The Perfect Room: Spaces

[mikebake]

While the room is as important as the equipment... we almost always ignore it because it is the most difficult to contend with.

That could be the next thread; "Perfect Room? Let's hear your vote!


Widget

I've listened to gear in alot of different spaces; the first thing to emerge is that bigger has usually been better than smaller. Even with smaller systems, they can be backed up to wall, subs (if involved) placed similarly, and the listener sitting in the proper distance. Even if the room is huge, the results can be good, and better than in the all too familiar "too-small" or problem room.

Problem rooms seem to be more common than not. My personal experience is that in homes/apartments/dwellings, 90+ percent are problem rooms. My brain has always registered the acoustic properties of the space I am in, and I have been aware of it since at least my early teens. I've walked into some spaces and immediately sensed a good balance in the acoustic environment.

I remember a fairly large living room in a high-end late 50's ranch; heavy carpet and drapes, etc. Lots of room for bass to develop. Exceptional room. The guy happened to have Mac and JBL, too, but we all dragged our gear over and it was a good room.

Plus, in larger rooms, and I have tried to expound on this before, with the vast majority of speakers that have their sweet spot/range of SPL, you can turn up the volume to where the speakers sound best, then move yourself accordingly so the SPL is where you like it. i.e. instead of the speaker averaging 85db at your 2.5 meter listening position, you can crank it a bit and have 85db at your 5.5 meter position; same measured db but generally quite a difference, as you are feeding more power into the room and the speaker may simply sound better playing with some juice into it.

When I enter a space with live music, I always inherently move to the room position where my ears and brain tell me the best sound will be. This is mostly amounts to the SPL/dynamics I want to hear, and a ratio of direct to reflected sound I prefer. I'm more of a fourth row guy, or a stool on the corner of the bar with a good shot of the band, than a balcony guy.
OTOH, if I can't find a spot in a club where it isn't too loud, I just leave.

Back to home audio. Spaces I have found exceptional sound over the years (and I've had systems in some pretty different places) include a large acoustically treated theater/auditorium, a church (was not echo-ey), a small den, an open basement living room, outdoors on a wood deck with boundary reinforcement.........
The common denominators included size (usually), absorption/reflection ratios, solid construction, good boundary reinforcement oppotunities, luck, and some good beer or wine. Back in the day, some rightous herb and a tar paper shack were sufficient space for the Mahavishnu Orchestra to transport one.............
Let's see some room photos of some rooms you folks believe have good sound, or some stories of good spaces and what you believe made them good.

[Mr. Widget]

While I was being a bit tongue in cheek when I proposed this subject... you are right to bring it up. The room should be considered a component in our audio playback chain.

My room is a barn with curtains around the perimeter to help control the RT60 ... it is OK, but not really worthy of comment. Anyone have any really good rooms?


Widget

[morbo!]

a high ceiling?

I just measured up
this gotta be bad

H 12ft , L 12ft, D 12ft

omg it`s a perfect box

well at least i have as bigass window right behind me
with plenty of dampining over it

nowonder my neibour`s house is empty
every time there is a buyer looking at it i turn this room into a gaint speaker!
anyone know how to tune a window for maxium neibour anoyance?


I think if this house has any redeeming quality`s it`s the 12 to 16 foot ceilings through out

[mikebake]

High, and particularly slanted, ceilings seem to be one of the better things a room can have. I have a small living room, but with a rather high ceiling, and it is decent, but I do not keep a system in there, other than one for background music which fires out of the loft on one side. The large glass expanse is problematic if undraped.

[johnaec]

My room is a barn with curtains around the perimeter to help control the RT60 ... it is OK, but not really worthy of comment.

I don't know, Widget - I think you've got one of the sonically nicest rooms I've ever had the pleasure of hearing good speakers in!

John

[mikebake]

While I was being a bit tongue in cheek when I proposed this subject... you are right to bring it up. The room should be considered a component in our audio playback chain.

My room is a barn with curtains around the perimeter to help control the RT60 ... it is OK, but not really worthy of comment. Anyone have any really good rooms?


Widget

Rough dimensions?

[Fred Sanford]

Jim D'Addario, of D'Addario guitar strings, owns a house that is built off of the chapel from one of the Morgan family estates. The choir loft is his office, and the church his living room, with guitars and a grand piano on the altar area. I just love working up in the loft (we installed his home AV system) and hearing his caretaker pick up an acoustic & play down in the chapel. No, we don't have speakers in the church itself, just the loft. Nice room, though.

je

[Mr. Widget]

I don't know, Widget - I think you've got one of the sonically nicest rooms I've ever had the pleasure of hearing good speakers in!

