Need a recommendation for room builder

tony22

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Nov 4, 2019
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In Central Florida. Preferably a licensed and insured interior construction and remodeling outfit that knows how to do acoustic space design. Thanks.
 

Duke LeJeune

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If the results matter (and presumably they do), then the "acoustic space design" part calls for an acoustician. You are unlikely to find a contractor who is also an acoustician.

So I suggest engaging an acoustician, who will work with you and with the contractor to deliver the results you want.

I highly recommend Jeff Hedback of Hedback Designed Acoustics. His recording studio designs have won multiple awards, and he does excellent home audio rooms as well, either from the ground up or as an adaptation of an existing space.

He works remotely, from his home near Indianapolis.
 
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ddk

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May 18, 2013
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If the results matter (and presumably they do), then the "acoustic space design" part calls for an acoustician. You are unlikely to find a contractor who is also an acoustician.

So I suggest engaging an acoustician, who will work with you and with the contractor to deliver the results you want.

I highly recommend Jeff Hedback of Hedback Designed Acoustics. His recording studio designs have won multiple awards, and he does excellent home audio rooms as well, either from the ground up or as an adaptation of an existing space.

He works remotely, from his home near Indianapolis.

I don't know about him Duke, look at his projects all of them including the few listening rooms seem to be tampon centric, not a good sign IME. It's very difficult to find a good acousticians most of the acoustician designed rooms I visit I end up removing or negating what was done by the so called expert. This is really a very grey area and most of them are clueless. You're right about the average contractor knowing anything about listening room acoustics, not their job to design one.

david
 
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gestalt

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Aug 3, 2019
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I don't know about him Duke, look at his projects all of them including the few listening rooms seem to be tampon centric, not a good sign IME. It's very difficult to find a good acousticians most of the acoustician designed rooms I visit I end up removing or negating what was done by the so called expert. This is really a very grey area and most of them are clueless. You're right about the average contractor knowing anything about listening room acoustics, not their job to design one.

david
Anecdotally, I agree with this. I have access to a wealth of designers that build professional studios by virtue of being in Nashville and had particularly poor results when contracting one to design a room specifically for playback. I'm sure it's possible but my experience was a disaster.
 

Alrainbow

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Dec 11, 2013
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Do you have Speakers picked out ? To me it’s first then make room for them. if you mentioned them I’m sorry I did not see it
 

tony22

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Sorry Al. It’s been mentioned in other threads - Von Schweikert Endeavor SE’s.
 

Duke LeJeune

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It's very difficult to find a good acousticians most of the acoustician designed rooms visit I end up removing or negating what was done by the so called expert.

I totally get what you mean! And I think Jeff would agree with you. In my experience he uses no more absorption than necessary; some of what look like absorptive panels in those images are probably diffusion.

From an article he wrote:

"I recently did an acoustic make-over of a room (17’x18’x10?) that was nearly all absorptive on the walls and had some less effective one-dimensional diffusors on the ceiling. I re-appropriated his absorptive panels from walls to 20% coverage of ceiling (evenly spread), and other than very select absorption zones, used a quality QRD [Quadradic Residue Diffusor] type diffusor to clean up hot spots on the vertical walls. We also added a bamboo floor and placed the lesser effective diffusors surrounding the window. We created a very cohesive, bright, yet controlled tracking room just by locating diffusion on the walls in relation to each other and accounting for the manner that sound would propagate in the room." [emphasis Duke's]

Jeff is not a "one size fits all" acoustician. He and I are working on a big studio project together right now and the radiation pattern of the horn speakers is one of the things he and I communicate about. I changed horns at one point, and he re-ran his calculations accordingly... "accounting for the manner that sound would propagate in the room."

Jeff actually has a pair of my (prosound) horn speakers in his living room, so he's familiar with the genre.

Two things have stood out to me about Jeff's rooms that I have been in: You can hear deeper into the recording (and into the equipment) than normal, and listening with eyes closed the room sounds about twice as big as it really is. I had never really experienced that before, at least not to such an extent. That latter characteristic makes his contribution extremely cost-effective, relative to the cost of actually building a room twice as big.
 
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tony22

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Oh wow love there speakers they were great at capital fest last year

Yes, I liked them so much when I heard them there that I bought the very same show demo pair. :cool: That awesome color was just an added bonus. ;):)
 

tony22

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Someone else recommended Norm Varney of A/V Roomservice.
 

Folsom

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When it comes to absorption I’m all about it inside the walls, so you keep noise from bothering others or noise from coming in. Sandwich walls on the outside of the room would be fine, but I wouldn’t bother on the inside.

To date I have yet to hear a highly treated space make up for the lack of the stereo sounding right. My general impression is that not having a small room is the best situation. Once you have that, then you’re mostly good to go.
 

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