Let's build a room. How big? What dimensions?

[Ittaku]

If you have reams of land to spare in an upcoming building development, how big would you make it? I'm thinking something oblong approximately 8.5 metres long, but there's no reason I couldn't go bigger. I'm planning on making the system suitable to fill a massive space too, rather than a room to suit a particular system. How big is big enough? How big is too big? Is it really just the bigger the better? I've seen recommendations in many places but just like acoustics of a studio, theatre, arena, chapel etc. it's part science and part art. Thoughts?

[andyr]

27 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

If you have reams of land to spare in an upcoming building development, how big would you make it? I'm thinking something oblong approximately 8.5 metres long, but there's no reason I couldn't go bigger. I'm planning on making the system suitable to fill a massive space too, rather than a room to suit a particular system. How big is big enough? How big is too big? Is it really just the bigger the better? I've seen recommendations in many places but just like acoustics of a studio, theatre, arena, chapel etc. it's part science and part art. Thoughts?

 

Aah, any SNA members who came to my last house, Con, will confirm that my then 'listening room' was special!  

 

It was 8m long x 5.1m wide - ceiling was pitched, with a centre-line going down the length ... height 2.7m at the side walls and about 4.5m at the ridge.  I decided on the width after plotting room modes for an 8m long room.  The pitch was arrived at by having a 100 deg angle between the 2 ceiling slopes - which gradually dispersed floor to ceiling reflections (a 90 deg angle would've had them repeating, endlessly).

 

So I would say that >8m long is probably not required - but a high, pitched ceiling is!  

 

Andy

 

[aussievintage]

39 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

How big is big enough? How big is too big? Is it really just the bigger the better?

 

My little contribution is to suggest you think about the sound of a system playing outdoors away from any structures.    I have done this occasionally for various reasons, and every time I have been struck by how different it sounds.   Different...  in a very good way.   It is a tiny bit like headphone listening, in that room reverberation and interference is mostly eliminated.  It is also a bit like near field listening where the room effects are swamped by the direct sound from the speakers.  All you hear is the recording, and nothing else.  If that sound grabs you too, then truly bigger is better.

[Ittaku]

Just now, aussievintage said:

 

My little contribution is to suggest you think about the sound of a system playing outdoors away from any structures.    I have done this occasionally for various reasons, and every time I have been struck by how different it sounds.   Different...  in a very good way.   It is a tiny bit like headphone listening, in that room reverberation and interference is mostly eliminated.  It is also a bit like near field listening where the room effects are swamped by the direct sound from the speakers.  All you hear is the recording, and nothing else.  If that sound grabs you too, then truly bigger is better.

Well this is my impression too. I mean why not just make it 20 metres long and accordingly wide (and pitched roof if single storey house).

[Stereophilus]

2 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Well this is my impression too. I mean why not just make it 20 metres long and accordingly wide (and pitched roof if single storey house).

Bigger room means more reflecting surface area.  This is turn means more room treatment.  Stand inside an unfurnished hall and clap your hands.... the repeated echoes get worse the bigger you go.  If you go big, you need to budget for the room treatment too.

 

I concur with the pitched roof.  I unfortunately omitted one in my build.

[Ittaku]

Just now, Stereophilus said:

Bigger room means more reflecting surface area.  This is turn means more room treatment.  Stand inside an unfurnished hall and clap your hands.... the repeated echoes get worse the bigger you go.  If you go big, you need to budget for the room treatment too.

A room can be treated. Walls can't be moved. I plan to make the back "half" of the room facing the other way a home theatre too so there'll be other furnishings and stuff.

[Get off My lawn]

I've had my system in rooms of varying sizes, and each time , as the room got bigger, I preferred the sound.

 

My current listing room is about 9m*7m, with a flat 3.7 m ceiling, but behind the sofa I do my listening from, there's an archway opening into a 6*7m room.

 

The downside of this is that when I listen to music/systems in smaller or normal size rooms, I always seem aware of the "room", and keep thinking to myself, I wonder what this would sound like in a bigger room.

 

I don't use any room treatments , but there's plenty of furnishings, rugs, record shelving, etc, and when the guys from Kyron Audio did some measurements, they were pretty happy with the room

 

Cheers

 

some photos of the layout

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by pine weasel

[srms]

Here is an interesting YouTube video on a room build, a very large budget I would assume!

 

Custom room build  

[Guest Peter the Greek]

As big as you can afford. Noting the gear need may well (ok will) change as it gets bigger.

 

In saying that, my approach is as follows:

1. Decide on how many people

2. Type of seat and desired seating arrangement (rows etc)

3. Decide a preferred MLP

4. Add 1m to each side from the nearest chair and the back wall (2m for the back wall if you can)

That gives a room rough width

5. Draw a 45 degree triangle from the to determine L and R position - keeping them 1m the side wall

6. Add 1m to allow for a baffle wall or other such arrangements

7. If a HT you can then figure out max screen size

 

Ceiling height....well, at least 3300 IMO, that might end up being 3000 once you deal with anything up there (bulkheads, treatments, ATMOS etc)

[Ittaku]

There sure is a recurring theme here about big. A 16Hz wavelength in air at 20 degrees is 21.45 metres. Hrm...

[Guest Peter the Greek]

PS if I was doing a new, dedicated build. I'd be hiring a pro to help with the design work. One of the big American guys (Yates, Erskine et al)

[Stereophilus]

14 hours ago, pine weasel said:

I've had my system in rooms of varying sizes, and each time , as the room got bigger, I preferred the sound.

