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New House: Audio room/Office

In my current house I have a bit of a love/hate, or maybe dislike, relationship with where my stereo system is, in our living room.

What I like is that is it a good size room that is very open. (I also like to mute TV a lot while listening to music, though that is another issue that doesn't need addressed here.)

What I dislike is that our living room doesn't look as nice as it could because of the dominance of the stereo system and we (I) work everything around it; I am also restricted in how far I can move my speakers from the back wall, as they are coming too far into the living room.

We are considering building a new home, not because of my stereo. :) In contemplating what we'd like in a new home we have discussed making one room my office and putting my stereo in there; I work from home so I could enjoy my system through the day.

We do not have an unlimited budget so I am concerned of not having enough room and struggling to make the system sound good. At "best" the floor plans we have considered gave me a room of about 15x13, and that slightly modifying the plans we were looking at.

I would love to hear tips, advice and thoughts on this. It would be very unfortunate to plan on this and then be unhappy.
brianmgrarcom

Showing 3 responses by newbee

newbee
4,751 posts
 
I was lucky (I think!) I designed my own home. When I built my home I set up a floor plan with a more traditional living room and family room well separated from each other. The thought was that it was a floor plan that would resell easily to anyone not looking for a great room/open home style. I made the family room large and family friendly and that is where we live. I made the living room dimensions audio friendly and that is where I have my music/audio room. It is off the hallway/entry and can be closed off by pocket doors. Not perfect, but it works well.

I think a 13x15 audio only room could work but you'd have to scale back expectations a little bit on big/loud music, and to optimize results you'd probably end up with a near(er) field listening setup so you would have to be very careful in selecting speakers and avoiding any with an uptilted mid-high FR or that is too 'fast'.

FWIW. Hope that helps a bit. BTW, my audio room is 13.5 x 19.5 x 9 and my setup sounds pretty good - 10'equilateral triangle with speakers 5.5ft from the back wall.
newbee
4,751 posts
 
I have a room dimension or build out issue which causes a suck out of 6db at 40/50 hz and a small rise at 80hz of about 3db. Otherwise my FR is fairly flat thru the mid-range. I should probably be happy.

This might be corrected if the room was a bit longer I think, maybe 1 1/2 feet or so, and/or I might remove an open archway behind the listener chair. But, I worry that a solid wall behind the listening chair, even 5 to 6 feet, would still facilitate the bouncing frequencies from the side walls and make the room a bit reverberant. As it is now I have 6x7' openings on a side wall and a back wall - it really has helped with getting a very clear sound, the only down side is that the otherwise fine sound stage is restricted to the front 1/3d of the room (wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and deep though). But I guess I could always add some rear channels to fill in the other 2/3ds of the room.

BTW, I've used and carefully set up panels and electrostats in this room and was never able to get close to what I know these speaker types can do in a large(r) room. Listening to dynamic speakers in a nearer field has been the most successful for me in this room.
newbee
4,751 posts
 
Brian, I was just looking at your system photos. Not too complex. In a new environment you might just try to position your components apart from your speakers (use longer cables) to reduce the dominant effect of speaker/components, and simply mark the floor where you finally position your speakers so you can move them back against the wall when not in use (or for very casual listening at low volume) and easily pull them out for more important listening. I did that before I got a 'dedicated' room and everybody was happy.
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