What’s the perfect size for a hi-fi room?

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Before you answer, yes we know.

We know the speakers you have are important.

We know the room dimension ratios are important.

Okay, okay, okay.

But we also know that, if you are in a massive hall, your chances of amplifying your speakers enough without distortion, and the impossible echos, will not be ideal. Not to mention unnecessarily expensive.

And if your room is too small, you simply aren’t going to be able to get bass down to 20hz without all sorts of problems.

And no one wants to sit in a box room or a hall anyway.

So what’s the ideal room size, given that you want to use standard, domestic hi-if kit?

Put another way, imagine you’ve won the lottery. You’re not a multi-billionaire, but you have enough to build your own large, detached house, with as many bedrooms as you’ll reasonably need, a lounge, kitchen, bathrooms, etc., and will have enough money left to add one extra room, and buy the best hi-fi kit. And the architect designing it has asked you for dimensions.

 

[Frgirard]

Room sizing for studios | Acoustics | University of Salford

Over the years, people have suggested certain ratios of room dimensions that minimise the distortion caused by low frequency room modes. These “golden ratios”, however, are not necessarily the best dimensions to choose for a room and below some new best room dimensions are suggested. These web...

hub.salford.ac.uk

 

[Frgirard]

Before you answer, yes we know.

We know the speakers you have are important.

We know the room dimension ratios are important.

Okay, okay, okay.

But we also know that, if you are in a massive hall, your chances of amplifying your speakers enough without distortion, and the impossible echos, will not be ideal. Not to mention unnecessarily expensive.

And if your room is too small, you simply aren’t going to be able to get bass down to 20hz without all sorts of problems.

And no one wants to sit in a box room or a hall anyway.

So what’s the ideal room size, given that you want to use standard, domestic hi-if kit?

Put another way, imagine you’ve won the lottery. You’re not a multi-billionaire, but you have enough to build your own large, detached house, with as many bedrooms as you’ll reasonably need, a lounge, kitchen, bathrooms, etc., and will have enough money left to add one extra room, and buy the best hi-fi kit. And the architect designing it has asked you for dimensions.

I become Jezz Beffos, I will hire Northward Acoustics.

Northward Acoustics | Portfolio

Northward Acoustics - Acoustics Engineering and Studio Design for Professionals - Portfolio

www.northwardacoustics.com

 

[Frgirard]

if your room is too small, you simply aren’t going to be able to get bass down to 20hz without all sorts of problems.

Audiophile myth. A headphone can reach 8hz and guys succeeded abx to 16Hz with a headphone.
All the bandwidth under the first mode is in pressure.

Please avoid the "we" and the affirmation without concrete data.

 

[kyle_neuron]

My architect would be a concert hall designer, so they’d know…

 

[Lambda]

I would say the perfect room is infinitely large.
Aka outdoors.

And if your room is too small, you simply aren’t going to be able to get bass down to 20hz without all sorts of problems.

This is not true.

 

[Puddingbuks]

Being realistic, I would say 5x7 meters. Heigth 3 meters.

 

[Martin]

19' 5" wide x 31' 5" deep with 12' ceilings.

 

[fredoamigo]

on paper It is said that room volumes smaller than about 1,500 cubic feet (42.M3 ) are so prone to sound coloration that they are not ideal for high fidelity
Rooms smaller than that produce scattered modal frequencies with large gaps between modes and are the source of audible distortion. so I would say 3X 1500 or 4500 cubic feet

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Room sizing for studios | Acoustics | University of Salford

Over the years, people have suggested certain ratios of room dimensions that minimise the distortion caused by low frequency room modes. These “golden ratios”, however, are not necessarily the best dimensions to choose for a room and below some new best room dimensions are suggested. These web...

hub.salford.ac.uk

Thats ratios, not sizes.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

I would say the perfect room is infinitely large.
Aka outdoors.


This is not true.

Please note, I didn’t say it was impossible. I said without ball sorts of problems.

Aren’t room nodes and standing waves scientifically accepted issues?

 

[TurtlePaul]

But we also know that, if you are in a massive hall, your chances of amplifying your speakers enough without distortion, and the impossible echos, will not be ideal. Not to mention unnecessarily expensive.

I suspect that the best answer would be to have an absolutely huge room with the speakers positioned along one of the walls and yet sit near field anyways. That maximizes direct sound to reflected sound. You only need more amplification for a bigger room if you assume that your listening position is far opposite the speakers.

 

[Lambda]

Aren’t room nodes and standing waves scientifically accepted issues?

And? What are you trying to say with this?
You seem to have a theory how this correlates so pleases elaborate.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

So just to nail this down a little.

If you were in the enviable position of being able to build your stereo room from scratch…

You almost certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting in a tiny room.

As your room gets larger, you need more amplification and bigger speakers, which increase issues with distortion and/or cost.

Amir has recently reviewed a pair of Genelecs, which appear to be close to perfect. But it looks like they’ll struggle in a 10m x 10m room. And who wants to sit in a small hall?

So, what’s the ideal size?

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

And? What are you trying to say with this?
You seem to have a theory how this correlates so pleases elaborate.

No, you appear to have decided to be argumentative for its own sake.

If you want to join in, fine.

If you want to provide links to scientific papers saying room nodes and standing waves don’t exist, go ahead.

 

[Robin L]

The Sofiensaal in Vienna, pre-restoration.

My understanding is that Decca took the tapes of Solti's Chicago Symphony Orchestra recordings of Mahler's 5th & 6th symphonies, played them back in the old Sofiensaal concert hall, recorded the results and used the tape of the tape for their commercial issues of those works.

 

[Inner Space]

I become Jezz Beffos, I will hire Northward Acoustics.

Northward Acoustics | Portfolio

Northward Acoustics - Acoustics Engineering and Studio Design for Professionals - Portfolio

www.northwardacoustics.com

For once I agree with @Frgirard - Northward's rooms are the finest I have worked in, and I try to replicate the non-environment effect in my own spaces. Effectively, as the "non-environment" name suggests, the boundaries become acoustically nonexistent. Huge benefits, with only one downside - the nearly total lack of room gain across the spectrum means you need about 10dB more SPL out of your monitors, which begins to limit choices to high-power, high-efficiency models.

 

[Lambda]

If you want to provide links to scientific papers saying room nodes and standing waves don’t exist, go ahead.

Never said so.

You are trying to say on can not produce frequency lower then the room mode? What mode?
How big wound a room ne to be to you theory to reproduce 20Hz.

can provide links to scientific papers saying so?

If this is not self evident BS to you think about that Cars and Headphones exist

 

[lowkeyoperations]

If we are talking about what would be the best listening space available for us mere mortals with usual budgets then would the best room, acoustically speaking be on a verandah with the speakers facing away from the house, while listening in nearfield??

I mean it’s cheap. There would be no room nodes or reflections if your verandah didn’t have a roof.

Or perhaps a long set of cables to have your speakers in the back yard?

 

[JayGilb]

I become Jezz Beffos, I will hire Northward Acoustics.

Northward Acoustics | Portfolio

Northward Acoustics - Acoustics Engineering and Studio Design for Professionals - Portfolio

www.northwardacoustics.com

Cool - Half of those rooms look like they're from the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey.