Need Help Designing a Dream Room

First, I basically agree with your room dimensions except that you might change the length to between 32 and 36 feet, to reduce standing waves in the ultra deep frequencies.

Second, put in as many dedicated lines as you can afford. My sound system has twelve dedicated 120 volt lines and two 240 volt dedicated lines for the stereo alone. Lighting and outlets are additional and separate from those. Be prepared to fight with the electrician on this, he will say it is totally unnecessary.

Many US amplifiers may be configured to run on 240 volt, and generally perform better ( fewer step up windings in the transformer, and half the amp draw for the same power ).

Consider using at least two, possibly three layers of five eights inch sheetrock on ALL the walls and ceilings in the room, and use liquid nails or silicone between each layer to eliminate flexing.

If possible, box the floor and walls into 18 inch squares in the framing process. This is also referred to as fire blocking. This almost completely eliminates flexing and will improve bandwidth and imaging.

Use liquid nails when installing the floor, and if pier and beam, use MicroLam beams, which are laminated (man made) beams that are epoxy pressure formed wood. Frame the MicroLam with galvanized brackets, in addition to the toe nailing with the nail gun, using plastic coated nails.

The best floor (under your proposed hard wood) is called sturdy floor. It is tongue and groove, and measures one and a half inch thick, is laminated (epoxy bound) and should be attached with liquid nails and deck screws to the Micro Lam during construction.

This will form a foundation that will not flex, squeak or vibrate, regardless of weight, placement or SPL produced by your system.

Put all the analog (or digital if your not an analog guy) on the high side of the electrical system. You can meter the two feeds from the power company, and determine the high side. Run the rest of the house on the low side, and separate the grounds between the two. I had a 200 amp (Square D) electrical panel divided into two sides, high and low. The stereo was all on one side in a solid row, and labeled. The rest of the house on the other side.

If you live were you can demand three phase, get it. Run your air conditioner (and / or swim pool equip.) on it. It will reduce your electrical bill and further remove noise from entering the stereo system.

If you can order a large "pass through" electric meter, DO SO. This type meter does not run the electrical feed through the metering equip (the meter read by the electric co.). Instead, there are solid copper bars that pass through the meter (same as your drop) and the electric companies meter is an Amprobe design. That is, it reads by "clipping" around the copper rods, rather than breaking the circuit!

You may have to fight for this type meter, and it is usually only in larger sizes. Mine is a 750 Amp. The utility is required to provide this upon request, provided you state that you intend to up your usage to require this at a later date. This may require meeting with a supervisor from the utility. It is usually a long wait on the phone, but in the end, is a FREE upgrade if they agree.

Separate grounds may be accomplished by using plastic AC outlet boxes, and running separate THHN ground to cold water pipe or copper ground rod. The rest of the house goes to the panel ground on the master box. If you are one that is concerned with ground potential, you may run a separate eight gauge ground from the panel ground, back to the same cold water pipe.

If you use metal screen under the wood floor and float the foundation (either pier and beam or slab) run a solid copper ground wire completely across the room, corner to corner, and attach to a ground rod before the concrete pour is done. This will form and RF cage, removing much of the received radio and microwave transmission that bombards our homes every day.

Do not install dimmers in the room.

Plan on spending some money on area rugs so you are not exposed to 100% hard wood floor.

Avoid any glass or doors on the walls behind the speakers and the walls immediately beside them.

Design the room with channels under the floor. PVC pipe is cheap, and may be purchased in every size. Place them between the equipment and speaker ends of the room before the pour. After construction, you have access to pull any size or brand of wire between your front end and mono amplifiers behind the speakers.

Fill ALL the walls, REGARDLESS if interior or exterior, with Owens Corning sound proof and basement R11 Fiberglass before installing the sheet rock.

I built a floor to ceiling bookcase in my listening room that attached to the foundation and roof structure. Within this space, I use solid Maple butcher block shelves two inches thick, and mount them with KV shelf bracket hardware.

This arrangement allows placement of stereo equipment where it is the most convenient and attractive, while providing adjustability for future upgrades incompatible with fixed spacing. This shelf has outlasted a dozen equipment changes, and saved thousands of dollars in (not) replacing racks and stands!

I have other suggestions, as I am currently doing this to my own living room. I know this all sounds a bit over the top, but I assure you that everything added together will not add as much to the price of your home as the price tag of a decent mid line amp.

