After a long day at work, few things are more relaxing than sitting back, and listening to some of your favorite music. Everyone does it a little differently, but if you’re really serious about really turning on, tuning in, and dropping out, you’re going to want a dedicated music room. This is by no means a comprehensive list, as whole books can be written about this topic, but it’s a good place to start if you want to get into it.
First off, is a suitable room. While headphones are a perfectly acceptable way to consume quality music, there are going to be days you’re going to want to listen without cans strapped to your head. Speakers are going to be necessary, so you’ll have to pick a room that’s sufficiently removed from anywhere volume and sound leakage might be a problem.
Secondly, you’re going to want the proper room size. There are a lot of guidelines here, and whole articles are devoted to this topic, but to give you a general idea as to how it works, here’s the 4-11. Sound energy comes from the speakers, moves air around, and fills up the air in the room. If your room is too small, there won’t be enough space for the wavelength of the sound, and you get all sorts of nasty resonance. You could do with a smaller room, but you’d then have to mitigate that resonance with some additional (and pricey) steps. Take a look at the lowest frequencies your speakers can produce, and know that you’ll need that much space for them to stretch their legs.
For example, a 35Hz sound wave is just over 32 feet long. Assuming you have a speaker that can audibly reproduce that frequency (another matter altogether), you’ll need just over 32 feet of space (or some multiple of that) to keep it from running into a wall before it should. The price of land being what it is, however, sometimes you just won’t have the space you need. There are ways around that, though they are expensive, and involve the installation of diaphragmatic absorbers, which is pretty hardcore stuff.
Other things some people fail to consider are the roof and floor. While the side walls are more apparent in that they’re what you see, in all likelihood, auditory reflections from the roof and floor are the ones you’re going to hear first, just by virtue of their proximity to your ears.
You can then move on to matching the speakers with the room. It’s still going to have to do with the size of the room, (though for a slightly different reason from above) and the volume you’re going to be listening at. While it can be tempting to get the largest speakers your budget will allow, bigger isn’t necessarily better. Speakers pump a certain amount of energy into a space, in a particular pattern. Each speaker has its own pattern, which has to be taken in consideration with those of other speakers in your setup. You’ll need some space here as well—enough so that the patterns don’t interfere with each other. You’re going to have to do some educated trial-and-error here, and remember you’re after what the setup will sound like, not how pretty everything is displayed.
You may have heard that sound reflections are bad. That’s true, but only in the same way too much of anything is bad. Reflections give you a spacious soundstage, and add to the realism of your music. You want enough of it present, and with a small, slightly perceptible delay in order to get the gains you want. Apart from proper placement of your speakers, you will also need the correct placement of acoustic foam on the correct surfaces. There’s some trial and error involved, but a calculator, the figure for the speed of sound, and a tape measure should go a long way towards minimizing the errors in your trials.
Hardware is another can of worms altogether. There’s more in that scene than we have room for in such a small space, as well as other, far more qualified individuals to tackle the matter. As with any specific interest, the best places to look around are online fora. A forum is a place where people who are very deeply into their passions gather, and, fortunately for you, often come together to get rid of old stuff, for upgrade purposes. You can also get advice from experts who have been dabbling in this world for years, and find like-minded starters who ask questions you didn’t even think to ask.
The world of home audio is a huge and highly technical one. It’s as deep as any other technical pursuit, and one where setting up is as fun as finally enjoying the fruits of your tweaking. Just make sure you watch your bank account.
Also published in GADGETS MAGAZINE July 2015 Issue
Words by Ren Alcantara