Davetheoilguy
Member
Thread Starter
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2023
- Posts
- 6
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- Preamp, Processor or Receiver
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- DAC
- Esoteric KX-03XD
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Hey all. My name is Dave, and I'm an alco . . . an audiophile.
I finally have a house suitable for a proper listening room, albeit one that doesn't quite fit in the standard dimensions or building materials, which is what brought me here.
It's literally a former bunk room in a bomb shelter. The room is precisely 1000sf of 1960s Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, awesomeness, 15 feet below a pool and pool house behind my house. All in, the facility is about 2500sf. About a quarter is now a giant storage room, another quarter a wine cellar, and then this room is primarily just a listening room, albeit one that is 50 foot wide and 20 foot deep with solid steel double doors on each end.
Hardened concrete walls, that (before I decided to make it a listening room) are now framed and spray foam insulated. The inside walls are a drywall-looking substance designed to get wet and drain if water gets behind it. It's basically a giant box and you'd never know you were underground, but for the eerie silence.
For good and for bad, the walls don't seem to resonate like drywall. It's like little plastic beads held together by fibers and some mysterious substance, almost like acoustically transparent rockwall, but not crumbly. My measurements, so far, have shown it not behaving according to most of the simplistic models that assume drywall. (This could be because of the foam that filled the void. Or maybe the slanted ceiling. Or maybe the giant I-beams and super-hard concrete behind the false wall. Regardless, here we are.)
To complicate things, for various logistical reasons (literal double thick steel blast doors at each end) I had to set the listening area across the short (20 foot) distance. Ceiling is high and has a fair slant to it, starting at 120 inches, then dropping a foot to the back wall at 108. So, yes, the ceiling is slanted the wrong way from ideal.
Anyway, complicated space. I'm listening and taking measurements, changing or adding one thing, then taking measurements and so on.
And, most importantly, throwing myself on the mercy, intelligence, and experience of the veterans of this forum.
I finally have a house suitable for a proper listening room, albeit one that doesn't quite fit in the standard dimensions or building materials, which is what brought me here.
It's literally a former bunk room in a bomb shelter. The room is precisely 1000sf of 1960s Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, awesomeness, 15 feet below a pool and pool house behind my house. All in, the facility is about 2500sf. About a quarter is now a giant storage room, another quarter a wine cellar, and then this room is primarily just a listening room, albeit one that is 50 foot wide and 20 foot deep with solid steel double doors on each end.
Hardened concrete walls, that (before I decided to make it a listening room) are now framed and spray foam insulated. The inside walls are a drywall-looking substance designed to get wet and drain if water gets behind it. It's basically a giant box and you'd never know you were underground, but for the eerie silence.
For good and for bad, the walls don't seem to resonate like drywall. It's like little plastic beads held together by fibers and some mysterious substance, almost like acoustically transparent rockwall, but not crumbly. My measurements, so far, have shown it not behaving according to most of the simplistic models that assume drywall. (This could be because of the foam that filled the void. Or maybe the slanted ceiling. Or maybe the giant I-beams and super-hard concrete behind the false wall. Regardless, here we are.)
To complicate things, for various logistical reasons (literal double thick steel blast doors at each end) I had to set the listening area across the short (20 foot) distance. Ceiling is high and has a fair slant to it, starting at 120 inches, then dropping a foot to the back wall at 108. So, yes, the ceiling is slanted the wrong way from ideal.
Anyway, complicated space. I'm listening and taking measurements, changing or adding one thing, then taking measurements and so on.
And, most importantly, throwing myself on the mercy, intelligence, and experience of the veterans of this forum.