music room design questions dimensions/flooring


I guess much has been written previously, yet I still seek answers to the following:

* for a room with dimensions of 13'1"(4.00m) width x8'8"(2.65m) height, what would the "best" length be? Is 24'6"(7.45m) too long? I can shorten length if required.

* for wooden floor(hard wood bearers/joists and 1" sheet floor), should floor be fixed directly to subfloor or should it be "decoupled" via rubber or other spacer? ie. does decoupling improve sonics?

I am hoping to avoid the theory and get straight to the definitive answers.I am all theoried out at this stage and want to finish modifying my music room.
aer

Showing 1 response by shadorne

The simple answer is it isn't simple experimentation trumps theory in my view.

In theory, ideal is;

Height:Width:Length
1:1.6 :2.33

which suggests you should make your room 6.2 Meters long and if you placed large acoustic panels (such as Realtraps, GIK etc.) on the ceiling to bring ceiling down 20 cm you may get the ideal dimension.

Decoupling is good up to a point as it helps keeps the noise down for neighbouring rooms. However, you really want sound energy to dissipate and not remain trapped reverbing in your room...so too much decoupling may actually be bad (imagine the floor floating like the membrane of a drum = very bad). Absorption or damping is just as important as decoupling....heavy damped rubbery material between floor and joists with lots of glue to make sure nothing is loose.

In practice, theory never works and you should probably consider seeking advice from an expert who has doen many installs and has learned first hand what does and does not work.