How would you rate your listening room?

Njonker, your bass response is not as serious a problem as you think. Although the exact frequencies may differ, nearly all domestic rooms without serious acoustic treatment exhibit the sort of problems you have detailed. A bass trap that would be effective at 50-60Hz will be very large, however, if the problem is particularly annoying, than a more effective solution is to use an outboard equalizer. The dip at 125Hz is probably phase cancellation from the floor reflection. Try placing something that will soak up sound at the "mirror point" between your speaker and the listening position. I use a large fabric foot rest.

Hi,
My room is 8Hx12Wx15L. Is this a bad, ok, or good room? Thanks

I hope Garfish will not mind if I vary from his topic, especially since I posted about my room and plans to improve it. I would like input on speaker choices to build into the space in my walls (during the reconstruction I described) . These would serve exclusively for Dolby 5.1 and beyond, and will only be active when movies are in play. The ideal design would be one of the new surround speakers that measure only 4" or 5" deep. I have space for any depth at the rear of my room, but the sides are limited, due to the construction of the load bearing walls. It has been suggested by some friends in the audio business (NOT speaker companies) to consider the new B&W in wall surround speakers, as well as Vandersteen and Aerial. I looked at all three web sites, and Vandersteen and B&W both fit the need for the side and rear positions, but the Aerial is quite deep, and making it work on the side positions will be almost impossible. Does anyone have suggestions, especially those who may have actually installed and used such a system? I would like to do this right and not look back later and wish I had gone another route. By the way, the current system is Soundlab U-1 for the front, Vandersteen dialogue channel and Fosgate SD 180 Bipolar for sides. There is currently no rear surround speakers. Everything is driven by individual mono tubes amps.

Albert, I think if your going to build a room for audio and video, you might want to look at the future directions you may go. If six channel is of any intrest to you, and SACD or DVDa live up to there potential, it may be only two or three years before you start looking at a state of the art surround system. A few of the new SACD (DMP) that I've gotten are recorded in DSD six channel. The recommendation in the flier talks about the proper set-up of six channels and strongly recommends the same speaker for the five main channels. If that was the case the set-up is rather like a cicle in the middle of your room, and this might have a large impact on how you chose to proceed. Just a thought, good luck. J.D.

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.