Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Upstairs bonus room: Slanted ceilings

Any guess on how the acoustics would be impacted by a room with slanted ceilings such as the one in the photo below:?

I'd think you'd get some different reflections, maybe better maybe worse?

I don't really know?

It'd be interesting to do a graph of that room. See how the sound waves react in there.

David, Dr. Toole and others emphasize how difficult it is to predict the effect of non-parallel walls on room modes and the separate effect of reflections from the room boundaries at about a quarter-wavelength distance. Hopefully, because of the continually varying distances between the angled surfaces the number of mode and reflection frequencies would be much greater and would lead to an overall smoother response.

Thanks for the input. A lot of the houses we have looked at have some type of slanted ceiling in the upstairs. This particular one is worse than most so was just wondering. Ideally I'd like to find a room that I can fit a projector in, but a nice alternative would be to have any room separate from the living room that I could fit a large TV and some Axioms in so I can have a place to hide

Wasn't Jason's(myrison) HT room similar to that? Seems to me it was and he thought it worked very well.

We have the HT room setup in a room with slanted walls and acoustics is excellent - without Audyssey or other room correction applied.

There is a guy on the elemental designs forum that has a room just like that. He placed black acoustic panels along the walls and each slanted ceiling, said it helped, but before it was not bad.

It is a little bigger than yours, but you get the idea..before and after treatment shots....

That's what they all say.

Really! They have injections to do that now?

That looks both strange and somewhat awesome with all of the treatment panels.

Yea, I've seen a few photos over the (many) years of people using this "bonus room" for a home theater and don't recall anyone mentioning any more (or less) acoustical issues than other rooms without slanted ceilings.

If it had a bit more white, and maybe some grey, it would totally look Imperial.

I think myrison's room had a slant on the front wall only, but I could be wrong.

bridgman's loft is a little like that, but I think it is open to the downstairs rather than an enclosed space.

I wouldn't think that a room like that would be any worse than a regular room.

I would think those angled roof lines would be *better* because...

Semi-related,

I was just thinking today, that if I were to build a dedicated Theatre Room, from scratch. New Building... would there be benefit in using a different shape for the room.

I was thinking like a top down view of an Axiom Speaker... non parallel sides. I'm thinking, hell, Axiom has already done the engineering and testing for shapes that kill standing waves. My only question is, in doing so they are trying to improve the sound coming *out* of that space. Would it have the same impact *inside* that space?

Awesome or waste of effort?

Not that it really matters. Its just a crazy fantasy at this point, although I may get the opportunity in a few years.

snazzed


Oh, back to the point, your room looks somewhat like that. Non-parallel sides, flat top, flat floor. I would think the room would be better.

Pr*ck Bastard.

i'm inclined to think that non parallel walls would weaken the strong room standing waves, compensating by creating more of them, distributed more evenly.
that should smooth out the sound in the low frequencies.

it's only a guess on my part.

Mark's ongoing bitterness notwithstanding, this is an interesting question.

Do "listening rooms" - i.e. spaces designed for enjoying reproduced/recorded music share the same desirable design traits as concert halls (intended for live music performance)?

I would think that the answer is "yes". But I want to test that assumption.

That question is highly depressing.

I hope my lack of a smiley didn't throw you off my jesting nature!

My thoughts are this:
If a recording is made "live" and they are mixing in the ambiance of the hall, then you're kind of doubling up" on the ambiance if you listen to the playback in a hall-like room.

If, on the other hand, a recording is dry... lack of ambiance and no added reverb or room tone, then a recording will sound "dead" unless you add it electronically or listen in a hall-like room.

Finally, though, if you ARE adding ambiance electronically (surround channels) then you're back to wanting to listen in a non-hall-like room since you're adding that effect.

Just trying to hold up my end of the bargain, buddy

So, if there is no generally-accepted mixing target relative to level of ambiance, it's impossible to generalize about how a "good sounding" playback room should perform?

So, why are you always complaining, again? You just need to find recordings that are designed for square rooms. Geez, try to SOLVE your problem, eh?

Here's the thing, Tom, it's all fake. It's never real. It's always going to be a recording--and that recording's never going to sound live.

SORRY KIND OF STRESSED OUT RIGHT NOW.

You know, truthfully, I don't really complain about my room. My Axioms sound great. I just wonder if they wouldn't sound even better in a better room!

I like acting like I hate my room because it's fun fodder here!

I think Ken hates your room Mark.

Says the man with my favorite room!

I seem to remember Ian being quoted as calling this "cascading rooms" in an article on Audioholics, but some brief searching doesn't yield anything, so I could be remembering wrong.

Hi CV, TomTuttle, Mark, and Ken,

Yes, the notion of "cascading rooms" or doubling ambiance in the playback of a recording that already contains natural ambiance is valid, however, for virtually most domestic rooms (except those with many hard surfaces and no absorption, the actual reverb time of the room is very short, so any contribution of room ambience becomes largely insignificant.

Just try clapping your hands in your listening room and listen for any reverberation. There's almost none in normally furnished rooms. Which is why I advise against special acoustical treatments of rooms except for really problematic setups (Mark?). . .joke.

And to address Ken's point, it's true, the goal of all this equipment and loudspeakers is a "plausible illusion", which Axiom speakers and decent electronics (I'm not talking of any of the tweaky tube gear) are able to do much of the time. The more neutral the speakers and the electronics, and the better the source recording is, the better the illusion.

Regards,
Alan

I clapped once in my room last night and today when I walk in, it's like, just a bunch of ongoing applause.

So that's a little toward the "live" side?

Ha, ha, ha!

Alan

I find that having piles of toys, kid's clothes, and blankets scattered randomly around my listening room improves the acoustics greatly. Maybe a riding toy or two in front of the bottom drivers, and it's perfect!

Yeah, Mark; that's a live one. But to put some numbers to Alan's comment, a typically sized and furnished home room has an R60 reverberation time of around a half-second. R60 is the usual standard applied and represents the time in seconds(thousands for Mark's room)for the sound level to diminish 60dB after it's stopped playing. 60dB is used because it's about the difference between the loudest orchestral peaks around 100dB and room background noise levels around 40db. 60dB is therefore also about the widest practical dynamic range for a recording intended to be listened to at home.

In contrast to the half-second or so R60 at home, the finest concert halls have R60 times on the order of two seconds. Hence the difference that Alan notes.

thats just your room show'n some love.

I read that, and then had a seizure.

Well, duuuuh.

We ALL have seizures after reading JohnK's posts!

It's because of his flashy avatar.

Are you implying a correlation? If so, you may just have forgotten your mid-day diazepam, 'cause you were too sh'faced to remember.

Off to my drug supply I go... You should be a pharmacist, Bob.

I am an apothecarian.