[rockadanny]

OK, so we are looking for a home to purchase and having a dedicated audio room is a must! However, we are on a strict budget with an eye towards retirement so it is highly likely I will not end up with a perfect room. Thus far, it seems to come down to two options:
1. A decent sized spare bedroom (around 11 x 13 or so, with 8 foot ceilings though many are not strictly flat, drywalled, carpeted); or
2. Unfinished, cavernous basement (concrete walls and floors, often with funky steel support poles scattered about). I will likely not have a budget to finish nicely, but shold be able to do some work on the flooring and walls, and perhaps ceilings. But nothing fancy, and doubt even very nice like you would expect a finished basement to be. Some of these basements have ceilings 12 feet high. Like I said, cavernous.

Generally speaking, which might be better for audio?

[Geardaddy]

Cavernous basement all day long.  My worst sound has been in squarish bedrooms with lower ceilings.  Save your pennies for a proper basement buildout.  Talk to Dale Pitcher at Mosaic Audio.  There are lots of affordable tricks for creating a good sound room....

[JLM]

Read Floyd E. Toole's "Sound Reproduction".  He covers the research that has been done for the ideal room shape and provides a range of preferred shapes.  Cardas also has definite opinions of ideal room shape.  Ceiling heights is generally the limiting factor of large basement spaces.  I've never seen a basement with 12 foot headroom (?) in fact most have 7 foot headroom.  Occasionally newer 1st floors have 9 foot ceilings, and 100 year old homes often have taller ceilings above grade.  By all means avoid square, 1:2 ratio dimensions, or worse yet cubic rooms.  A/V rooms need to be more square than music only rooms to allow for a larger sweet spot (bigger audience) and increased distance for side wall speakers (so you don't get an earful of one side speaker and nothing from the other). 

If you read Duke LeJeune's circle, you'll notice much attention about delayed secondary (reflected) sound versus direct sound (constant directivity theory).  The delay should be at least 10 seconds which means the reflected travel path should exceed the direct by at least 11 feet.  Using a near-field setup this translates into a minimum room width of about 13 feet.  (Traditional home listening setups would require much bigger rooms to take advantage of constant directivity).

A huge factor is any room is provisions for sound isolation.  Keeping noise out of the room allows you to listen at lower levels, which in turn keeps less of your sound from leaking into the rest of the house.  Isolating framing, use of insulation, and attention to detail are key.

When we built 10 years ago it included my basement study (office/listening room).  The shape follows Cardas (8 ft x 13 ft x 21 ft).  Two side walls (drywalled) are against foundation walls, the other two walls (drywalled) adjoin storage spaces but also use 6 inch insulated staggered stud walls.  Ductwork is insulated/lined flexible (can't hear the furnace that's 15 feet away) and door is exterior insulated fiberglass with weather strips.  Thin pad and office type carpet covers the concrete slab.  Unfortunately the ceiling, although insulated, has recessed can lights (that let sound through) and the drywall ceiling is screwed directly to the floor joists (I'd specified using gauge metal furring strips but the builder reneged).  Basically this was my attempt to produce a poor man's solution to maximize bang for the buck (actually the cheapest finished space in the house).  Except for the ceiling, very good isolation is provided.  By listening in a near-field setup (see Cardas again) with the right speakers room treatments are barely needed.

[G Georgopoulos]

By all means avoid square, 1:2 ratio dimensions, or worse yet cubic rooms.

To increase  rooms dimensions ,place on the wall you want to increase its depth acoustic damping material.

[Geardaddy]

A huge factor is any room is provisions for sound isolation.  Keeping noise out of the room allows you to listen at lower levels, which in turn keeps less of your sound from leaking into the rest of the house.  Isolating framing, use of insulation, and attention to detail are key.

Agreed.  A room with a room design is not a bad way to go:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vopin&1130221775

[ACHiPo]

Agreed.  A room with a room design is not a bad way to go:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vopin&1130221775

A room within a room is a great way to go, and can be pretty cost effective if you have the space, especially ceiling height, and can do the construction yourself so go for a big basement.(drywall and 2x4s are pretty cheap, and you can build in big bass traps/acoustic treatments very inexpensively with pink fiberglass).  An added plus is that it's pretty cheap and easy to run dedicated power.

Here are a couple forums for home studios that you might find useful should you want to go that route:
John Sayers Forum
Home Recording Forum

[rockadanny]

I've never seen a basement with 12 foot headroom

I know, right? But this one is crazy:



When I walked downstairs I was  like WTF!? So glad that taller is better in this case.

Thank you all thus far for the great ideas. Once we settle on a place I'll definitely do research as suggested, and take your suggestions under consideration.

You guys rock! 

[rockadanny]

Most basements we've seen have those support poles scattered about.
Do they in any way impact the sound?
Regardless of their location with respects to my gear or listening area interference?

[Phil A]

In my old house, the basement had a bunch of poles.  The total square footage was about 1,800 square feet and I left about 800 as storage and since the poles were generally in a line, all but one was completely hidden inside the walls (everyone would ask where the rest of the poles were - there was a steel beam and I just framed so the beam and poles were buried where possible).  I built one big room (about 650 square feet) and then an average sized bedroom and a nice sized bathroom.

[Phil A]

I did extra bracing in the walls so nothing would rattle.  If one can do double sheetrock that would help too.  Inside of the counter with the pole in the first shot is a passive sub hooked to the surround speakers. The (Target) audio rack was recessed into the wall into the unfinished area as were the DVD and CD racks (which were made for 19 inch racks but I just framed moulding around them).  I also had some extra insulation in the ceiling.

