Getting Good Sound From “Regular” Rooms

[Mike Lavigne]

22-30 years ago (1995-2003) i had really excellent sound in a regular room.

why did it sound good? it had advantages going in.
1--10.5 feet tall with a stepped ceiling.
2--it was a den with bookcases in the rear, wood paneling, and a bay window. so built in complimentary features. zero painted surfaces except for the ceiling. on the negative side it did have double glass doors and lots of windows.
3.--it was a rambler with a peaked roof above, and suspended wood floor, which i did pour slabs in the crawl space and had support added to the floor to remove the flex under the speakers and my gear. so footfalls were not an issue.

of course, it did have some quite amazing gear too. it likely required 7-8 years in my new dedicated room before it surpassed this old regular room for performance on intimate music. then later the new room has gone quite a ways past this 'regular room'. but still this old room was quite special sounding.....even prior to adding some low level acoustical treatments. it sounded good the first day i listened in it. and prior to moving my gear in, we had a piano in there that sounded good.

 

[PeterA]

I guess we need to agree on what a “regular” room is. In my mind, it’s a place where “regular” friends are entertained, and where wives feel welcome unaccompanied! In my mind, stealth treatments are definitely in the mix.

FWIW, the reason I started this thread is my wife and I are in the market looking for a new house. Along with a bunch of “must haves” is the potential for a good sounding but “regular” listening room. He hasn’t chimed in, but Jeff’s listening room is a terrific example of my ideal room.

Jeff's New Music Room, the Return of Jeffrey_t

Hello All! Due to some welcome and overdue forum changes, I'm happy to return and share my new music room and system. I'll be using my Audiogon user name going forward. Over the last year I built a dedicated room on my property, my last room was a converted garage. This room has the following...

www.whatsbestforum.com

Jeff's rooms looks great. I visited him once when his system was in his converted garage. This new room was a great project and looks fabulous, but it is not the family's living room. It is a dedicated room in the back of the house for music listening, from what I understand. I would love to hear that new system in his new room one day. Great aesthetic, and very comfortable looking.

 

[John T]

Peter, can you tell us about the wood planks and how they affect the sound in your room? I have some idea about the one in front of the fireplace since I have experimented with various objects in the middle of the wall behind the speakers, but I am especially curious about the ones on the side of the fireplace.

I'm not sure if this is helpful with your question; To the right you can see the left shoulder of the fireplace. I have brick and wood meeting together. When I was setting up the sub stack on that right side it correlated a lot differently then the left I assume because of the density of the brick. It being a Log Home the wood/height works well. Beautiful acoustics in the room which I attribute to the wood (6" thick logs) and the open space/height. No treatment...Hope this helps...

 

[Tangram]

22-30 years ago i had really excellent sound in a regular room.

why did it sound good? it had advantages going in.
1--10.5 feet tall with a stepped ceiling.
2--it was a den with bookcases in the rear, wood paneling, and a bay window. so built in complimentary features. zero painted surfaces except for the ceiling. on the negative side it did have double glass doors and lots of windows.

of course, it did have some quite amazing gear too. it likely required 7-8 years in my new dedicated room before it surpassed this old regular room for performance on intimate music. then later the new room has gone quite a ways past this 'regular room'. but still this old room was quite special sounding.....even prior to adding some low level acoustical treatments. it sounded good the first day i listened in it. and prior to moving my gear in, we had a piano in there that sounded good.

View attachment 136548
View attachment 136549

Thanks for chiming in Mike. Given how high you set the sound “bar” , that’ very encouraging.

 

[Tangram]

Jeff's rooms looks great. I visited him once when his system was in his converted garage. This new room was a great project and looks fabulous, but it is not the family's living room. It is a dedicated room in the back of the house for music listening, from what I understand. I would love to hear that new system in his new room one day. Great aesthetic, and very comfortable looking.

Fair point Peter. I absolutely love the aesthetic of that room.

 

[Tangram]

I'm not sure if this is helpful with your question; To the right you can see the left shoulder of the fireplace. I have brick and wood meeting together. When I was setting up the sub stack on that right side it correlated a lot differently then the left I assume because of the density of the brick. It being a Log Home the wood/height works well. Beautiful acoustics in the room which I attribute to the wood (6" thick logs) and the open space/height. No treatment...Hope this helps...

How’s the sound. I’ve often thought the surfaces in a log home would work well acoustically.

 

[John T]

How’s the sound. I’ve often thought the surfaces in a log home would work well acoustically.

It does work well. Not sure as to the physics involved with how wood absorbs? A friend of mine came over for a visit and she is a singer. First time here and when she walked in she said "I just have to" caught me off guard as I was thinking of something else. But she broke out in song and started singing because she realized the acoustics would be good...

 

[PeterA]

Peter, can you tell us about the wood planks and how they affect the sound in your room? I have some idea about the one in front of the fireplace since I have experimented with various objects in the middle of the wall behind the speakers, but I am especially curious about the ones on the side of the fireplace.

Hi Salectric. Yes, the planks are an attempt to reduce the effect of the enclosure around the protruding fireplace. The room walls are thick heavy horse hair plaster from the late 1700's. The fireplace surround is newer lightweight sheetrock over thin pine studs, 16" on center. The sound in those corners is muffled and the wood planks reflect sound away from the hollow sounding sheetrock. The planks are different species, different widths and lengths. I used to have more in other locations, but with better speaker positioning, I found that I do not need them. They are still a work in progress. Eventually, I plan to remove the sheetrock and create a more permanent and aesthetically pleasing result.

The sonic effect is a more coherent, clearer sound, better tone and more focus. People laugh and think it is a crazy, nutty approach, but it works and is one approach to address the issues created by the fireplace. David Karmeli introduced me to this solution and I have seen it work successfully in other rooms. Wood is a very interesting material. The idea is to manage the energy in the room without killing it, not to absorb it which will rob the presentation of information that is on the recording.

