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Building a dedicated listening room

I asking for advice/help with building a dedicated listening room.  Please chime in if you have built such a room, have any experience listening to music in a dedicated room, or just your thoughts on the matter.  
 

My wife and I are just in the planning stages of our new home.  Our new home will have a dedicated listening room to accommodate my audio hobby. For me it is a dream come true and a chance to address maybe the most important component of my system…the room.  The dimension are based the Golden Ratio, 11’h x 17.5’w x 28’l.   I have spent many hours researching building methods and I have had the luxury of listening to music in a few dedicated rooms.  Some of these rooms cost well over 100 grand.  I am sorry to say they sounded dull and two of the owners agree.  Yes, these rooms were very quiet and the imaging was stable but the sound lacked rhythm and drive almost as if the music had been sucked out of the music.  I did read and watch the videos about Robert Harley’s experience building his room using the ASC ISO Wall method but I am not sure if this is the best method to achieving a good sounding room.  This is an important discussion because once the room is built and if I am disappointed with the sound it will be expensive to fix.

 

randypeck

Showing 1 response by rick_n

rick_n's avatar
rick_n
121 posts
 

Congratulations on you're new project & I'm sure everyone here is jealous that you are starting with a blank slate.  I'm not sure how deep a dive you want to make on the room but here are a couple of thoughts.  

Number one would be to make sure that you don't wind up with a floating floor in the construction plans.  This will cause all kinds of reverb problems that are hard to compensate.  Something solid below or a lower floor is preferable.  I would put down a hard wood floor and then cover with area rugs to taste to optimize SQ.  This gives you flexibility and you will be able to make adjustments as different sounding equipment inevitably comes and goes.

Take care where the room's windows and doors will be located.

Have the electrician put all of the room's wall outlets on their own dedicated circuit.  15amp should be fine.

Find a Vicaoustic dealer and have them do an acoustic room rendering for acoustic paneling.  They will computer model the optimal absorption/reflection that will make the room sound as well as possible.  I did this and it's the best audio money I've ever spent.  Good luck and cheers.

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