Buiding listening room from scratch - need advice

Guess I should have spell checked.... Damn iPhone.

Some questions and comments in no real order: Where are you located? Have you visited any local (if they exist) dealers? Are you thinking of special construction? What are your expectations and real wants and real needs? As it was stated, a 12 x 18 room is not that much of a challenge, unless you want to use special materials. A basement room with concrete floors and a wall or two will sound different than a living room, etc. Yes, you want to cover the floor or use wood with area rugs. The real risk is over dampening. Larry Borden of DaGoGo built an addition to his home, you may want to ping him.

Re: your room - as a former property manager for many years, I used this home theatre product (Green Glue) in several different commercial and residential applications to deaden the noise coming from one unit to another. It was a very cost effective solution and very simple to use and may just save you some money during construction.

RE: New Gear - Ever since I heard tube gear, I've always preferred it to SS, but the very first time I heard SET (single ended triode) amps, I was completely blown away (hence my a'gon name). It was at an SET show in Philly in the mid 90's which featured about 8 different amps from the top people in the industry that I got to hear amps using 845's, 211's, 300B's and 2A3's and came away concluding that the lowest powered amp (the 2A3 amp) which was also the cheapest, sounded best to me.

Many years later, I got to go to another audio show and on that day was able to compare a low powered SET amp that used interchangeable triode tubes (2A3's, 45's, 10's, 50's & 300B's) to several other push pull tube amps which used KT88's, 6550's, EL34's, EL84's, 6L6's and 6B4Gs and also a couple of digital amp/ tube preamps combos and came away with the same conclusion that in order of preference, I liked the low powered SETs the best followed by a push pull 6B4G & EL84 amp followed closely behind by the digital/tube preamp combo. Once again, the lowest powered amp, the 2-8 watter, followed by the 12 wpc, 18 wpc and 25 wpc amps were the best of the day to me....

After over 30 years in this hobby, low power with high efficiency speakers just sounds best to me after all of that auditioning. YMMV, and I'd be curious to hear your take on things after checking out the RMAF.

Of course, if you do concur with me and like low powered SETs the best, it not only narrows down your choices immensely, you potentially can save a bundle on your audio budget and can take the family on a nice vacation or some nice new jewelry for the misses :)
Enjoy the ride :)

If prior experience with home renovation is any guide I would suggest you wait until the project is done before you do anything. First, unless you have an unlimited supply of money you may end up with a lot less money for gear than you think due to cost overruns. Second, the renovation may take much longer than you think and new products (or deals on used gear) that were not available when you purchased are in view since the renovation took a year longer than you thought. Focus on getting the room design and treatments right and once everything is finished figure out what your budget is and start from there. Just an opinion but one borne out of several home renovation "experiences".

JMO but high efficiency speakers and SET is the most musical. Can't say I blame you going with digital front end but make it killer or everything will start to have a sameness to it that becomes boring.
Careful with too dead of a room, and make it wide enough spread the speakers if need be.Been playing with my placement and moved them out around two feet and bingo, the audio hologram appeared. Guy in the middle comes out to sing to us now. You can always deaden the room more but you do carpet and other non-removable adsorption and you're kinda stuck. Good luck. It's fun!