Dear Mr. Lofft,
Thanks for provide this Q&A service. I am building a house and have a basement area that is 13x19 and wanted to create a small theater. Some of what I have read leads me to think that it may be best not to have a perfectly rectangular room of best sub-woofer performance. Since the screen will be on the 13 foot wall I was going to use the ceiling projector to produce a 16x9 image that is aboout 7.1' x 4'... will I gain any sound (subwoofer) performance by having the front of the room less wide than the back??? For example if the rear wall is 13' make the front wall with the screen about 8-10'??? Thanks
-----
Dear Mr. Kessler,
Theoretically there is an advantage to doing what you suggest, but given the complexities of construction, I'm not certain whether the performance gains would be worth it. Simply adding a second subwoofer will deliver much more consistent bass output throughout the room at much lower cost than the additional construction costs of building an asymmetrical room. To be honest, I've never been able to audition a home theater constructed in this fashion. For all practical purposes, I believe it's enough to ensure that the length, width, and height of the room are not multiples of each other---a bad example would be 12 x 16 x 8 ft.
Here's a link to a tip on finding
the best location for a single subwoofer.
Cordially,
Alan Lofft