In the end, these room improvements will have a decidedly larger effect on your listening pleasure, without becoming obsolete or requiring audiophile upgrades.

Later on, much of this would be difficult, if not impossible to implement at any price. Best luck.

I do not know the gentleman who you so deeply respect that does home theatre. The person who believes that multiple layers of sheet rock are not good.

My advice is not from my own experience, but rather from Russ Burger, the studio designer. Russ did Whitney Houston's studio, the acoustic work for Woody Allen and the new CBS recording studio. He is currently working on NFL studios, and in the short breaks between, has been kind enough to advise me on my room acoustics.

You are welcome to dismiss my opinions on audio, but as for acoustics, I prefer the advice of the guy that is responsible for music rather than theater.

Kelly, I did not mean to ignore your comments. If you are serious about a visit, I would be pleased and excited. I am willing to do anything to make this a reality, including finding you accommodations and picking you up at the airport.

On the photography, I have a good number of photos during tear out and reconstruction. These have all been with my new D1X Nikon. The quality is there, but the subject matter is downright ugly. The exposed earth visible in most of my living room makes for a less formal look than I am accustomed to.

I tease with my contractor we need to mop up, and he says the has tried, but he mud just won't come up. It's difficult to maintain a sense of humor crossing this area each morning to make coffee in our kitchen. In the end it will be beautiful, I just need to keep reminding myself.

Ozfly, there are two completely different issues being discussed. Reflection treatment and good building procedures. The two do effect each other, but flimsy construction is not the correct way to control overly dynamic or flashy musical reproduction.

Light weight construction allows various materials to move and vibrate, competing with your speakers. This not only effects bandwidth, but the solidity of the imaging and soundstage as well.

Secure, solid walls will reinforce bass frequencies rather than allowing them to "pass through" to other areas. If the bass is too much with good solid walls, bass traps are the proper cure, not transparent walls.

I plan on building my room as solid as possible, and then treat the interior walls with several acoustic materials. Below are two sites that provide some of the material I plan to use on the ceiling and the two long walls. This is in addition to RPG panels, Tube Traps and mechanical isolation devices.

If you consider that using the Whisper Walls treatment, you can avoid the expense of tape, bed, texture and paint. Removing the contractors expenses for these materials will offset the expense of this acoustic treatment. These materials are designed specifically to improve listening. Again, best of luck.

http://www.owenscorning.com/around/sound/acoustic.html

http://www.soundcontrol.com/whisper.htm

Kelly, I regret that I cannot apply one of these more complete solutions in room acoustics to my own space.

I have no doubt they are more advanced than what I have planned, but I believe the improvements I outlined will make a tremendous difference. The key word here is affordable. The people who are doing my acoustic did the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center here in Dallas. Obviously, my budget is poor compared to that masterpiece. Still, the acoustic work ( beyond the mechanical work outlined in my post) , will run another $15,000.00.

It would be nice to be able to do everything just perfect, and I would if budget permitted. I am certain that room construction and acoustics play as big a role in musical reproduction as the hardware we audiophiles pile in after the fact.

It is certainly less expensive to get the room right than spending for equipment in a never ending attempt to apply a band aid to the situation later.

My previous floor was Terrazzo, and it's design employed metal strips embedded in the stone as a decorative trim, separating it into large squares. Under this floor was a network of what looked like chicken wire. I assume it was nailed to the original sub structure to provide strength, much like rebar in a foundation pour.

I had a huge problem with a particular radio station getting into my phono. I tried literally everything. Ferrite shields, moving cables, swapping cables, attaching and removing every ground from every piece of equipment. Even running dedicated grounds for the stereo only.

I could pick up this station so clearly that I could make out announcements. Finally, in a test where I went under the house and attached a ground rod to the metal in the floor, the problem was totally eliminated!

I could literally turn the radio station on and off by removing and reattaching this single wire to my floor. No other ground in the system had this effect, nor could they eliminate the problem. This experience leads me to believe that a ground should be attached to ANY metal installed in the floor of a dream room, least it become a nightmare room like I had.

Your definition for a RF cage is probably more accurate than the application I just described, none the less this trick does the job. This should be applied to one's dream room regardless of the name used to describe it's ability to potentially clear RF signals from the music.