Any basement room will have concrete or stone under whatever is used inside the walls. Floor is likewise concrete, no matter what you are walking on.
Also, you never mentioned the ceiling. Open joists? Drop ceiling w/acoustic tiles?
With 9feet of ceiling you might be able either build a subfloor or treat the ceiling....or both.
It's going to be a pretty LIVE space unless properly treated. |
forgot to mention that this is a fully closed room on its own....so basically a pure enclosed rectangle box with a door. |
My 10*18 room has just 3 very small windows up top since its a basement room. I do not think its a concrete room and the floor is carpeted.
Another issue with this room is that i must put integrate the sub into it as well.....
AHHHHHHH....this is a Pain in the a##......but i might as well try it and use the cardas rule as a general approach. |
Can't argue with that! Too small IS too small and that size brings some awful problems of its own. I had my Maggies in a large closet once....about 11 x11x 8 and it was the worst. I had to swap them L/R to get the image correct...
10x18 is pretty small, but not a deal breaker. You're not going to get big speakers in there and you may end up doing a short wall setup and listening near-field, but for a personal listening space it can work. Don't put your back up against a wall, either.
The good news is that you have only so much wall to treat. That will keep expenses down.
The only thing I'd wish for is when starting with a clean sheet of paper, to get the fundamental dimensions right which may help minimize the expense of later treatments. |
Magfan
I understand, not sure you see what I was actually saying.. Too small is going to be too small an acoustic space regardless of a Phi ratio. I agree there is definitely an optimal ratio I am sure.. Point being if your forced into a room barely as wide as my bathroom you got a problem no matter how good a "Ratio" it is was the point. But the smaller the area almost the more the acoustic treatments somebody might end up needing in the end to correct it. |
Undertow, there is a reason for the phi ratio. This is much more than just 'math', which I find most people irrationally shy away from. I am not going to give a history / math lesson, tempting as it might be, but the phi ratio is one of those 'perfect' numbers and in addition to some interesting properties, was also known to the ancients who prized it.
But, in short, for audio purposes, a phi shaped room, or speaker enclosure for that matter has few or no standing waves. Or, more exactly, a frequency which is an even wavelength into more than 1 dimension. Again, multiple bounces count...like any 2 walls across from each other. or any 3 walls, kind of imagine a ball bouncing around. You'll get the picture! Dead give aways for potential problems are rooms with even multiples of dimensions, like the OP's 9 and 18 foot dimensions. The worst room? probably some kind of cubic shape. |
Concrete walls? Concrete floor? What kind of ceiling?
Any windows? Stairs/stairwell or any attached spaces...thin doors to laundry or other service area?
All play a part. but you start with the basic dimensions. If concrete walls, best of luck and a substantial budget for accoustic treatments. |
Exactly ratios are just math... Fact is space is going to be needed regardless in order to create a stereo acoustic environment... I mean we could say a 3ft wide hallway 10 feet long and 6 feet high is a perfect ratio in a listening environment.. Obviously for bose cube speakers maybe and somebody thats about 4 foot tall!!
I am just kidding, but its gonna be a challenge in this room, you will most likely save some time and money doing some sort of reasonable acoustic treatments, probably consisting of some diffusion and absorbsion product, otherwise you might end up with a tunnel effect, or be listening at such a huge toe in and so close that you might as well put on headphones :-)
You might want to start with just some stacked GIK Tri traps, which at about 300 bucks a pair do well in smaller rooms with helping soundstage and bass response placed in the corner behind speakers.
I would call them and ask how they handle really small studios and like control rooms for monitoring recordings etc...
In the end all you can do is give it a shot for free, you own the room.. Tweak around and see what happens.
Good luck |
The ceiling being 2x length is a problem.
Enter 'room mode calculator' in google.
Rooms have multiple resonant modes. Generally, they are
2-wall.....3-wall and 4-wall. Each is less important than the one before it.
