Room Acoustics

Posted by Paul Prior MD [IP: 208.254.100.63] on April 03, 1999 at 20:50:56
Using Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0; Windows 95):

In Reply to: Room Acoustics posted by Scott Boyd on March 31, 1999 at 16:45:02:

Non-parallel walls do quite little, actually.

Most room problems have to do with room "modes" or low frequency standing waves (peaks and drop-outs). As the wavelength for these are many feet long, unless you have a room that is several feet different in front and back it just isn't going to affect it.

It will help with mid/high frequency early reflections (especially a downward or upward sidewall) but then you've got walls going up and out and back and forth and your drywall contracter will probably refuse to do the room .

My advice (after having researched this for my own custom theater) is to optimize room dimensions up front, isolate the room as much as possible to limit outside noise (this is a HUGE help in sound quality), and treat the room to reduce room modes (i.e. bass/tube traps) and early reflections (sidewall/floor/ceiling treatments).

At least you are considering it - most people will spend thousands on their system and never think about the room, which is far more important than any silly expensive speaker wire.

BTW,a good reference on this is Everest's _Master Handbook of Acoustics_ which I bought at amazon.com for about $40 or so - well worth it.

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