You are far too generous... but thanks, it does sound much better after I picked the best spot for the couch, speakers, and moderate room treatment.

Rough dimensions?

Rough? The ceiling height is 10' 3".


Widget

[Bob Womack]

Can't top that, but my living room's dimensions are 30' long by 13' deep, with the speakers on the outside long wall. The room has a cathedral ceiling that starts at 10' at the outside long wall above the speakers and slants up to 18' on the back wall. That means the room can support down to 20hz.

Bob

[Titanium Dome]

Ralph Hodges wrote in Stereo Review many years ago about his "yellow room." The room fascinated him because it wasn't regular. The ceiling rose a bit from one end to the other, the long sides weren't parallel, one end was wider. He was in a state of ongoing exploration with the room because it held the promise of giving him the best listening environment, and, on occasion, it seemed nearly perfect.

Someone with an old copy of Stereo Review might find the original article to see if my memory is as good as my recollection. I'm certain the article was entitled "The Yellow Room," and it obviously struck a chord with me.

I've never been happy with a regular room since. Just before coming to CA, I was constructing a room in MI that embodied some of these deliberate oddities. I went back to MI to finish it before selling the farm to stay permanently in CA. Even empty it had a wonderful sound.

[mikebake]

I remember that Yellow Room article, too.

[speakerdave]

. . . . sufficient space for the Mahavishnu Orchestra . . . .

Ah, yes. That was a room. Inner Mounting Flame, Birds of Fire, even the Sri Chinmoy albums, Love Devotion Surrender with Carlos Santana and the John Coltrane tunes, and My Goal's Beyond, the acoustic album--you can still hear the music playing through the sanctimonious fog. They all still get their turn.

David

[Steve Schell]

Great topic. I think the best listening environment is outdoors, at least if circumstances are right. Rooms are evil in what they do to the sound of our speakers, and it is truly a revelation to hear what a system can sound like when it is not sabotaged by the room it is in.

There is a lot of hocus pocus surrounding the subject of room dimensions and bass response. I have found that very good 20Hz. bass is possible in small spaces as long as the boundaries are lossy enough to let most of the extreme l.f. energy escape rather than recycling it. This does require a system with genuinely extended response, like a big bass horn, that is not overly dependent on room gain. Due to cheapo frame construction I have solid, palpable 20Hz. response in my room, and the neighbors get to enjoy it too! I have also heard very good low bass in small bedrooms, where the speakers are able to pressurize the entire room volume like a boom boom car stereo.

Smaller rooms like my current 14' by 17' space need a lot of room treatment to keep from sounding horrible. I have about 170 square feet of 6" thick R-19 fiberglass and about 228 square feet 1 1/2" thick compressed fiberglass in my room at present. This stuff is installed into movable frames which cover most of the wall surfaces and bass trap the corners diagonally. As a room grows larger the need for treatment becomes less acute, but is always necessary to at least tame slap echo. Basically I am trying to maximize the ratio of direct to reverberant sound at the listening chair and kill off the reverberant field in as broadband a manner as possible.

One thing that is nice about a larger room is that it is possible to begin to create the illusion of a large symphony orchestra in size as well as in timbre. One friend has a space about 20' by 30' with a peaked ceiling. It sounds quite good even without much treatment, and his big horn system does a believable job of orchestral scale.

Widget's arrangement looks nice! With no nearby walls, closely timed refections are avoided and his system should image like crazy.

I suppose the perfect room for me would be the one that would let my system sound like it does in my back yard. I'm a long way from this goal.

[mikebake]

Hi Steve
I agree with your lossy room idea. And I have been a porponent of outdoor listening on this forum for eons, but neve with much sympathy. If you take "regular" speakers outdoors and give them a back wall to reinforce the bass, it's generally quite good.

[Hoerninger]

... And I have been a porponent of outdoor listening on this forum for eons, but neve with much sympathy...

Yes, it's great to listen outside.
a) I remember,when I used a backloaded horn - not mine - in the garden. Bass tones poured out like clean bubbles.
b) Simple open baffle design with a cheap speaker (QTS> 1) and some bass boost made Glenn Miller very present. (Garden work was much easier )
____________
Peter

P.S: Unfortunately I do not have good sounding weatherproof speakers.