New Listening Room Questions

Dear All,

We got the keys for the new house on Friday and was over there trying to work out where I'm going to site stuff. The lounge and dining room have been knocked through into a single room approx 26ft by 13 ft with a Bay window at one end. Can't move in until end of Jan as the suspended floors in the lounge and dining room need replacing, but thought I'd start thinking about this now. And wanted opinions from those with any experience of rooms

The only sensible place for the speakers from a domestic point of view is either side of the bay. The best space for the system is on wall mounted shelves in one of the alcoves along the long wal between the fireplaces just inside the dining room half - about 14 feet from the speaker location (which'll be good for the turntable).

So - Speakers on a nice slab of granite or something I guess. I'd get the builders to build some concrete platforms for em, but of course have no idea what the best position would be and anyway, I can see Auntie's frown from here, even though she's 2 miles way.

Is the room going to cause me any major headaches do you think? Does Aunties plan of having a sofa and an open shelving unit half seperating dining from lounge areas present any problem? The long wall where the fireplaces are has two alcoves in each room - mostly gonna be filled with bookshelves.

Finally my current speaker cable consists of a 3 metre biwire run of Reson DNM solid core cable. I now need an approximately 6 metre run. I got biwire because at the time the dealer recommended it, but I've tried both ways and couldn't really see any difference.

If I abandon bi wire would splicing my existing cables together to form two 6 metre runs cause me any probs. If it would, then some cable suggestions would be welcome. I'm happy enough with the Reson cable, but maybe folks here have other ideas - don't really want to spend more than £10 per metre.

PS. My Mum just bought a midi system thing to replace my late father's system - My bro in law got the Castle Severns , but she has given me the rest of his kit Marantz CD48 + Cambridge DacMagic 2 and a Marantz PM66 KI Sig amp. Only problem is the amp has lost a channel - anyone know anyone reputable who could look at this in the Nottingham area? Might make a worthy basis for system no 2 amp wise - for our new upstairs living room .

 

any chance of doing a test with bits of apropriately sized paper in the room - this often gives you a good idea of how things will look and work.
it may be worth getting some concrete plynths poured at the speaker positions if you are having a new floor anyway. or just get the area around the bay done as concrete with wood on top?
cheers


julian

 

Hmm. It'd be difficult. We have no plans to move any furniture or anything in until after the work is done - it's gonna be very messy - the past owner filled in the dining room floor to make it solid and failed to realise that having done so he cut off all air circulating underneath the still suspended lounge floor as well as beaching the DPC - result rising damp in the dining room and big damp in the void under the remaining suspended floor and rampant dry rot in the floorboards . Anyway - the dining room floor needs excavating and new suspended floors putting in to both rooms to return the house to its previous Victorian glory. So no furniture until the work is complete.

The fill in the bay idea is a non runner as the bay is where all the front ventilation under the floors is.

My guess is that even if I moved the system over for a day to play around any findings would be a bit spurious as it'd be in a big echoey empty room. Maybe I should just take a guess and get them to build some concrete plinths anyway. I think I'm going to be fairly limited in just where they can go anyway when all other furniture considerations are taken in anyway.

I guess the question really is, do nice solid granite speaker bases on a suspended floor really present a FAR inferior solution than a solid floor?

 

personally i'd always go for a solid floor but if you've no choice then you could probably put some bracing under the speakers area of the floor to help out (or just get concrete plynths poured for the speakers to stand on). would it not be possible to have the solid floor done 'properly' and then put cosmetic wooden flooring over the top if you want exposed floorboards?
if you can get into the house then cut out paper shapes of the right size for all your major pieces of furniture and then spend a day placing these shapes on the floor to work out the layout. that way you don;t need to lug heavy stuff about and it's more meaningful than little bits of scaled down paper on a drawing. of course if the floor's dangerous or already ripped up that dog won't hunt.
cheers

julian.

 

You could always just double-up the new joists (or reduce their spacing) at the bay end to stiffen the floor locally and give you an area to locate speakers in. Very cheap an effectively hidden.

 

Oh its perfectly safe and as all the horror is covered with carpet, you wouldn't even know it was there.

Cutting paper shapes for all the furniture isn't a bad plan at all

I don't see why they couldn't cover a concrete plinth with floorboards - we are having exposed floorboards. I shall be round there this week with suitably sized bits of paper in hand and I'll have a word with the builder before he starts.

PS. A "properly" done solid floor is a non runner. Auntie Ants point of view is that the Victorians knew what they were doing when they built their houses and you mess with the design at your peril. The way the previous owner "Improved" the design and the subsequent issues resulting being a case in point. I'd never get it past her.

PPS. Although she'll happily knock a wall down, so she's not entirely consistent in this

 

Another excellent suggestion and one which probably won't send the builder or Auntie's eyebrows quite so far skyward.

 

You could fill with concrete at bay window, you'd need to ensure that air passes through with some kind of connecting pipe to airbrick on outside wall, not too difficult, but extra joists sounds better still, why not have bo spaces between joists at this area.

 

And since you're gonna replace the flooring, you may want to take the opportunity to run ducts of appropriate size with a leader wire underneath for speaker cables between the anticipated kit location and the general area where the speakers will be.

This for sure will keep Auntie happy everafter.

And you can use garden hose-sized speaker cables if you see fit.

 

Thought of that, but it won't wash

Indeed ... and an easier sell. Cheaper too. I think this is the way I'll go.

 

Until you're in you won't know if the system sounds better firing down the room than across.

