New Listening room setup

[GregLett]

My new room will be 10 x 14 x 6 w/L/H. The front, left and right walls
are cement walls, this is in a basement. The back wall will be sheet rack
(not built yet). The ceiling is unfinished, I'm thinking about leaving it that
way. The space between the floor joist kind of gives the room some more
height. I can also put treatment between them.

I will post pics of my progress when I get my home computer online of.
I will also be in need of advice for various room treatments, and how to
measure room response yada yada yada.

[GregLett]

Is there some tool one would use to measure rome response?
How in the world do you know how much treatment you need,
Do you just listen?
__________________
Greg.

[Kal Rubinson]

Room EQ Wizard - freeware

Kal

[GregLett]

Thanks Kal.

[GSedun]

Hello Greg/Kal - I have just purchased a home with a 16 x 13 x 9 LWH heated room in the basement that I want to turn into a listening room. It has no windows and concrete walls on one side and one end, sheet rock one the other side and the final wall not yet built. Are there any tools online for designing a space like this? How do recommend I proceed?

Regards

Garry

[Chris D]

Hey, Garry, congrats! You've got a LOT of research ahead of you. Check out this forum and others, read up, and plan, plan, plan. Everything you could ever want to know is out there, but there's too much to just be handed straightforward.

Enjoy the journey, though, it's great!

[GSedun]

Thanks Chris - one thing I wanted to investigate right off the bat is this idea of making non-parallel walls to minimize modes, but I read in one guys design that this can cause other problems, which he didn't elaborate on - any ideas on what these problems might be?

regards

Garry

[Chris D]

Well, yeah, right off the bat you're getting into advanced acoustics. No problem with that, but it's stuff that gets over even my head. I've found that educating myself really helps make the right decisions and filter out the good ideas from the crap, but sometimes with concepts like that, I just have to accept the experts' opinions.

One thought is, talk to a theater designer? Dennis Erskine of Design Cinema Privee' designed my theater professionally.

[RobP]

Another good resource is Rives Audio, they have different levels of design packages they offer depending on your level of commitment to the build process.

Rivesaudio.com

[GregLett]

Can't wait till I start, with all this measuring stuff I still don't have a working computer connection at home so I can't post pics yet
Just framed out my back wall.

[GregLett]

Work in progress.

[dyazdani]

Cool!

[GregLett]

Still working on it.

At least I have sound now. Better get the door installed next

[RobP]

Looks like you have a little help there. :T

[GregLett]

Oh yea

[GregLett]

Room EQ Wizard - freeware

Kal

Kal,

For this software:
1. Could I use the Mike that comes with the PC?
2. Should I use an SPL meter?

Thanks.

[GregLett]

some more pics. Still have to get a rack, new amp and new interconnects.

[fauzigarib]

Room EQ Wizard

GregLett,

RoomEQ Wizard is a fantastic piece of freeware available from www.hometheatershack.com. Yes, you will need an SPL meter, preferably one with an output that you can plug into your pc to get automatic readings. You will also need a barely decent full duplex sound card. The out to send test tones / pink noise to your system, and the in to measure the SPL levels of the same.

So, once you have the software set up (which is not that intuitive, but the help files are fantastic), it is very easy to get a frequency response mapping of your system onto your computer. From that, you can know what ranges of frequencies end up giving you the most trouble, and thus, how to go about treating your room.

The other WONDERFUL thing about this software is that it also shows you your system's response in the time domain too. For example, you may have an issue with the bass response in your system, because at certain frequencies, the resonations in your room may cause the decay times of that frequency to be longer than it should, crowding out other sounds at the same time.

So not only will REW show you that graphically, it will also connect to certain parametric equalizers (namely Behringer's Feedback Destroyer Pro), and directly communicate the filter settings to control the troubling frequencies.

Do check out the forums at www. hometheathershack.com... they really are very helpful... and they have tons of useful downloads.

I really wish that we could have more of these discussions here. Aside from being very interesting, they let us learn so much!

Good luck.

Fauzi

[GregLett]

Added some room treatments, and moved things around a bit. The treatment really made a difference with the imagining. I still want to add some treatments at the side of the speakers. I'll need help to do the mirror trick, so I'll do that in a few

[GregLett]

Covering Walls

What should I cover the walls with, Sheet Rock (dry wall) or wood, the tongue and grove stuff?

[RobP]

Hmmm,

Since you already have what seems to be concrete walls, tongue and groove walls would be really nice, I have a room that I did with horizontally hung tongue and groove cedar and it looks really nice. This project would be interesting, I could see where you could integrate some wood diffusers into the walls and have it all blend nicely.

What size is your room Greg?

[GregLett]

Hmmm,

Since you already have what seems to be concrete walls, tongue and groove walls would be really nice, I have a room that I did with horizontally hung tongue and groove cedar and it looks really nice. This project would be interesting, I could see where you could integrate some wood diffusers into the walls and have it all blend nicely.

What size is your room Greg?

Soundgravy,

The room is 10w X14L x 7H. hat was one of the reasons for me leaving it uncovered. The wife is complaining of the sound going up into the master bedroom (right above my room), so I have to finish the ceiling and I figure why not just finish the whole thing off, and take the cement walls (you are correct) out of the equation.

I'm all eyes here. pics of wood diffusers?

[GregLett]

Its 11x14 just checked again.

[RobP]

Hey Greg,

Sorry for the delay in my response, been swamped with work here lately.

If you are having problems with sound transmission through the ceiling I would stuff a heavy insulation in between the floor joist and hang a double layer of drywall on the ceiling. That will really help on the transmission of sound through the floor, It will not stop it all together, but it will reduce it.
Also, if you have ductwork that connects your listening room to the rest of the house, you will have transmission through that as well, Owens corning makes a quiet duct material that greatly reduces this problem.

As far as the diffusers go, it looks as if you are already using some shutters to act as diffusers, here are some pics of some that you could build yourself. I plan on building some soon and experimenting with them, I am going to try them at my first reflection points along with the absorption panels that I currently have.

[GregLett]

Thanks. I plan doing something to the ceiling. I thought about using the tongue and groove for the ceiling also, and put some sound absorption materials between the joist.