I know the guy who actually started his house construction with basement as a listening room and everything else was built on top of it just as an secondary addition... can you imagine six layers of different sound benefiting materials in the basement floor!? You could say that the guy is crazy, but the think is real.
Building a house
In the design phase and planning on a dedicated listening room. Any advice on its construction, lessons learned?
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Decide where your gear will reside and run in wall speaker wires to other rooms so can have many places to listen and compare not just one. Also have all the walls and floor and ceiling, as applicable, of your main room insulated ( internal too not just external walls) and install solid wood doors not hollow there so you can have some volume at night and not disturb the family. That’s what I did. Provides a lot of flexibility for enjoying your hifi in more rooms and any time of the day |
Maybe a bit more than you need...maybe not. And a bit of a different problem I'm an architect doing larger scale projects, namely Educational. Often the program involves a Music Room....an instructional music class for instruments. Sometimes to listen to recorded music as well, but not always. This is different from a home in that has to put up with a certain level of use that you won't experience. The construction is meant to isolate the space from other adjacent spaces. I have done suspended and isolated floor systems, as much to isolate it from adjacent spaces but also from the resonant nature of the structure. Ceilings also are a special consideration with very specific suspension methods. At the front of all of this are the room proportions |
Room is the most important piece of the audio puzzle. Go out to expert sites like Cardas, Acoustic Fields, and read Jim Smith’s get better sound book. Room dimensions are forever so get them right in the beginning. Pull multiple 20amp dedicated circuits to the areas you will be setting up your equipment (read job m smith’s book on this too). Use wired Ethernet for your audio equipment and make sure you have good access to 5ghz wifi to use your ipad/iPhone to control your music app like Roon or others. |
Had a house built and made an effort to get a first class sound room. Lath & Plaster walls & ceiling. Soundproofing inside the walls and an exterior weight door to minimize disturbing the wife. Dimensions not especially large (is it12'X11X8'?) but I'm a guy who prefers tone quality & soundstaging over bass & deafness. I'm mainly a classical guy. Gorgeous Eucalyptus bare floor sourced from local wood. Double-glazed windows. No acoustic treatment other than a couple thousand LPs. What can I say? I love the sound I'm getting. There's a picture (edcyn's system) in this crazy website's picture ghetto. |
Professional room treatment begins with design. It is almost silly to give advice however because costs escalate so quickly. Just the advice to have plenty of outlets, which seems solid enough, but every hole in the wall is a sound portal you need to handle. It is not just an outlet, and everything is like that. The door is not just a door, it is a sound portal or acoustic surface. Windows? Gosh I hope you don't have windows but if you do- sound portal, acoustic treatment. On and on. It will help to have some kind of budget, and realistic expectations. Also I know everyone says the room is so important, and it is. But never forget the room is really just one more component in a system in which every component matters. And quite honestly, they all matter about the same. Also if the room will be in a house, well then it is just another part of the house. No one even including Jay Leno would put a $5M garage on a $.5M home. Well Leno might. But no one else. And so as always, a sense of proportion will serve you well. |
Great responses already provided.Additionally details on points already covered, because these are very important besides other stuff and people need to pay more attention: 1. Size of the room and ratio of length, width and height is important. A ceiling height of at least 9 feet would be great. 2. As much symmetry in the room as possible - consider locations for speaker placement, chair placement and entry door. If you need to have windows, make sure that left and right side windows are symmetric, so that you can treat them equally. 3. If you can make the room sound proof, late night listening can be phenomenal. Hope you post some pics once the room is done. Good luck! |
Don’t hit your thumb, it hurts.. I rebuilt my house and doubled the size, added shops and a basement.. I did it all by hand, by reading books and my family’s collective skills. Something about driving 99% of the nails by hand and fixing most of my mistakes.. No nail guns I couldn't afford them. They were actually not used by Union folks back then. Even the weight of the hammer. The more strike it takes to drive a nail the tighter the bind.. I used dipped galvanised nails. Harder to drive!! Won’t back out. The electrical was easy for me. Every room outside the main structure including the attic and basement received 220-40 sub panels. I wired from there. Much safer and wiser way to distribute power too. Two separate, 120 legs add breakers as needed. I used 2 50s and added two more 100s per shop... Understand it is a collective load as per code. I had a 200 amp main. I did some finagling with the inspector to get him happy.. (hid my wire feed) and covered a milling machine and lythe in a shed. ;-) I recommend you put your hands on every piece of your new house. Look at it, understand what folks are doing, and NOT DOING.. DON’T settle, do it right. DON’T get sold a lot of shi$ you don’t need either.. Remember everything requires maintenance. EVERYTHING... Here is the key to building your home.. ENJOY IT... Don’t let it happen make sure it happens.. You’ll love it... Regards |
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Siemens-FirstSurge-Power-60kA-Whole-House-Surge-Protection-Device-FS060/... Surge protection at the electrical panel level |
1. Double wall construction with staggered studs (one wall's studs DO NOT touch the other, greatly reduces vibration transmission. 2. Line inside of walls with sheet vinyl. 3. Double sheet rock on inner walls. 4. Electrical outlets close to ceiling to allow for wireless speakers. The more the better. 5. take steps to make heating/cooling as quiet as possible. All I've got... |
--10g dedicated line with quality outlets. (Unfortunately some codes require crap safety outlets so you may need to swap these after inspection) --if using led lighting, place on a separate line. Carefully consider lighting options. Ceiling cans are nice for task lighting but I do not like them for when I listen to music. Have some nice accent lighting options. --carefully research room dimensions and where you anticipate speaker and listening chair placement. Can be hard to predict but clearly some dimensions will have fewer standing wave problems than others. --do you want windows? I opted out as they are not nice acoustically and I wanted to achieve acoustic symmetry as best I could. --suggest double dry wall with a layer of "green glue" adhesive --Crown molding in acoustically your friend. --Use a solid, heavy door to the room and a seal on the bottom is suggested as well. |
