Audio Room Size ???


My girlfriend and I are going to be building a new home. She has carte blanc to decorate as she wishes from the main floor up. I have carte blanc for the basement which is where I will build my audio/HT room. As for width of the room I have a choice of 12'6" and no teleposts in the room or 14'8" which will put two teleposts two feet into the room on one side. I would dress them up so they wouldn't resonate or reflect too much. As to length, I can go to a maximum of around 21 or 22 feet. My question is should I build narrow and keep the teleposts out of the room or wide and not worry too much about the teleposts? Would either of these width/length combinations give bad room ratios for sound? Thanks for any help.

Tom.
cosmic_void

Showing 1 response by uppermidfi

You have many options for skipping the posts, but the basic room sizes are pretty much set for you. The posts won't really make much difference.

One thing that stood out in my mind was the 14"-8" x 21' option. You want to stay away from room sizes that are multiples of any given number. Seven is a common denominator for the dimensions you listed. You did not list a ceiling hieght so I assume you are going with an eight foot ceiling. Which is fine.

Given the options you listed I would suggest 12'-6" x 22'. I know that it is hard to get it into your mind that you will be building a smaller room, but it should sound better than the other combination of dimensions.

If you would like more info, check out Robert Harley's book "The Complete Guide to High-end Audio" or visit http://www.rivesaudio.com both of them have some very handy info for determining room size and sound quality. You should have Robert Harley's book anyway, just for the helpful info in it.