I am very happy to inform you all that I have, after almost exactly one year of having NO system at all, finished my dedicated audio room!!!
Lots of time, research, blood, sweat and tears went into this.
General room info:
15'x22'x8'
Hat channel through the ceiling to decouple floor joists from ceiling drywall.
Completely rebuilt all air return and supplies to use fiberboard and insulated slinky tube to eliminate vent borne noise pollution.
double drywall on ceiling with green glue
5/8ths drywall used throughout
3 dedicated 20 amp circuits 2 for the front of the room 1 for a completely exterior audio closet for future A/V equipment.
several conduits inside the walls throughout the room for future proofing (planning to put a music server in the audio closet and use my TV as a monitor as well as a 30' usb for keyboard and mouse use)
9 channel surround prewire.
Equipment info:
Speakers - RM40s fully active
Pre-amp/DAC/Crossover- Modded DCX
Amps- Homemade Simple SE SET amps (here for more details
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=73713.20 ) and QSC dca 1222
Stand- Odyssey audio stand
Cabling- combo of Kimber Kable and Bolder Cables.
room treatment- GIK acoustics 242 x5, 244 x3, monster traps x 3, soffit traps x 3, scopus T40 membrane bass traps x6 (BIG shout out to Bryan for his immense knowledge and infinite patience!!!), various 8th nerve corner and seam treatments. Home made window well stuffers to blot out light and provide a bit of absorbtion.
If you missed my original build thread here it is:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=113108.msg1176221#msg1176221Without further adieu...
Front of the room
equipment rack
Sexy sexy amps!
side
Behind speaker
behind rack
rear room/sitting position
bass problems don't stand a chance!!!
Neither does slap echo and corner issues.
So what does it sound like? Well first lets talk about what you don't hear. With all the equipment off the room is frighteningly silent! So quiet in fact that if you hold your breath the only sound you'll hear is the blood coursing through your veins.
The decoupled ceiling does wonders for insuring upstairs sounds do not get downstairs. Aside from the nigh impossible to eliminate sound of my daughters running around on hardwood floors above the room you basically hear nothing else period.
So what about music? Well Tyson was kind enough to come over yesterday with his calibrated mic and we took the following measurements from the listening position.
so as usual with 8 foot ceilings there was an issue at 70ish hz The red line shows the un-EQ'd results, blue is EQ'd the left speaker started out with a -6dB @ 75hz adjustment, but we ended up being much more aggressive with a -14dB change. The slight rise from around 10kHz up was adjusted for later, but we forgot to get measurements for.
After some tweaking and doing the ritualistic audiophile shuffle of moving the listening position, bringing speakers forward/back/adjusting toe-in we finally got to a spot where it was just... Jaw dropping. Gorgeous even! I can honestly say the results far exceeded my expectations in almost every way. Imaging and soundstage have always been a focal point to me. And boy does excel at that! it is unsettling how pinpoint it is. as far as soundstaging I think my wife said it best when she said 'it doesn't even sound like anything is coming out of the speakers, even though intellectually I know that's where the sound is coming from, it sounds like the music is coming from all around.'
When Tyson came over what struck me was first his ear to ear grin when he sat down in the listening chair and second just how passionate he was about the music itself and how great the particular tracks we were listening to were. I found myself shaking my head several times myself thinking 'wow, this is truly unreal and incredible!'
Any way, I wanted to show you all the finished product, I'll post more detail later.
