The perfect room on a nothing budget

[aevans]

I'm planing on adding onto my house in the next year to make a toy room for myself.

The idea is to move my 2 channel setup (no sub), a projector and a 120 inch screen, 3 chairs and thats it. Given those assumptions, what size should the room be, should the equipment be placed on the long side, or the short side of the room.. any ideas for dirt cheap wall treatments, I was thinking about maybe strips of carpet on the walls, kind of like elvis's setup.. not sure how that would work though and I know the wife would hate it.

Ideas and other thoughts are welcome

[O'Shag]

Diffusors and such will make a difference. I'm the sort that tries to find an inexpensive solution to these things. But in this case, I would say, best to try and get by without any treatments to begin with. Save the money, and then do a decent job with materials that don't look dodgy. Pictures can be a good way to diffuse sound waves, but used exclusively will have limitations. Another alternative is to build your own sound absorbtion panels (although thats not quite the same as diffusors). If you look for one, there's probably an office surplus warehouse somewhere in your vicinity. You'll notice on a lot of 80s/90s cubicle desks that they use a form of material panel, which can be taken and used very effectively for your application. Many are in shoddy condition though, so you'll need to apply some fresh material over the panel. a friend of mine did this and the results were very good.

[filecat13]

You'll notice on a lot of 80s/90s cubicle desks that they use a form of material panel, which can be taken and used very effectively for your application. Many are in shoddy condition though, so you'll need to apply some fresh material over the panel. a friend of mine did this and the results were very good.

Good suggestion and one I've tried. Lots of used office panels in LA, for sure.

Since the room is to be added, I'd suggest you look at some of the "magic" (or Golden) ratios for avoiding the worst room modes.

http://forum.studiotips.com/viewtopic.php?p=5570

http://www.alexandermagazine.com/recordingeq/weeklytip/06tip12-1b.asp

http://www.marktaw.com/recording/Acoustics/RoomModeStandingWaveCalcu.html

My personal recommendation would be to build an irregular room that somewhat approximates the recommended size and shape of the best regular rooms. However, consider the possibilities if

a) the room is wider in the back than at the front (or vice-versa)

b) the ceiling rises toward the front (or vice-versa)

c) there are few (if any) parallel surfaces in the room

A little research will go a long way to illuminate these issues. Since you're starting with a clean slate, you have a chance to design something that is far better than a room that's all parallel walls and parallel ceiling and floor, all connected at right angles.

Uh-huh! :ihih:

[O'Shag]

Filecat,

I also like JBLs a lot, and you have quite a collection, and some are very nice indeed! Have you ever seen the chick flick Mannequin? I'm ashamed to admit it but I like that movie. The 80s wasmy 'prime time' as a young man if you will. In that movie, there is a scene where Andrey McCarthy and whatsername dance to a wall completely filled with JBL speakers. My mate has three pairs of Hartsfields, and several of the main studio models, including the 4350.

If your in LA, perhaps we can get together for a few pints.

[aevans]

Thanks for the links file cat, I've got some reading to do.

[filecat13]

The last place I lived, I had a suspended floor for the HT. I was told (honestly, I think, but maybe the contractor just saw me as a sucker) that it was the way to go to get the full impact of the audio. I sure could get that floor shaking and vibrating when the LFE stuff really kicked in.

However, I began to wonder about unwanted harmonics and resonances. I think the floor was damped in some way to reduce this, and it was set to a resonant frequency of 84Hz and damped at 42Hz and 168Hz or something like that (or maybe this was all bu!!$#it).

Anyway, my current HT is in the bottom level of the house, as a kind of walk out in the side of a hill. I had concrete floors poured in both the music room and HT. This really tightened up the LF sound quite a bit and resulted in a much better audio experience for me. I can have a higher output if I desire without the resultant harmonic vibrations that I used to mistake for "punchy, deep bass." I still get the visceral whack in the chest and the kick in the butt when the LF hits me and the chair, but it's also tighter, immediate, and controlled.

Three of the four walls are concrete as well, and the remaining wall is closely braced and insulated, while the ceiling is broken up, vaulted, and reinforced. It's not as exotic as it sounds; it's basically divided into four quadrants.

An extended low frequency rumble still animates the wall and ceiling a bit for that good vibration feeling of the house about to cave in. :)

Since I did this, I noticed that all cinemas I visit have concrete floors, probably more for code and economic considerations than anything else. Nevertheless, if it were really important to have wooden floors for the ultimate in sound, some of the high end movie houses here in LA would no doubt have leveraged this into a competitive advantage.

[aevans]

This is the general idea so far, there are a lot of things that are not going to be possible on low budget, like strange angled walls and that type of stuff, so I'm sticking with the basics:

24'x30'x8'

here is a mockup I did quickly in google sketch up:

[aevans]

Change of plans, my initial knee jerk of shooting down strange angles was because I thought that no two walls would be parallel and I just could not rap my mind around how that would work durring construction. After reviewing the Cardas informaion on the golden trapagon it makes much more sense now as the front and back walls are normal, just the side walls and roof are angled.

Any way here is a new rough mockup, I stuck a front porch on it as based on this new info the room will be detached as I can't fit the roofline into my existing structure, and everything in louisiana needs a front porch.

[filecat13]

Change of plans, my initial knee jerk of shooting down strange angles was because I thought that no two walls would be parallel and I just could not rap my mind around how that would work durring construction. After reviewing the Cardas informaion on the golden trapagon it makes much more sense now as the front and back walls are normal, just the side walls and roof are angled.

Any way here is a new rough mockup, I stuck a front porch on it as based on this new info the room will be detached as I can't fit the roofline into my existing structure, and everything in louisiana needs a front porch.

Now that's what I'm talking about! And a porch, too! The little lady can sit out there listening at "woman-sensible" levels while you "destroy your hearing" inside.

[aevans]

I'm considering putting barn doors on the front porch so I use it as a party pad as well.. I'll just need to put the expensive stuff on rollers so I can push them to the side when the party gets going. I'm going to try and get some bids this month on the foundation pouring.. if it's not too much I can get that done in the next two months.. then it's time to start searching for lumber.