[youngho]

Most basements we've seen have those support poles scattered about.
Do they in any way impact the sound?
Regardless of their location with respects to my gear or listening area interference?

The poles could cause diffraction, though they look relatively thin, so effects should be fairly modest, most if the poles were between you and the speakers, less so the further they were away from the direct listener-speaker paths, the least if they were behind the listening position.

Young-Ho

[Phil A]

http://acousticsfirst.com/   also has a full line of products for interior wall construction

[ACHiPo]

I know, right? But this one is crazy:



When I walked downstairs I was  like WTF!? So glad that taller is better in this case.

Thank you all thus far for the great ideas. Once we settle on a place I'll definitely do research as suggested, and take your suggestions under consideration.

You guys rock! 

Danny,
The poles aren't ideal, but my guess is you can minimize their impact.  Given that cost is a big consideration, you probably don't want to try to have a structural engineer replace them with a beam, although that would be a clean option.

That 12' high basement is amazing!  I'm sure you can have lots of fun figuring out how to proceed.

Phil's suggestion on double sheetrock is a good one (Google Green Glue--it's great for turning sheet rock into a damped membrane to deal with bass), and if you use 2x6s for walls and ceiling with fiberglass and the room-within-a-room sealed with a door and appropriate HVAC ducting (don't forget you need air in and out to breathe!), you're going to have a pretty sweet set up. 

If you check out the studio build threads you can get an idea of how others have tackled similar challenges.  While the layout and geometry is different between a studio and listening room, there are lots of similarities.

AC

[mcgsxr]

I have never seen a basement that deep.  Cool.

I used my current room in unfinished form for around 10 years before finding the $ to finish off the space. 

Long before spending any $ to finish it, I did some simple things.

I put down carpet (yanked out of another room in the house and just carted it downstairs), and I put the system in a corner to help deal with the reflections of the unfinished concrete walls.

I found the ceiling (open joists) beneficial.

Initially the room was pretty empty and had some slap echo issues.  Over the 10 years a lot of stuff migrated into the room and it ended up sounding good even unfinished.

[FullRangeMan]

2. Unfinished, cavernous basement (concrete walls and floors, often with funky steel support poles scattered about). I will likely not have a budget to finish nicely, but shold be able to do some work on the flooring and walls, and perhaps ceilings. But nothing fancy, and doubt even very nice like you would expect a finished basement to be. Some of these basements have ceilings 12 feet high. Like I said, cavernous.

Option 2 looks better, also you may be free from wife interferences on that huge speakes you ever dreamed.

[rockadanny]

Phil A - Sweet room! Very nicely done. If you ever are bored and want an additional hobby you can come to my place and build my room 
Thank you for the suggestions and link.

Young-Ho - Thank you for the information. Those poles might end up making me crazy(er)!

AC - Thank you for the suggestions.

mcgsxr -

I found the ceiling (open joists) beneficial.

I was hoping someone would say that.  First audio-thought that popped into my head was SLAPPP ECHOOOOOOO!!!
Thank you for the suggestions.

FRM - Thank you for the reply. And yes, wherever we end up I have made it clear that my audio room will tolerate no wifey interference at all. Hey, I feel a new song title burgeoning ... "Ugly As I Wanna Be". 

[mcgsxr]

A very low cost approach to those open joist bays is also to install some Roxul Safe n Sound.  I think my ~600 square feet ran around $500. 

That will help with absorption and you'll be glad you put it up there if you ever finish off the space.  A solid core door with weather stripping and door sweep is also an excellent investment for the top of the basement stairs.

I get roughly 30-35dB of reduction from my room to the main floor above, and a total of 50-55dB reduction up to the bedrooms on the 2nd floor.   Basically means I can listen at 80-90dB anytime of the day or night and not disturb others.  That's an amazing freedom!

[rockadanny]

mcgsxr - thank you for the suggestions. and yes, keeping the upper floor residents free from the music played in the dungeon is a definite objective.

[JLM]

With that much height/width I'd build a large separate box (insulate and drywall inside/out), but beware that going bigger means more power is needed (amps and speaker capacity) to reach the same spls.  Also decorating can be a challenge with tall ceilings (everything will look small and low).  I'd just build around the pipe columns and just try to ignore them (paint them as neutral a color as possible).  Flex duct  ventilation to the room, use track lighting or wall sconces, and add an insulated fiberglass exterior door (they come wood grained and can be painted/stained, will insulate better than a solid core wooden door).

While you're at it, run a dedicated audio circuit (I ran 3, each wired to a single 20 amp cryo'd hospital grade duplex convenience receptacle, and to a shared ground - separate from the house ground). 

With good size and a correct shape, your need for treatments in the room will be very minimal (I barely benefit from my treatments).

[mcgsxr]

Totally agree with running a dedicated line (or more than 1).

The reduction in sound to the floors above really only became apparent after drywall, but the S&S is a good plan regardless.

I used a Safe n Sound door at the top of the stairs.  Was around $100 at my local Canadian Home Depot.  An exterior door could certainly work.

Here was a thread that yielded some excellent suggestions when I asked what wires to put into the walls before drywall during my basement build - http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=113851.0

And here is the thread I kept during the build - tons of good ideas shared here too, and perhaps an interesting read for those considering a similar project - http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=113424.0

I had only the standard basement height of about 7'5 when finished, so nothing like what you are facing.  Interesting suggestion by JLM to consider building a room within a room etc.

Have fun!