Bob

 

13' x 26' suggests some nasty room problems

I'd wait until you are in before deciding where the speakers will go but either side of a bay window is not considered ideal apparently.

Wooden floorboards will also have a profound impact if you are not used to them. Sorry for being a bit of a killjoy!

 

If you put lots of bookcases along the long wall, this will help considerably to reduce side-to-side room problems. As for the length of the room, the first harmonic resonance (the one which will be strongest half way down the room) is at about 43 Hz. That could be problematic. To avoid it, place your listening chair two thirds of the way down the room, i.e. about 17 -18 ft from the front wall. This still leaves 8 - 9 ft for the dining area which should be enough to keep Auntie happy.

 

Here's a tip that works for wooden suspended floors.
Remove floor boards in the upper storey, then MAKING SURE that you've compeletly sealed the ceiling on the floor beneath (either using some suitablely decent nails on top of the ones already in there, else replacing the plaster board with some slightly more sturdy stuff and sealing it up tighter than bottleneck wallet)
Using extra fine builders sand, spread a 2 inch layer all over the 'floor between the joists' then topped off with an other layer of acoutsic wool/ foam) then replacing the floorboards & if you can a spot of silicone between the boards (not always possible I know)
The resulting difference is quite astounding, obviously that was explained in its simplist form, however the effort is seriously worth while.
The cost involved is not great, just a lot of time/effort, oh and just make sure that the ceiling can handle that weight of sand!!!
Total transforms the sound.

 

That's an age-old trick, called 'pugging'. Works very well but only use if the floor is designed for it. 2 inches of sand everywhere is about 100Kg/m^2, over half the design distributed loading for domestic floors...

 

UA,

sounds like you have a very similar floorplan to me; living/dining room about 26' X 14', with a bay window at one end, suspended floors throughout, with a 10' high cellar underneath. Halfway up one living room wall is a chimney breast and fireplace.

Most noticeable changes I've made to the set-up since I moved in a few months ago are:-

1. Taking the system off the wooden floor. It now resides on the 6" thick piece of York stone that's the hearth of my fireplace.

2. Isolating the speaker's vibrations from the floor. They each now sit on DIY seismic sinks (a 30x30x1cm piece of slate on two inner tubes in a wooden tray), which sit on little wobbly Aluminium eggs (MI-rollers), onto paving slabs with 1/2 squash balls between the slabs and the floor.

Speakers sit either side of the chimney breast, about 6' apart, about 1' away from the walls, toed in to the optimum listening position, firing across the room - just my personal preference.

Bay window makes a good home for a widescreen TV, gets it out of the way.

Sound fine to me, but I'm just starting chapter 2 of "the Master Handbook of Acoustics" to check if there's anything else I should be considering.

 

How right you are I'd never heard of that. I wonder if there is some way to blow pugging up through knot holes or drilled holes rather than dismantle the floor above.

 

I've got floating wooden floors at my gaff which I fitted myself.

I tried concrete slabs and the like under the speakers but nothing really worked well.

The best solution (if you're really serious in isolating the speakers from the floor) is to build a brick platform underneath the floating floor and have metal studs coming up through the wooden floorboards which then support a stone plinth of some sort, on which the speaker stands sit.

Here's some pictures of the ones I did.

The studs:


with the slate plinth on top of the studs:


This is the only way to truly isolate the speakers from the floor resonaces (without spending a fortune on sinks). You need a few bricks and 8 metal studs - cost...ooh about £5 tops.

The only problem is that you have to decide where the speakers are going to go before laying the new floor. I played around with their position beforehand with the 'old' floor, then ripped out the old flooring, then built the brick platforms, then laid the new floor - fitting the studs as I went.

Note: If you sell the house in the future you can remove the studs and plug the holes.

 

Thanks for all the responses guys - been in meetings all day (gotta earn a living huh ).

Layout wise it sounds not dissimilar from Stickman's room (except there isn't a 10 foot cellar, but a 2 or 3 foot void under the floor). My current place has suspended floors and a cellar in a roughly 12 by 12 room, which I guess I'm sort of used to, but wanted to see what I could do to prevent any problems in the new place in advance (especially while I have builders at hand). Merlin points out the potential problem and technobear a possible mitigation.

Taking it one by one (and having had another poke around the new house), I don't think firing across the room will be domestically acceptable - probably unfortunate, but almost certainly true . So if there are potential problems with firing down the room I'll have to live with them or as far as possible mitigate the problem.

In the lounge half as mentioned their will be bookshelves on one side of the room, a shelving unit running half way across the room dividing lounge from dining area at about 15 feet back from the front of the bay, running into the room from the opposite side from the side with the book shelves (can't go any futher back because of a doorway - but not far off Technobears suggestion. In front of this and running round on the side opposite the bookshelves is likely to be an L shaped corner sofa (the short end of the L being in front of the dividing shelf and the same width and the long part going along the wall opposite the fireplace and book shelves. My listening position will be pretty much central, snuggly tucked into the corner of the short side of the L .

Will the dividing shelf help or hinder? Its likely to have a mix of ornaments and knick knacks on it but won't have a back (so you can see through it).

WM's suggestion is fascinating, but filling the ceiling with a couple of tons of sand and foam is about as likely to meet Auntie's approval as my winning the lottery ... without buying a ticket.

Maddog's suggestion looks like a potential winner on the suspended floor front, only problem being second guessing speaker position, but from what I can see this would completely isolate the speakers from the floor, which can't be bad. Only downside is that it needs done before we move in and I can't practically test speaker positioning until after we move in

Anyway lots of food for thought - thanks guys.