Door or opening for better room acoustics

[hooraysimpsons]

Hello all,
I am going to start looking at houses soon. I plan on upgrading my HT setup upon purchasing the house. The HT will probably be in the living room considering my house budget; therefore, I need the living room to have the best acoustics possible. A lot of living rooms open up to the rest of the house through entranceways that do not have doors. How will this affect the room acoustics.

Is it a lot more prefereable to have a door to close in order to maintain room acoustics?

What can be done to balance out the affects of a door or entranceway on one side of the room but not the other.

I plan on doing some kind of DIY treatments.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hello all,
I am going to start looking at houses soon. I plan on upgrading my HT setup upon purchasing the house. The HT will probably be in the living room considering my house budget; therefore, I need the living room to have the best acoustics possible. A lot of living rooms open up to the rest of the house through entranceways that do not have doors. How will this affect the room acoustics.

Is it a lot more prefereable to have a door to close in order to maintain room acoustics?

What can be done to balance out the affects of a door or entranceway on one side of the room but not the other.

I plan on doing some kind of DIY treatments.

Openings cause bass leakage, as a rule, and they are best avoided. The other problem is that the bass is heard all over the house. Result:- calls to turn it down.

 

[trnqk7]

Unless you are building a custom house however, you are going to almost certainly be stuck with an open floor plan type home where, at least on the main floor, the kitchen, living room, and entry way all flow together with openings into each. Almost unavoidable. I'm no good with room treatments-but instead of just telling him it's bad, lets be a little more constructive and tell him how to make the best of a bad situation. Thought's on ways to minimize the effects of open rooms?

My only suggestion, and not a good one most likely is to get a "size up" on your sub than you would normally go with if you have a big open room in order to fill it with bass (if that's even what you like to do-some people don't care for that much bass).

 

[Exit]

The bass (subwoofer) frequencies go through all the areas that open to the HT room instead of bouncing around in a rectangular room. Therefore the bass waves don't tend to reinforce each other and you loose bass volume. In a really open room it is closer to having a subwoofer outdoors radiating into free space. Therefore you may need a larger high output subwoofer (or two) to get desired bass volume in the seating position. One way to get bass volume is to put the subwoofer close to the seating position. I don't like the way that sounds, but you might. The other option is the bigger high output subwoofer which I choose because I like the subwoofer bass coming from the same wall as the mains and center.

to get advice from subwoofer companies, you need to calculate the total volume of the HT room and all the spaces that open into it. I also have a floor plan sketch which I faxed to them. Corner placement of the subwoofer also increases subwoofer output. With a good sketch a subwoofer company should be able to advise you on sub placement, which of their subs would be a good fit to your room, and the sound pressure level (SPL)(dB) you can expect at the seating position. I got advice from SVS but I think HSU and maybe some others provide this free service.

 

[Djizasse]

I don't know if you're willing to do it, or even if you thought about it, but you could consider putting some heavy curtains to "close" the room when you want.
Another option is to install a sliding door. A friend of mine installed one that slided into the wall (he didn't have any cable going through that area of the wall). It worked out perfectly.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hello all,
I am going to start looking at houses soon. I plan on upgrading my HT setup upon purchasing the house. The HT will probably be in the living room considering my house budget; therefore, I need the living room to have the best acoustics possible. A lot of living rooms open up to the rest of the house through entranceways that do not have doors. How will this affect the room acoustics.

Is it a lot more prefereable to have a door to close in order to maintain room acoustics?

What can be done to balance out the affects of a door or entranceway on one side of the room but not the other.

I plan on doing some kind of DIY treatments.

Do homes where you live, generally have basements?

 

[Exit]

Part 2

It is preferable to close doors open to the HT room and connecting rooms, to improve bass response. To balance out the effect of a door on one side and not the other, you are more doing this for the midrange and upper frequencies. I think you could install acoustic absorbers opposite the door/entranceway to get a more balanced sound at the seating position but I leave this recommendation up to the acoustic’s guys for a definitive answer.(Room acoustic treatments can be extensive if you go the whole route, but it is said that this is the best audio expense you can make. A lot of people have done acoustic treatments DIV and will chime in when you get ready.

 

[bpape]

The other advantage of a door is that you keep noises OUT of the HT to get the noise floor down lower for better perceived dynamic range. Things like dishwashers, dryers, etc. are best not heard.

Bryan

 

[hooraysimpsons]

I have told the realtor to keep on eye out for homes with basements but she said they are not very common in the area.

I will definetly look into solutions for closing the opening (heavy curtains or a sliding door) but these will be dependent on the specific house and I have not yet started the search process. I just wanted to get a general idea of 'how' bad it will be so I know when I am looking whether it is an immediate no no or just something that needs to be worked on.

I was already planning on doing two subwoofers after reading articles on the website. Hopefully, this will help.

 

[westcott]

It is preferable to close doors open to the HT room and connecting rooms, to improve bass response. To balance out the effect of a door on one side and not the other, you are more doing this for the midrange and upper frequencies. I think you could install acoustic absorbers opposite the door/entranceway to get a more balanced sound at the seating position but I leave this recommendation up to the acoustic’s guys for a definitive answer.(Room acoustic treatments can be extensive if you go the whole route, but it is said that this is the best audio expense you can make. A lot of people have done acoustic treatments DIV and will chime in when you get ready.

I totally disagree. Bass reinforcement is rarely needed in this day and age of high output amps and subwoofers. All enclosed spaces do is muddy the sound by adding secondary and tertiary reflections. Open floor plans avoid this and openings to a room act as acoustic panels, diverting sound. Asymtrical use of acoustic panels has long been a standard practice.

Larger, open rooms sound much better than enclosed ones.