The 'ideal' (from a math standpoint) is PHI... 1.618:1
So a room 10'x16'x 26' is pretty good....but that is just math, not taking into account other factors, like furniture, construction, speaker placement and type, doors....etc/ etc.
There are some big fans of this number but most won't tell you how they derive there 'formula'. |
Hi,
My room is almost the same size like Kiin's room (10W x 8H x 22L). Is this a good or bad? Can I use the same set up like Newbee suggested?
Thanks!
Tran |
Here is a set up to try in a narrow room and has allowed me to maintain some spread between the speakers and far enuf away from the listening chair. It should give you a reasonable sound stage.
Set you speakers out into the room so the fronts are about 5 feet from the back wall.
Move your speakers so that the center of the speaker is one and a half feet from the side wall (closer than most anyone ever recommends) so you have a full 7 feet between the speakers.
Move your listening chair until your heads position is 5 feet into the room.
Now toe your speaker in to a point where the axis crosses in front of your chair (2 to 3 feet in front of your head). This will substantially reduce the 1st reflections from the side wall.
If you find that at all sonically decent, you can fine tune the highs, first by putting some deadening materiels on the walls to reduce first reflections. Then you can fine tune the speakers by small incremental movements of the speakers and listening chair forward and backwards until the bass is smooth and the highs are clear. Play with toe in all the time.
Hope that helps a bit.
BTW, I started out using the Cardas System, but it was just a starting point. The trick is in getting a nearly equallateral triangle set up in YOUR room to work. You need to keep an open mind/ears because they are just general guideline. And, most importantly, I tuned my set up over many months making small movements and having long listening sessions. You can't get this done well just on one rainy afternoon. :-) |
wow, thanks newbee and undertow...
i was thinking the same thing too. The soundstage would collapse in there....
However, i did a quick research and found the "golden ratio" from Cardas Audio. http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=26&pagestring
I was thinking about trying this...Do you have any opinions on it? It seems that i would have around 4-5feet breathing space between the ATC speakers and have a fairly good depth. |
10 w? Not nearly perfect as that will place any speakers too close to boundaries regardless... However if you are thinking the ratio is perfect due to 10 wide 18 deep well than thats possible... But again you will have very limited width to get those speakers breathing. You will need some extensive room acoustics most likely, including some way to especially control the immediate reflection points on the right and left walls to the speakers, along with probably some good diffusion to spread that sound out cramped in the very narrow 10 feet wide space..
I would almost suggest running the system on the long wall instead however your seated position would be way too close that way as well. I have in the past seen and heard systems jammed into a 12 foot wide area and it was about the limit I could see fitting some kinda soundstage with acoustic treatments into the room.. And even then you almost end up with system that can be pretty flat without a lot of 3d and pretty high amounts of distortions coming off those sidewallsÂ…
I consider for most speakers big or small a room of minimum 14 wide, but preferably somewhere in the 16 to 17 feet wide, and 20 to 30 deep. But we all have to work with what we have!!
By the way I had a fully Pro treated room that was 13 wide by 18 deep, it was pretty good with treatments, and just horrible without, The smaller the space the more acoustic treatments it almost needed to get things clearly in control. Right now I have the same setup however in a room that has my speakers minimum 8 feet off the sidewalls so its about 21 feet wide.. WOW what a difference, and it outperformed the thousands invested in the smaller room acoustics right off the bat, so don't minimize the effect your 10 feet wide area will ultimately have on the performance, however its better than nothing. |
It could work well in a near(er)field listening set up, but you will either need domestic furnishings or acoustic treatments, or a combo of both, to control reflections, especially off the side walls and floor.
Not perfect dimensions, but it will work fairly well firing down the lenght of the room. You will have enuf length to get the speakers well out from the front wall and the chair away from the back wall. Lots of toe in, if possible, will help eliminate some 1st reflections issuse, but you'd still need some help. You will also need carpet or something on the floor. All boils down to how good you want it to be. |
