Dedicated room


Hey guys, let's hear your thoughts! I am building a 1000 sq ft addition onto my house and it will incorporate a listenig room which will be 14'x22' with 9' ceiling height. Being 25 I don't have a vast history with acoustical patterns (nulls, reflection points, ect..) Anyone have some "sound" (ouch!) advice for room set up? My local dealers are idiots so let's hear from the real experts. YOU.
gekko
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....
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.