How big should a great listening room be?

[Wes]

Let's say you want to reduce the amount of room treatments needed, and DSP "tuning" required as well.

You are building a new room onto your house, or you are going to buy a new house.

How big should the listening room be?

 

[Zek]

So big that you can put a symphony orchestra in it and you can sit in the front row on the balcony.

 

[DVDdoug]

Yeah... Bigger is better! I've had my speakers in a "dance hall" a couple of times and they sounded much better in the large space. I like a big space with nice-natural reverberation but I'll never have anything like that at home. I'd probably love them in a full concert hall.

An "ideal room" would probably still have some treatment (diffraction if not absorption) with some acoustical consideration built-into the architecture.

Some people like a dead-sounding room.

 

[AdamG]

Hi Wes,

FYI here are some useful tools for room mode analysis. Most of the problems will be down below 200 hz, critical modes anyway.

https://amcoustics.com/

http://www.mcsquared.com/modecalc.htm

https://www.acousticsinsider.com/find-ideal-room-dimensions-using-calculator/

http://www.cardas.com/room_setup_golden_trapagon.php

 

[Wes]

Let's approach this from the small side...

say you put speakers 5 ft. from back & side walls...

the separation between the speakers could be what? 8 ft.? that would give 18 ft. wide

if the listener is 8 ft. away from the speakers' mid-line we get 18 ft. deep, but that makes a square, so ...

 

[Bjorn]

You don't reduce the amount of needed treatment for mids and highs but they can be different in a larger room. And a bigger room can also suffer more from flutter echo, meaning you need to cover more of the surface. However, room modes can be reduced with a very large room. Or more correctly; the Schroeder frequency is moved lower in frequency. But you don't avoid room modes unless you have huge concert hall.

 

[Chromatischism]

I think almost any size room, outside of closet-sized spaces, can make great-sounding rooms, just in different ways.

I don't tend to prefer a lot of reverb or echo, so I'm finding the clarity and intimacy that I get in my small room to sound really, really good. I highly doubt anyone would disagree if they were over to hear it. I can expand the sound with Dolby, DTS, or Auro (the latter being the most effective) so I get the appeal of the larger sound in some cases, but not all.

 

[LTig]

3 systems in our flat:

1. Main system in shared lving room/kitchen (about 7 x 7.5m but with 2 x 1.5m cut off in one corner), heavily furnitured with book shelfs to the right, windows to the left, some medium height shelfs behind the LP, no extra treatment: 2 x K&H O300D + sub Genelec 8060b, EQed. Listening fistance 3.8 m. It has the best sound overall and the best soundstage presentation.
2. Wifes system in 3,5 x 4.5m room: 2 x Genelec 8020a EQed (used to be 2 x JBL LSR2325), no sub (and not missed by her). Listening distance 3m. Compared to #1 it lacks soundstage because the speakers are very close to the wall but bass is quite astounding for the tiny size of the speakers w/o sub.
3. My Desktop system in a very heavily furnitured small room (2.5 x 4.3 m): 2 x Genelec 8020a plus Kef PSW-2000 sub, not EQed because not necessary. Listening distance 1 - 1.5 m. Soundstage is a bit better than #2 (because the speakers are some 40 cm away from the wall and I sit very close) but not as good as #1.

So my experience is that a bigger room with either proper treatment or other means to tame reflections can't be beaten by a smaller room.

 

[rdenney]

Hi Wes,

FYI here are some useful tools for room mode analysis. Most of the problems will be down below 200 hz, critical modes anyway.

https://amcoustics.com/

http://www.mcsquared.com/modecalc.htm

https://www.acousticsinsider.com/find-ideal-room-dimensions-using-calculator/

http://www.cardas.com/room_setup_golden_trapagon.php

Not one of those will handle complex rooms or sloped ceilings.

Rick "whose listening rooms have had sloped or vaulted ceilings since 1985" Denney

 

[Ron Texas]

Not one of those will handle complex rooms or sloped ceilings.

Rick "whose listening rooms have had sloped or vaulted ceilings since 1985" Denney

My listening room is a big dormer with a sloped ceiling of course. Our house is large, but there is only one system with speakers.

AFIK there's no perfect room size. Too small and it's near field only. Too big, and it costs a fortune to fill it with sound. I suppose if it's just right Goldilocks will sit in your lap.

 

[AdamG]

Not one of those will handle complex rooms or sloped ceilings.

Rick "whose listening rooms have had sloped or vaulted ceilings since 1985" Denney

Yeah and Wes’s question made no mention of complex rooms or sloped ceilings. He asked about how big a room should be to reduce amount of room treatment and DSP. So I don’t really understand your comments while quoting my post. At least I provided research materials to help him get started.

 

[rdenney]

Yeah and Wes’s question made no mention of complex rooms or sloped ceilings. He asked about how big a room should be to reduce amount of room treatment and DSP. So I don’t really understand your comments while quoting my post. At least I provided research materials to help him get started.

They may have solved his problem, but they didn't work for me.

It's all about me, me, me, me.

Rick "who has sort-of already figured them out from REW measurements, but just bitching that free software doesn't handle complex situations" Denney

 

[NTK]

Not one of those will handle complex rooms or sloped ceilings.

Rick "whose listening rooms have had sloped or vaulted ceilings since 1985" Denney

You need to go check out my thread
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/arbitrary-shape-room-mode-simulator.20805/

 

[AdamG]

Hey Wes, if I recall correctly, a very important dimension is ceiling height. You want at least 10 feet and 12 is better. Specially for managing low frequency modes. I will try to find the reference documents and link them here.

This is a good read. Watch this video. https://audiophilereview.com/room-a...mensions-and-ratios-for-audiophile-listening/
Quote from this page:
“Good starting points we like to recommend when listening room dimensions can be chosen or adjusted are 17-foot width, 10-foot height and 23-foot length. Why did we pick those ratios? Because they minimize low-frequency pressure issues that need to be treated, and they also minimize reverberation time issues, which are reflection-based. Is this the correct room size for all situations? Absolutely not. It would not be a good home theater room, but it would be a good studio control room. What’s the difference between home theaters and studio control rooms? There’s more energy in home theater rooms, from more speakers, so the space requirements increase”

 

[rdenney]

You need to go check out my thread
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/arbitrary-shape-room-mode-simulator.20805/

Ahem! Well, I am duly put in my place.

Rick "waiting for a quiet day to work through all that" Denney

 

[abdo123]

first reflections should arrive after at least 10ms from all 4 directions imo, at that distance the brain will register the reflections as echos.

 

[abdo123]

Hi Wes,

FYI here are some useful tools for room mode analysis. Most of the problems will be down below 200 hz, critical modes anyway.

https://amcoustics.com/


http://www.mcsquared.com/modecalc.htm

https://www.acousticsinsider.com/find-ideal-room-dimensions-using-calculator/

http://www.cardas.com/room_setupgolden_trapagon.php

Do you happen to have a calculator hidden somewhere that works on non-rectangular rooms?

 

[AdamG]

Do you happen to have a calculator hidden somewhere that works on non-rectangular rooms?

I might, but got to find it. Been years. I will try but no promises. How bad are the dimensions? There are ways to cheat the sound waves. Stacking can work and trifold standing partitions can work.

 

[Wes]

My listening room is a big dormer with a sloped ceiling of course. Our house is large, but there is only one system with speakers.

AFIK there's no perfect room size. Too small and it's near field only. Too big, and it costs a fortune to fill it with sound. I suppose if it's just right Goldilocks will sit in your lap.

pics of Goldilocks?

 

[Wes]

first reflections should arrive after at least 10ms from all 4 directions imo.

what size does that translate to?