Building dedicted listening room

A book that might help you is F. Alton Everest's Master handbook of Acoustics, 4th edition. I got it from Amazon and read the thing in it's entirety.

To me, it was not one of those 'books full of excitement and suspense you just can't put down'; it's more in the 'tough to read' category. It is however extremely thorough and contains a lot of detailed information. It has some great information on the theories that apply to sound and music, as well as practical guidance on room design and acoustical treatments. It helpded me understand what was going on in my room and how to correct some of it.

I started by just reading the chapter I thought I needed, and got thoroughly lost. Plowing through it start to finish was the right answer. As said, not an easy read but very educational.

Niels.

I agree with Niels, and would add that Everest's "Sound Studio Construction on a Budget", which covers all kinds of rooms, not just sound studios, and goes into "from the ground up" construction with some, is also excellent.

I would agree with both posts above. I own both of the the books mentioned and they are very informative. The Master Handbook has a section that is especially usefull in regards to ideal room dimensions. It lists the room proportions yeilding the most favorable distribution of room modes, and that with new construction it is strongly advised to use these porportions as a guide. It is true that a lot of this book is highly confusing stuff. I take some of what is said with caution as it is in refrence to the pro audio world side of things, which can be quite a differing opinion than that of the hifi world. I am also in the process of planning a dedicated listening room and would like to get some ideas from some hifi guys in the know on room acoustics. Maybe we can bounce some ideas off of each other and keep each other informed on information we find out along the way. If you want to email me I'd be happy to share with you some of the formulas that yield favorable mode distibution. ejlif@sunset.net

I would agree with the others in terms of doing a LOT of reading BEFORE you start doing your building. Right off the bat, i would think that having a room measurement of 14' one way would not work well when another measurement is 21'. You would be better off going to either 20', 22', etc... One dimension should not be a multiple or divisible by any of the others. You might also want to think about building a taper into the walls so that they are NOT square or level. Sean
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