 

[Salectric]

Great description @PeterA. Thank you.

 

[analogsa]

Not sure as to the physics involved with how wood absorbs?

It hardly absorbs anything below a few kHz. Not necessarily a problem. The choice of a good speaker/listener position can sort out many room issues.

 

[John T]

It hardly absorbs anything below a few kHz. Not necessarily a problem. The choice of a good speaker/listener position can sort out many room issues.

Poor choice of word; Integration, Reaction, deflects, physical nature of wood vs something else, agreed, absorption not the best sonically approved choice of wording...

 

[Holmz]

It does work well. Not sure as to the physics involved with how wood absorbs?

It might be more along the lines of irregular surface that produces diffusion or scattering.

A friend of mine came over for a visit and she is a singer. First time here and when she walked in she said "I just have to" caught me off guard as I was thinking of something else. But she broke out in song and started singing because she realized the acoustics would be good...

That sound like it would be better than using a recording. I suspected it sounded live and real

 

[bcurtis1959]

My example of surprisingly good sound in a room that at first glance should not work. I have the PSI AAVA C214 in each corner that you must look hard to see. I place the 4 sound absorbing panels along the large window that are stored in a nearby closet when not in use.

 

[Holmz]

My example of surprisingly good sound in a room that at first glance should not work. I have the PSI AAVA C214 in each corner that you must look hard to see. I place the 4 sound absorbing panels along the large window that are stored in a nearby closet when not in use. View attachment 136575

That is a couple of nice looking woofers in the other attached photo.

 

[ssfas]

Loads of great information along with inspiring photos. I really like the idea of “stealth” acoustics treatment even if it involves ripping everything back to the bricks/studs.

ssfas, I assume the acoustic glass is in place to reduce sound transmission in and out of the room, and that other than helping to lower the noise floor, its reflectivity is the same as normal glass? Also, did you use acoustic glass on the windows in addition to the door leading into the room?

The acoustic glass is in the windows behind the speakers facing onto the road. We live in a quiet road, but it means I can’t hear any vehicles going past.

The bifold doors behind the seating position also contain acoustic glass. This is a slightly lower specification because otherwise they would be too heavy. And it’s not really necessary for internal doors. Strangely, the sound is better with the doors closed, as I was getting some booming with those doors open and sound reflecting off other large windows about 60ft away from the speakers.

When the bifold doors were made about 20 years ago, they gave me a bit of a problem because my cabinet maker is a perfectionist and got the factory to supply the glass without kite marks, which he considers ugly. Building Control came along to expect the building work and wouldn’t sign off because without the kite marks there was no proof that the glass was safe. So we had to go back to the factory, I think in Germany, to get a safety certificate, which they were reluctant to do because they sent the glass out a few months earlier.

There are numerous different glass specifications. We had to put in some fire rated glass doors to separate the ground floor and first floor of the house. This was part of the safety regulations and we could not use regular glass, which is a lot cheaper. It turns out that this glass is incredibly effective at stopping any noise going out of the music room and upstairs. For these doors, the difference in price between normal glass and fire rated glass was about $3000, and that was a special price.

 

[Tangram]

The acoustic glass is in the windows behind the speakers facing onto the road. We live in a quiet road, but it means I can’t hear any vehicles going past.

The bifold doors behind the seating position also contain acoustic glass. This is a slightly lower specification because otherwise they would be too heavy. And it’s not really necessary for internal doors. Strangely, the sound is better with the doors closed, as I was getting some booming with those doors open and sound reflecting off other large windows about 60ft away from the speakers.

When the bifold doors were made about 20 years ago, they gave me a bit of a problem because my cabinet maker is a perfectionist and got the factory to supply the glass without kite marks, which he considers ugly. Building Control came along to expect the building work and wouldn’t sign off because without the kite marks there was no proof that the glass was safe. So we had to go back to the factory, I think in Germany, to get a safety certificate, which they were reluctant to do because they sent the glass out a few months earlier.

There are numerous different glass specifications. We had to put in some fire rated glass doors to separate the ground floor and first floor of the house. This was part of the safety regulations and we could not use regular glass, which is a lot cheaper. It turns out that this glass is incredibly effective at stopping any noise going out of the music room and upstairs. For these doors, the difference in price between normal glass and fire rated glass was about $3000, and that was a special price.View attachment 136583

Great information. Thanks very much.

 

[Tangram]

My example of surprisingly good sound in a room that at first glance should not work. I have the PSI AAVA C214 in each corner that you must look hard to see. I place the 4 sound absorbing panels along the large window that are stored in a nearby closet when not in use. View attachment 136575

That’s a room I could spend a lot of time in. Out of curiosity, how did you route the cable to the left speaker? I can’t see it.

 

[ssfas]

Great information. Thanks very much.

I know someone who has used Crittal doors extensively. They are very effective at stopping sound transmission around the house.

At the end of the day, if you have a dedicated music room in a loft or basement, it's easy to isolate the room from the rest of the house (no extra work may be needed), and it will be below or above the road level (if you live near a road).

Having a listening room on the ground floor adds the issue of noise containment and external noise. This presumes you don't live alone.

 

[bcurtis1959]

That’s a room I could spend a lot of time in. Out of curiosity, how did you route the cable to the left speaker? I can’t see it.

Cables under the floor in crawl space.

 

[PeterA]

My example of surprisingly good sound in a room that at first glance should not work. I have the PSI AAVA C214 in each corner that you must look hard to see. I place the 4 sound absorbing panels along the large window that are stored in a nearby closet when not in use. View attachment 136575

bcurtis, You have an absolutely beautiful room. Welcome to WBF.