 

My current listing room is about 9m*7m, with a flat 3.7 m ceiling, but behind the sofa I do my listening from, there's an archway opening into a 6*7m room.

 

The downside of this is that when I listen to music/systems in smaller or normal size rooms, I always seem aware of the "room", and keep thinking to myself, I wonder what this would sound like in a bigger room.

 

I don't use any room treatments , but there's plenty of furnishings, rugs, record shelving, etc, and when the guys from Kyron Audio did some measurements, they were pretty happy with the room

 

Cheers

 

some photos of the layout

 

That mirror is in the perfect spot for first reflections

[Steffen]

9 minutes ago, Stereophilus said:

That mirror is in the perfect spot for first reflections

 

I think it’s a little too high for that. A mirror in a first reflection spot would show you a speaker when viewed from the listening position.

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by Steffen

[Stereophilus]

1 hour ago, Steffen said:

 

I think it’s a little too high for that. A mirror in a first reflection spot would show you a speaker when viewed from the listening position.

 

 

 

Yeah, i was just trying to be a smart ar*e.

 

@Ittaku One thing i would say about building your own room is that builders/tradies tend to operate best off a visual of what you want.

 

Just show them this:

 

[Ittaku]

4 minutes ago, Stereophilus said:

Yeah, i was just trying to be a smart ar*e.

 

@Ittaku One thing i would say about building your own room is that builders/tradies tend to operate best off a visual of what you want.

 

Just show them this:

 

Good idea. That pic even has the amps I'm thinking of (or at least their precursor.)

[andyr]

6 hours ago, Ittaku said:

There sure is a recurring theme here about big. A 16Hz wavelength in air at 20 degrees is 21.45 metres. Hrm...

 

I thought it's a fallacy that you can't reproduce a 16Hz note in a room which is less than 21.45m long?

 

Andy

 

[Ittaku]

3 minutes ago, andyr said:

 

I thought it's a fallacy that you can't reproduce a 16Hz note in a room which is less than 21.45m long?

 

We'll, you and I both know that's bollocks, but if I make my room 22m long there'll be no doubt.

[andyr]

6 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

We'll, you and I both know that's bollocks, but if I make my room 22m long there'll be no doubt.

 

OK, well next time you come over, I will play a 'test track' filler on one of my organ LPs - which has a recording of a 16Hz, 12Hz and 8Hz (64' pipe!) note.   (You can see the poor cantilever wiggling like its about to fly off!   )

 

I certainly can't hear the 12Hz & 8Hz notes but I do hear something when the 16Hz note is playing.

 

Andy

 

[Ittaku]

1 hour ago, andyr said:

OK, well next time you come over, I will play a 'test track' filler on one of my organ LPs - which has a recording of a 16Hz, 12Hz and 8Hz (64' pipe!) note.   (You can see the poor cantilever wiggling like its about to fly off!   )

 

I certainly can't hear the 12Hz & 8Hz notes but I do hear something when the 16Hz note is playing.

Yep, we've talked about this before. There's a definitely "pulsing" of the air that you hear and feel with the Organ's 16Hz notes, even in my meagre 5m long room.

[andyr]

1 minute ago, Ittaku said:

Yep, we've talked about this before. There's a definitely "pulsing" of the air that you hear and feel with the Organ's 16Hz notes, even in my meagre 5m long room.

 

Mine - at 5.7m wide - is not much less 'meagre'.  

 

If your statement that the dimensions of a room must encompass a wavelength ... this would mean I shouldn't be able to hear less than a 60Hz note in my room?  But I can ... unless I'm actually hearing harmonics of the note and my brain is fooled into thinking I'm hearing the note itself?

 

Curiouser and curiouser!  

 

Andy

 

[Ittaku]

Just now, andyr said:

Mine - at 5.7m wide - is not much less 'meagre'.  

 

If your statement that the dimensions of a room must encompass a wavelength ... this would mean I shouldn't be able to hear less than a 60Hz note in my room?  But I can ... unless I'm actually hearing harmonics of the note and my brain is fooled into thinking I'm hearing the note itself?

 

Curiouser and curiouser!  

Quite sure as I said earlier, this premise that the room needs to be big enough is bollocks. Sure it makes for wild amplitude fluctuations at the low end of the scale, but that doesn't mean they don't exist at all.

[andyr]

1 minute ago, Ittaku said:

Quite sure as I said earlier, this premise that the room needs to be big enough is bollocks. Sure it makes for wild amplitude fluctuations at the low end of the scale, but that doesn't mean they don't exist at all.

 

Hah - sorry, Con ... I had interpreted what you wrote as the opposite of what you intended! 

 

Andy

 

[Steam]

no parallel walls or surfaces
 

Edited January 3, 2021 by Steam

[Steffen]

30 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Quite sure as I said earlier, this premise that the room needs to be big enough is bollocks. Sure it makes for wild amplitude fluctuations at the low end of the scale, but that doesn't mean they don't exist at all.

 

On that note, what is the lowest tone an IEM can produce in an ear canal?

 

Yes, it’s obviously bollocks, but you need a room of at least 1/2 wavelength in one dimension to sustain a standing wave (as if anybody wants those). Anything below the Schröder frequency of a room will simply pump it, rather than sending sound “rays” reflecting off walls. As far as the eardrums are concerned, there is no difference.

 

[awayward]

14 minutes ago, Steam said:

no parallel walls or surfaces
 

Or PS Audio’s recent music room build