Optimum size for music room?

Strangely enough, for concert halls, the 'fan' shape is not a very good for acoustics, but is good for putting more people in the hall and not be too far from the performers. The classic 'shoe-box' large enough to hold about 1500 people is best - especially if the sides are lined with balconies.

Home listening, of course calls for completely different parameters.

Bob P.

I have imagined a suspended floor with individual concrete piers under the speaker areas and the equipment rack. You need to make them large enough to be able to move gear around on them especially for speaker placement. This arrangement would eliminate mechanical feedback completely, I think, but you still have the earthquake threat in your neighborhood.

I've also noticed that listening rooms often have low ceilings and concert halls never do. Tiger's room mentioned above seems to have been an inspired design.

The concert hall at my local college has the stage at the narrow end and the ceiling over the stage is at the lowest point in it's arc. In fact, the way the walls fan out and the floor and ceiling rise as they move away from the stage, seems to mimic a horn to a certain extent.

The question is: how much of this design was created to optimize acoustics and how much was put in place to maximize seating area? Anybody know?

The acoustics in there are very good and there are room treatments built in to the decor.

Thanks for all your input guys! good stuff! I will check out all the site/s mentioned. S'funny but the room I am listening to my speakers at present is 27'L X 13'W X 7'T. Being in a basement the room needs a lot of Improving to equalize it but as I maybe moving to a new place with no room in the new house (1000 sq ft), hence the 'new room question'.There is an amble space of 7000 sq ft of rear yard. WAF may come into play somewhere along the way.
Another question should the foundation be a concrete slab or would a suspended floor do the trick?
Many thanks again for all your input!

Hi Tiger,

Wow! Now that's a room! Unfortunately, I live in the Silicon Valley where an ounce of dirt costs more than an ounce of gold. I am just lucky that my house sits on a pretty good size lot (in Silicon Valley terms) that would allow me to build a dedicated room.

FrankC

I did a room years ago, but it is long gone. However, one of the issues was always do you put your speakers, current or future on the long wall. Most put them on the short wall to give the room depth. I did a 23 foot wide, 30 feet deep arrangement and ceilings that started 9 feet at the speaker wall and 11 feet at the back wall. Yes I did all the calucations and why the actual room was not design perfect, it sounded perfect. Getting at least a 22 foot wide room is a must. It gives a wide stage and you can reinfoce that if you do a 'center fill'.

I am in the same situation as you as we have started looking into a major remodel for our house. Part of the remodel will be to build a dedicated listening room from scratch.

There are tons of information available online. I've done some research online and read "consulted" some books on acoustics, studio design, HT room design, etc.

There are many different theories. But most popular ones are:

Cardas Golden Mean - 0.618
so something like 21 ft x 13 ft x 8 ft

Louden Ratio
- 1.00 x 1.4 x 1.9
- 1.00 x 1.3 x 1.9
- 1.00 x 1.5 x 2.5

Sepmeyer Ratio
- 1.00 x 1.28 x 1.54
- 1.00 x 1.60 x 2.33

I ended up deciding to go with the last one, so the room will be 16 ft (W) x 23.3 ft (L) x 10 ft (H). I have also done some searches with materials and have everything pretty much covered. I would say if I were to construct the room with the information I have so far I would be 85% there.

I had originally talked to Rives, but didn't think that was the right approach for me. I've spoken to Alan Goodwin of Goodwin Audio in Massachussettes, and think that by using his service I would benefit more.

What I intend to do is to have Alan review/critique my design and provide me with additional information to refine the design and acoustics. I think I will come out with a room that is aesthetically pleasing and acoustically "correct".

Feel free to e-mail me and we can share some information.

FrankC

There is a relationship called the Fibonacci Series. Cardas says it is to be found everywhere in nature including the nautilus (snail?) they use in their logo.
Essentially it provides the relationship between length, width and height which provides the least reverberation and cancellation.
I imagine there are other people on this forum who can explain it better than I can but I believe I calculated something like
22 x 13 x 8 once upon a time.
Draw a line about a foot long running from left to right. On the left end write "A" and on the right side write "C". Then you figure where to place "B" along the line by locating the point where BC is to AB as AB is to AC. In other words, find the location where the shorter segment is to the longer segment is the same as the longer segment is to the whole line.
As it was explained to me, this will be the ideal dimensional ratio to employ in designing your room.
However, I like the idea of non-parallel walls too, and I cannot imagine how that gels with what I just proffered.
Good luck. This doesn't seem like a good place to proceed by trial and error.

If you search the internet for "golden cuboid" you will find many discussions about the "perfect room". Note especially the Cardas site as well as many others. I have never had the opportunity to build a dedicated room so my equipment had to adjust to the room dimensions. In my mind the most important criteria would be non-parallel walls, enough distance from the front wall for your speakers to image well, acoustical treatment for reflections, dedicated power, and sound-proofing from extraneous noises. I hope you get to build it. Let us know how it works out. A real "man cave"??

I'd say 23'X37'X9' should give you enough room to play with.