Room Acoustics

Hi There,

Imagine you have a room that is approx 18ft by 15ft. The room is completely bare…no carpet or flooring, nothing on the walls and is solid brick on three sides and pretty solid studwork at one end. To one end at one side is a large bay window and down the the opposite wall is a staircase, again with no carpets or anything.

What is the ideal acoustic set up, ie wooden floors, carpeted staircase and minimum furniture….or carpet floors plenty of soft furnishing………..well you get the idea.

It's a blank canvass guys to be moulded to your sonic perfection……just how????

Gc

 

Questions:

Ground floor?
Detached?
Concrete floor?
Room above?
Fireplace?
Alcoves?
Describe the room more..
facing each wall in turn..start with the bay window wall..
where is the window? Turn clockwise 1 wall at a time and
describe each wall....

 

Get some carpet down, fill it with books and records, install some ambient lighting and play music. Can't fail to work.

-- Ian

 

There's loads of info about building a listening room/studio walls at http://www.acoustics101.com/

Most of that is concerned about sound insulation, as opposed to maximising quality in-room that sound treament alone will do.

Some good notes on room construction too though.

regards,
Rob.

 

Thats a nice site. I like the offer for free consulting on:

http://www.acoustics101.com/types_of_rooms_gateway.htm#Types Of Rooms

The other questions I didn't think of are:

Is this a family room [TV?] or a bachelor hot-spot?
What sort of speakers?
Does it need high volume or deep bass?

 

Are you talking of doing this with serious acoustic treatment (DIY?), or normal household things?

Regards,

 

Before you do anything, read this book:

"Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F Alton Everest. Published by McGraw Hill, ISBN 0-07-136097-2.

Then you'll some idea of whether any advice you get, from a website, from this forum or from a dealer, is good advice or bullshit...

 

Ok more detail.

walls bare plaster

You open the front door to the lounge and a couple of feet to the left is a bay window. This runs for 5 feet or so and the bay is met at right angle with a wall seperating the neighbour.

This wall runs a further 15 feet and is met at right angle with a wall seperating next door.

On this wall from right to left runs a wooden staircase. (Under the staircase there would be a small open alcove i guess).

The wall runs for 18 feet or so. No widows on this wall. It meets the wall which seperates the kitchen.

In this corner there is a door opening to the kitchen but no door. The wall seperating the kitchen runs for 12 feet and is met at right angles with another wall wich has a small window in.
This wall runs along to the front door.

The floor is a suspended wooden floor but parts have been infilled with concrete ( god knows why)
The space is completely empty. There are no fireplaces ( foolishly removed by previous tennants).

It will be the main living area so will have a couple of sofas, tv , dvd ect coffee table, maybe some shelves.

The tv will be either a plasma or large lcd so it fits flat against a wall.

It was built early 1900 and the exerior wall ( the one with the front door and the one seperating the kitchen and neighbours) are thick solid brick.

Hopefully this can build up a mental picture.

The reason i ask this is because i want to run all cables under the floor so i wont be able to really experiment with different positions too much. I suppose i could run the cables behind the skirting board...anyone tried this method???

Thanks for the advice.

Gc

 

If it's possible, you should try the speaker placement before you bury the cables.