Help! Need Advice on Listening Room Design

[thelsuman]

My wife and I have recently agreed to finish out our basement, and I'm considering dedicating part of the space to a "listening room" for a two-channel set up. I really want to get this right during the planning and design phase, so that I can dedicate my future time & $$ to building a good system. I've read a little bit about acoustics, ideal room dimensions, and room treatments such as quadratic diffusers (mostly from decware.com)

Is it really worthwhile for me to attempt incorporation of these so-called optimal room dimensions when planning out the basement remodel? What other factors should I consider when planning the design of this room? I should also note that, due to limited area, this listening room must be in close proximity to my furnace/water heater closet- Is this a plan killer?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[bpape]

You can mitigate the issues of being close to the house mechanicals with some good planning and isolation techniques.

Having modes properly distributed across the spectrum is something to shoot for. Avoiding dimensions that are close multiples or identical to each other is important. That said, dont' kill yourself adjusting dimensions and inch or 2 or chopping off 6' of perfectly good space to try to fit a perfect ratio - there aren't any.

All one can do is avoid particularly bad ones. If you happen to be lucky enough to fit into something perfectly, that's great. But, if I can have 2' of extra width and 4' of extra length at the expense of a slightly less than perfect distribution, I'll take it.

Also, regardless of what anyone tries to tell you, there is no set of room ratios and setup positioning that will negate the need for treating the room properly. You absolutely want to look at seating and speaker positioning carefully and get it the best you can first to minimize frequency response issues. However, that will still not do anything in terms of reflections, decay times, dealing with speaker/boundary proximity issues etc.

A couple of other things. Isolation is your friend. It's not so much the sound getting out (but that may be a consideration for you) as it is sound getting IN and messing up your ambient noise floor. Plan way ahead for how you're going to get HVAC into and out of the space without messing up the isolation. That's usually the hardest part.

Lastly, pay very close attention to silly things like door locations. Put it somewhere that allows maximum flexibility in terms of seating and speaker placement as well as not interfering with a treatment plan. In short, don't put it within 2' of a corner and try to keep it in the back half of the room.

If you can post a pic of the space you have to work with and a few dimensions, I'm sure we can work out a lot of the details.

Bryan