How would you rate your listening room?


I think most people visiting Audiogon are familiar with Stereophile's equipment rating system. So, more or less using that system, how does your main listening room rate as to potential music quality? I've given this some thought, and at 14'W 22'L and 7.5'H, I'd rate my room as "B", mainly because of decent dimensions. With the addition of ASC treatment(s), which I've done, I'd upgrade it to "B+", and if I were to go to good quality monitor speakers (which I won't) with bass to about 40HZ, I could maybe upgrade the room to "A-". My room could never be full class A IMHO because of low ceiling height. I'd like 9 ft. ceilings and a 2-3 more feet of width. Also, as I like good sized near full range speakers (I have Vand. 3Asigs.), I doubt I'd be willing to go to smaller speakers. Have others thought of rating their rooms? Cheers. Craig.
garfish

Showing 2 responses by njonker

My room I think is about a B. Looks like:

the black boxes are the speakers, in reality they are toed in slightly. The blue box is my listening chair.

The room is about 8' high, 14' wide at the narrow spot, and 20' long. The alcove in the right-bck has two doors in to adjecent rooms, normally closed. The front-right area is open to the second floor on the right hand side, and just open on the ground level in the back.

Floor is tile over concrete, left wall is about 90% glass. Back wall is drywall, as is front. Right wall is brick. The floor in front of the speakers is covered with a few rugs, as is the floor behind the listening position. I recently hung a rug on the back wall. Turned out that with the rug about 2" out from the wall, the room became absolute magic. Frequency response from 1kHz to 15kHz is +/- .5dB in almost the entire room... Stereo imaging from the listening position is absolutely amazing. I see the singers, I see the instruments, the sound extends beyond the speakers, and with my eyes closed I often times am not able to pinpoint the speaker locations. I love it.

The ceiling is hardwoord planks with beams haning down 8" at 4" wide at 8' and 16' from the front of the room.

I rate the room a B because the combination of the room and the speakers have a pretty serious bass issue, about +6-8dB at 50 and 63hZ or so, and a dip of about -4dB at 125hZ. The whole bass region is a bit +, about 3-4dB on average. This seems to be partially due to the speakers (Vienna Acoustics Mahler) and partially due to the room.

I have not yet found appropriate methods of dealing witht his bass problem. Just last weekend got the rug on the back wall up, which made a big difference. Build some bass traps, but they did not quite work like I expected. So, maybe with a bit more work can get it to a B+.

Niels.
Worldcup86, it is hard to say cause it depends on many factors. One of the things that seems to play a big role are the normal bass modes of your room, which are determined by the height, length and width of the room.

In your room, you would have 'doubles' on 141, 188 and 283 Hz, with wide mode spacing at 70, 141, 188, 211 and 263 hZ. It is my understanding that the co-existance of doubles and wide mode spacing at the same frequencies can cause an audible problem, so you might find bass a bit uneven and diifult to control.

I am just recently starting to get a handle on all of this, so anyone that has more input feel free to augment or correct as you see fit.

Niels.