the room as listening to the final results. I know I did.
And yes your room is big enough to enjoy as a music room. I know as it's the same size as mine

 

Mine's even smaller than that and works great. I'd love to even have a few more feet to play with.

Some observations/experiences:

I've had my "system" placed so many ways, lol. On a rack between the speakers, half out of the room and half in (source/DAC out of the room, pre/Amp in the room), now I have the amp and pre between the speakers on a wall shelf made of walnut plywood, my Dac is in the back corner of the room and my source, a PC, is out of the room.

I've had my speakers on the short wall (firing length-wise) and on the long wall - I prefer the firing from the long wall by a great margin.

Don't treat anything until you've had a lot of time to acclimate to the space.

There's no such thing as a perfect room or a perfect plan for speaker placement. Play with everything - distance from front and side walls (and these do not, and may not be equal on both sides, maybe if your room is perfectly symmetrical and very well-sealed). I used the Sumiko method for placement, it's raised my experience to a level I didn't think possible in my small room.

Everything else I've learned is pretty specific to my situation, so I'll stop there. Good luck and most of all, have fun!

 

Congrats, that will be fun to set up.

 

Congrats you'll have to post some pics when it's all set up. There's nothing like having a little sanctuary to escape to!

 

Sources of advice:

http://gikacoustics.co.uk/

http://realtraps.com/

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=73.0

http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/monitoring.htm

http://getbettersound.com/index.php

For specific construction ideas I suggest posting something on the Acoustic Circle site.

You can certainly get good sound from your room. Mine is 420cm x 386cm x 240cm and I like to think I get good sound. I use GIK products, mostly bass traps, and have the rack on the side. This did make an improvement from between the speakers and allows for room treatment on the front wall. I tried 'The Thirds' as described in the Barry Diament pages but ended up with, more or less, 'The Fifths'. I used Room EQ Wizard (REW) to measure and use an equaliser (Behringer DEQ2496) to make final adjustments.

Also check out Barry Diament's Vibration Control page:

http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/vibration.htm

I use Symposium products.

 

Thanks everybody for your replies.
I've always been reluctant to post pictures of my room because it's horrible, but I'll certainly post pictures when we move there. In fact, I'm looking forward to it!

 

Excited for you!

 

I moved from a 1 to a 2 bedroom apartment last May so that I could have a dedicated room, something I always wanted. The room is similar in size to the one you will be getting at 14' x 11' x 8'.
The acoustics are terrible and the room has no windows and is too hot year 'round but it sure is nice to have a dedicated room. I can place the speakers far from the walls without worrying about guests walking into them.
I've been planning on some sort of acoustic treatments because I need to do something but because it is an apartment I am fairly limited in what I can attach to the walls and ceiling.

You are going to love having a dedicated room. Enjoy.

 

Thanks for the links

 

We'll be moving out in a few weeks and I was able to have a look at my future listening room again. The thing is, I've noticed a few things I hadn't when I first went to the apartment.

The resulting room won't be regular-shaped and I'm not sure if that will be a problem.

Do you think it's worth it to join the two rooms together despite the irregular shape? Maybe I could place my system on that space (upper left hand corner)?

I apologise for the bad quality of my drawing.



http://subefotos.com/ver/?6f3a042a25fe0bcccf19af6c0760bb09o.jpg

 

Doors, Windows?

 

Sorry. You're right. It was a quick outline to show the basic shape of the room. I'll do a more detailed one, but basically there are two doors on the bottom and two windows on the top of the outline.

 

th

THE best part of it by far !!!!!!!!

 

I'd put the equipment in the recessed area if you have enough access to electrical outlets there.
My room is similar shape/ dimensions. I have the speakers on the short wall/ bay window.
good luck.
mdr

 

One thing I can suggest is to keep the area between the listening chair(s) and speaker empty. You'd be amazed how much a "coffee" table can mess up the sonic image. If you need a table put it next to your listening chair, not in front of it.

 

look at all the educational GIK video to get a grasp and open a thread in the gearslutz room treatment section and state you want to create a listening room.

1- You will have to find the best listening position (start at the 38% rule from the lenght of the room).

2- make sure you understand room modes, standing waves, ect. Before doing anything, be sure you really understand what needs to be attacked to create the best listening environment.

3-place at your listening position the measuring mic, and find your room modes and see where your speaker are not too affected by the room modes. Speaker placement will make or break a system: id try to be about 8 feet away max from the speakers (if your speaker allow to be closer, id say go for it). I personnlay really suggest listening in the mid-field. You really must determine where your speakers can be placed and not be too affected, response-wise, by room modes. You can have amazing room treatment in your room, but if you place your speaker right in a strong room mode, you will have problem in the LF response. if you want to do this the right way, invest in a soundcard and mic and measure using Arta or REW. Measure, measure and measure again until you understand your room modes and where NOT to put your speakers.

4- Install as deep bass traps as you can and create a free reflective zone.

be prepare to be blown away

 

Thanks a lot for your thorough reply . I really appreciate it.

Re: room modes, measuring mic, etc... I don't think I can be very accurate, so I'm thinking of hiring experts to decide on what I need.

 

Thanks. I'm not planning on putting a coffee table. Only music

 

Thanks

 

Here are a few pictures of both rooms (I haven't joined them yet). I'm going to change the floor (probably laminate flooring) and repaint them, of course

First and second picture match the left side of the outline, whereas the third one matches the right side.

 

hi
a acoustician will do the same thing: measure the room. You can all learn to do it very easily. unless you want to hire him to do all the work of room treatment, you can easily do it all by yourself. At gearslutz, there are acousticians that can help you with all your questions, ect. open a thread at gearslutz!
Gik videos are a great way to start. its really not that hard to grasp how to treat your room and fun to do!

https://www.gikacoustics.com/positioning-listening-spot/
https://www.gikacoustics.com/video_bass-traps/
https://www.gikacoustics.com/video-early-first-reflection-points/

 

Thanks for the links. I've contacted someone at gikacoustics about my listening room. I'll post their conclusions here

 

keep us posted. at gearslutz, often people from gikacoustic share advise on gearslutz, they are on the forum.

do you have a soundcard and mic? this is absolutely needed, otherwise your trying to read a book in a dark room.

 

Nope, no mic or soundcard . Well, I have an iMac. I guess there must be a sound card inside (not a good one, I guess)