Room Acoustics With Vaulted Ceiling

Hey thanks again everyone. I was over at the new house yesterday and saw that the ceiling does not rise to a peak. Rather, it rises to about 12 feet and then there is a flat section connecting the two sections of the peak. As for materials, the room is sheetrock walls with two pairs of double hung windows at either long end (short wall) of the room. The floor is floating synthetic wood grained "tile"--really just plastic with a thin layer of padding. Once we move in there will be area rugs (with pads) covering much of the floor as well as soft couches/chairs arranged in the room. There is a fireplace that steps out two feet into the room on the long wall and a ten foot wide opening to enter the room on the opposite long wall on the far end of the room opposite where the speakers will be positioned. Hope this clarifies and furthers the suggestions/thoughts.

Hopefully commentators will continue to help educate the original poster and those who face similar issues in the future.  Plenty of good education in here. Sorry for distracting.

@cal3713

That sounds whiny and terribly sensitive. I thought we were supposed to toughen up and take it??

I made a 1 sentence quip, which is actually very funny, if you had seen the history of Miller following me along from thread to thread and answering all things audio with the swarm, and you think it's brilliant to quote tag me in a paragraph, fueling the fire. Maybe quote tagging me that way won’t take this thread anywhere you want it to go? You would not be the first person to derail a thread by putting all their energy into that idea.

Alternatively, you should have just let it go, and the thread would have proceeded along on it’s original intent.


Best,
Erik

I'm in the corner so that my two-story tall vaulted ceilings are higher on one side (~23') of the system than the other (~13') and this forces me to use balance control to even out the imaging. Just something to keep in mind as you do setup. Hopefully not a problem if you're symmetrical.

And while I do believe the room helps with imaging due to the elimination of many traditional reflection points, I have many bass modes that cause very troublesome drop outs across the space (open to the rest of the house on both the first and second stories).

I hesitate to mention it given @erik_squires unprovoked attack, but the only solution I could find is a distributed bass array and even setting that up in conjunction with my full range speakers has been a substantial challenge. REW (free) and a calibrated usb mic (~$120) have been very useful for understanding and addressing these issues.

@erik_squires Please refrain from your efforts to turn every thread on this site negative.

Lots of good advice here from others, hope the new room is a great improvement. Good luck!

Thanks, @jriggy Not the best at describing these things but the high point is at the middle of the longer dimension with the peak roughly directly above my listening position. Happy to PM about the 360.

Will the vaulted ceiling go L to R (with the system) with the high point in the middle or will it go front to back with the high point in the middle of the longer length? I’ll assume the latter.  If so, you will want absorption on that angle that will send reflections back down right to the back/top of your head.
Also with that width, you may want to try diffusion rather than absorption at first and/or second reflection on side walls. 
Off topic, dodgealum, do you have the VTSP-360 yet? But maybe we could PM to chat about it... 

Back to the OP, some of the best rooms in have been in ( recording and playback ) feature vaulted ceilings. Tell us more about surfaces, materials and furnishings before we launch into the treatment war...

Actually for those of us who can do math, the vault is a free swarm of sorts Eric, but you already knew that.

My medium large main listening room has a ceiling sloping up from about 9 feet on one side (where the gear is) to 16 feet or so above the back wall which I sit a few feet in front of...this helps with the sound as the non parallel floor and ceiling tend to not reinforce each other, and one end of the room just goes on through to the kitchen and beyond (putting the "great" in Great Room). Luckily the room sounds excellent  (damped by furniture and a large rug) and my two subs help each other to tame untoward bass boom. I like it, it's good. 

In about three weeks we'll be moving into a new home, one with an "open concept" kitchen, dining area & living room, the latter two with vaulted ceilings.

I purchased a pair of KEF LS50 Wireless speakers for streaming, which will live on either side of the hutch in the dining area.  The room has wood floors and oriental rugs, so I'm hoping it's not too "boomy".

Fortunately, I'll have my own "man cave" for my high end system.

Thanks guys—a mixed bag so far I’ll have to see how it goes. Someone once said or wrote “big room, big problems” and I have been “blessed” throughout my journey to have consistently small or medium size rooms despite moving my system at least eight times over 30 years. Though still only medium in size, this will be my first experience with vaulted ceilings so hope to learn something and get lucky with the SQ!

My dedicated room is large with 16 ft ceilings.   My system sounded much better in my old house.  

Vaulted ceilings can be a big problem, the Sydney Opera House had major ones with it’s roof design.
https://youtu.be/emLZBQPnyp8
My listening room has 12ft ceilings it sounds far better than the 8.5ft ones I had in the past

Cheers George

Those vaulted ceilings can be a problem.  This is what we did in my brothers studio.  We got some veneer skins and stuffed them with insulation to stop the reflections at the peak of the ceiling.  It has worked very well.

https://www.gossardstudios.com/gossard-studios-2/

I refuse to participate in any discussion until Miller has brought up the swarm as the solution.

Dodgealum, I suspect you will have a much better chance of having a higher performing listening room in your new digs. Many years ago, I changed my listening room from having the system on the long wall, to it being on the short wall.

That made my speakers fire down the long way in the room, with the cathedral ceiling instead of across it. It took some doing (my woodstove had to be moved to the opposite wall), but it was well worth the effort.

I'm sure you will wind up happy with your new listening room.

Regards,
Dan

dodgealum, Good room for a system. 13'6" is a little tight. Start off without any room treatment and see how it sounds. What you do for room treatment depends on the type of speaker you are using and you usually do not have to spend a lot. 

Sounds fun... To tell the truth... Have a good time, setting it up..
New is always nice...

Regards

At the very least the open space above would eliminate first reflection points on a ceiling (at 8-10 feet).
Also a good time to experiment with placement.

Here’s the thing about questions like yours: nobody knows. But everyone has an opinion. One for sure will be to pay GIK. ES coming in three, two, one....

What you or anyone else anticipates is a monster waste of time. When you have my level of experience you will be able to stand in the room and look and listen and tell you all about it. No one but no one however can do it from your cursory posted info. So set it up and listen. Let us know what you hear that’s good, and what you hear that’s not good. Until then, enjoy reading the opinions.