Room Demensions, am I in trouble?


Hello people,

I'm moving into my first house and we have a room for a theater!!! The only part that looks like it could be a problem is the room demensions. The room is 12'W X14'L X8'H.

I will also be using this room for music(very important to me!!!). I have Thiel 2.3's for mains with a Thiel center and I have Energy Veritas 2.2's for rears. I also have a Sunfire True Sub. the TV is a Sony 43" RPTV (18" deep). The room has hardwood floors and two windows (Not casting day light on the TV screen.)

I want the room to fit 4 viewers (5 max). Its gonna get tight in there! I would like feedback from others who have been through this same situation. Please give me your advice, and recommendations. I'm not interested in feedback on my equipment, because I'm not buying any new stuff right now (Can you say mortgage payments in Northern California!!!)

Thanks
mhubbard

Showing 2 responses by jaytor

You can reduce the deliterious effect of having room modes close together by adding acoustic absorption in the bass region. The good news is that with your room dimensions, the biggest problem frequencies are relatively high (140Hz & 280Hz), so bass tools such as Tube Traps will work reasonably well. By providing bass absorption, you will reduce the Q of the room which will reduce the amplitude of the peaks and dips and spread out their frequency range. The only disadvantage is that this will be you'll need more bass energy from your subwoofer to create the same level of bass in the room.

If you need absorption of a specific narrow frequency range, I'd recommend RPG Modex panels. These are relatively expensive, but very effective at low frequencies. Tube Traps work well above 100 Hz, but not particularly well in the low bass frequencies.

There are many DIY articles on the net describing how to make your own tube traps. If you're a little handy in the workshop, you can make a decent tube trap for $20-$50 (depending on whether you want fancy fabric covering).

Good luck.
I have not used Echo Busters personally, but I don't think they will be very effective at reducing bass mode problems in your room. The standard Echo Buster panels will have no effect on bass. The "Bass Buster", designed to fit into the corners, covers too little wall area in your room to have a significant effect. You'd be much better off building membrane bass absorbers mounted on the wall - check out this site as an example.

http://www.customaudio.freeserve.co.uk/articles/membranes.html

If you find that you still need some equalization, check out the Rane PE-17. This is a five band parametric equalizer where all five bands can be applied to the bass region, and is available for about $400.