Dedicated HT in a square room?

J

jake51s

Junior Audioholic
I am looking at eventually setting up a dedicated HT in my home, and have two places where it may go. I think I am going to have issues no matter where it ends up, but the room I am leaning towards is square 20x20x9.

I read on the setup guides here that a sqaure room is the most difficult to configure, but is it impossible? Would it mainly be acoustical treatments I would need to worry about, and where would be some suggested placements? Since the issue seems to be with standing waves would dual subwoofers help, or would it just increase the problem?

Any feedback is appreciated. Before I talk my wife into this I want to make sure it is something that could be done. :eek:
 
Ethan Winer

Ethan Winer

Full Audioholic
Jake,

> the room I am leaning towards is square 20x20x9 ... I read on the setup guides here that a sqaure room is the most difficult to configure, but is it impossible? <

No, it's not impossible at all. And 20 by 20 is infinitely better than 10 by 10.

> Would it mainly be acoustical treatments I would need to worry about, and where would be some suggested placements? <

Exactly. What you need is bass traps in as many corners as you can manage. Note that even perfectly proportioned rooms need as much bass trapping as possible too.

> Since the issue seems to be with standing waves would dual subwoofers help, or would it just increase the problem? <

Two subs will help the low frequency response somewhat, but that won't do anything to reduce modal ringing which is at least as big a problem.

--Ethan
 
J

jake51s

Junior Audioholic
Thank you for the quick reply!

Ethan Winer said:
Two subs will help the low frequency response somewhat, but that won't do anything to reduce modal ringing which is at least as big a problem.
So is modal ringing something I need to be concerned about? How can that be eliminated or reduced?
 
B

bpape

Audioholic Chief
Modes and modal (and non-modal) ringing occur in EVERY room - not just square ones. And yes, you should worry about them.

In reality, a square room is not ideal. There are some people who think they would prefer a square room. As the logic goes, in a square room, all the modal issues are together and should in theory be easier to treat. Unfortunately that's poor logic.

Having a rectangular space allows the modes not only to be spread out, but in doing so, reduces the intensity instead of having spots where you have literally double the intensity of peak or null.

Now that the theory is over, you still have a square room. As Ethan said, 20x20 is better than 10x10 and you can certainly get some good sound. You'll need to do the same things that everyone else does.
- control the bottom end
- control early reflections
- treat appropriately to bring the room into an EVEN decay time targeted based on volume and usage

What you will need to do over and above is:
- be even MORE concerned about seating locations as there will be a few places that WILL have overlapping modal issues
- potentially think about some targeted (tuned) treatments for more stubborn issues
- almost definitely plan for parametric EQ on the subwoofer.

Welcome to the madness....

Bryan
 

Buckle-meister

Audioholic Field Marshall
jake51s said:
I read on the setup guides here that a sqaure room is the most difficult to configure, but is it impossible?
Ethan has already noted that a square room is not impossible. Difficult perhaps, but not impossible. I'd just like to add that my room is square (approximately 14'x14') and I enjoy fabulous sound since treating it, so take heart. :)

I also think it's worth mentioning that even before treating the room's corners with bass traps as Ethan mentioned and the early reflection positions as Bpape mentioned, the position of the speakers and listening position in relation to the room's walls is of fundamental importance. This alone can make an enormous difference to the quality of sound you hear.
 
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