Ceiling Height

Rushton, I'll be building a listening room some time in the next year or so and will be restricted to approximately the same ceiling height as you. What are your over all dimensions if you don't mind my asking?

Tom

Nrchy: The overall dimensions are approximately 25 x 20 x 7. With a little treatment (bass traps, Echo Buster panels, etc.), the room actually sounds pretty well balanced--there don't seem to be any glaringly obvious problems--but I'm not sure if the dimensions fit the "golden ratio," or whatever they call it.

Hooper,
Try checking out rives.com. They have plenty of info that will quickly help you up the learning curve on this topic.
Cheers, Spencer

The overall room ratio is the critical element and the problem with a low ceiling height is that it limits the number of practical room ratios. Low ceilings also create the possibility of greater frequency response irregularities due to reflection cancellation effects. These are not fatal problems, but they do require increased effort in speaker placement and/or corrective acoustic treatments.

You didn't specify whether it was a finished basement. If your room dimensions are less than ideal for the ceiling height it was recently suggested to me that leaving the beams exposed, installing a good padded insulation, and covering the whole thing with fabric would effectively eliminate the ceiling as a reflective factor in the equation. Furthermore, if the room is small you may also want to consider running non-parallel. The one great thing you have going for you in most basements is the solid floor. I'll follow this thread as I'm dealing with the same situation in our renovation of our house. I'd like to create a dedicated listening room in the basement and my ceiling height is 7 feet also. Rives should be able to help.

Marco