Dedicated room

Somewhere in my travels I came across a site that had some ratios for an "ideal listening room" I cant recall where but I came across that site but I do recall that the room should definitely be rectangular as opposed to square or some other shape. 14 by 22 by 9 sounds pretty good though - I'll bet those demensions are pretty close to the ideal ratio. Once you have the room size established I would refer you to Cardas Audio which has a discussion of the "Golden Ratio" of speaker placement. You will find this at www.cardas.com; hit the "Insights" tab and then hit "room set up". The Cardas site will give you excellant insights for a generalized discussion of speaker placement in a rectangular room. Once you've obtained a good idea where to place your speakers in your room, the next step would be to determine where to put your equipment rack. This is critical because if you "get it right" you could then determine where to locate dedicated electrical lines for your audio. For example, lets say your room is 14 feet wide, under the Cardas golden ratio method your speakers will 6.26 feet from the front wall (room width x .447). Suppose you like to sit about 10 deet away - in that case I would have a couple of dedicated floor outlets located behind the chair and/or couch would be located and plan on placing my equipment rack behind the chair or couch. Another good spot would be to either side of the chair or couch in order to allow for easy access to my source components. In this example I would then install the dedicated floor outlets about 5-6 feet from the rear wall of the room and fairly centered. I would then have a duct under the floor in which I can place either speaker cables or interconnecting cables to allow me to run cables to either amplifiers or speakers located in front of the front wall. If you are running cables to power amps then I would add a couple of extra floor outlets on dedicated lines to the side of each speaker for conection of the power amps. Finally, conventional wisdom used to say that you should install a soft or absorptive surface like carpet on the floor and on the rear wall and a reflective surface such as dry wall or wood on the cieling or front wall (the wall behind the speakers). Glass and drapes tend to be audiophile no nos. The above suggestions are generalizations only. Many speaker companies recommend that you divide the room into thirds and place the speakers 1/3 of the way away from the front wall. they also recommend sitting 1/3 of the from the rear wall. Thats would have me sitting too close to the speakers for me althjough I understand their point about minimizing rear wall reflections. Also, I hear that some speakers like Dunlavy SCVs supposedly sound better when placed on the short wall side of the room rather than the long side. In you love these speakers I just totally messed you up!! The point is there are always exceptions. For the speaker systems I have had (Martin Logans; Wilson Watt Puppies and Genesis 300s) this placement would have and has worked out just fine for me. Finally some people will tell you that running your interconnecting cables in a floor dict will cause an audible deterioration to your the signal from your cables. These people will be correct. But you will solve lots other problems doing this like not having people sgtep on your cables or tripping on them and suiong you. Accordingly, I would consider the cable degredation by doing this acceptable. Cheers.

thanks for the info Tenniswino. I appreciate it!!

Stereophile.com website archives, thumb back through for excellent articles on dedicated room with references. Mine is a concrete bunker 18 x30 x9 with various intrusions that keep it from being a simple rectangle. Almost totally underground, cant hear a thunderstorm down there, but I did sheetrock the walls for looks which means some sound treatments. Check out Decware. com for some very interestingly cheap sound treatment ideas, or just buy the DSP 1 and let it do all the work (at least for digital signals). Or wait about a year and I'll tell you how it worked.....oh, and of course, the most important thing, the ceremony and (proper) plaque placement....

thanks Jkingtut. how did you manage a concrete bunker?

A Bunker??? I guess that takes care of any problem with windows. Actually my room is approximately 16 by 24 by 17. The 17 foot high cielings resulted in my windows being placed more than 6 feet off the floor, allowing rear speaker reflections to bounce off oak and brick rather than glass. The 3 things I dislike about my room are: 1. I have a hardwood floor over a concrete slab. I can't do what I suggested you do without ripping up large portions of the floor; jack hammering concrete trenches and then reinsatlling the floor. Not to mention the cost of the divorce that would surely follow. Much easier to construct the room this way to begin with. 2. I do have side reflection points off of galss windows located on some french doors. Some drapes would probably be the lesser of 2 evils but .. once again ... "she who must be obeyed" won't allow it. 3. I have a fireplace in the center of my room which basically precludes the placement of an equipment rack in between my speakers. Between the speakers is a popular location for an equipment rack because it is the best spot to reduce the length of cable runs. On the other hand - late at nighjt I can shut off all the lights and lisiten to my system with just the fire and the glow of the tubes. Kind of cool actually. Again it all comes down to initally being comfortable with your predicted range of speaker locations. Speaker location will drive where you sit, where you place your equipment (hence your outlets) and will also determine your side reflection points which you should dry wall and then treat accoustically. I can't dig up my floor, I cant dry wall over the french doors and my wife makes fun of me when I tell her I want to make the fireplace into an audio equipment rack. Good luck on avoiding these problems. P.S. Better get this done before you get married.

OK it was late and I hate to type. "Bunker" is my basement, 12 inch block walls, every other cell filled with concrete slab. One wall is a 2x6 loadbearing wall with sheetrock, which is why I sheetrocked the rest of them. The ceiling is 16 inch wood I beam joists on 19.2 inch centers with a bunch of insulation stuffed between the cans and sheetrocked. Are you sorry u asked yet? But the best part is definitely no WINDOWS. By the way, also check out www.tweakaudio.com for very interesting, uh, information, for lack of a better all encompassing word. Another zen meister like Steve Deckert.