Unless you are a headphone audiophile, you are handicapped by the room you listen to music in. I was faced with the dilemma of listening in an acoustically poor space. Others may disagree on this, but I feel that the room has at least as much to do with sound reproduction as any other component. I had a 3.5 by 4.5 m unused space, so after convincing the spouse that an extra room would be nice, I got out my tools and went to work.
What I do want to relate is some of the planning and features that make a space better for audio. I decided that there were some key factors that would affect my listening pleasure. In no special order, they are room resonances, sound reflections, background noise levels, ugly wires dangling everywhere (like my old room), power considerations, ease of making changes, and general comfort.

- Home Theater Room Dimension Formula & Calculator
- Room Acoustics @ Linkwitz Lab
- Room Acoustics @ Art Ludwig's Sound Page

The floor was made extra sturdy out of 2 cm exterior grade plywood. Joists were on 45 cm centers with concrete supports every 60 cm. The floor is solid and non-resonant. To cut down exterior noises and further reduce the possibility of resonances, the walls and ceiling were stuffed with insulation. One thing that I think is very important was that nearly all the construction was done using 10 cm “deck” screws. This makes a very strong structure that can be easily disassembled later. Another hint is to use many screws. It will save grief later when you discover that something resonates. All heating and cooling equipment is located out side the room to cut down ambient noise.



If you look at the HDTV mount photo you will see it is a DIY job, as I was appalled at the price of HDTV wall mounts. It consists of two small blocks of wood, a cross piece of wood and two metal pipe hanging brackets for a total cost of about $6US. The brackets fasten to the holes in the rear of the TV and are folded over at the top to hang on the cross board.

There are some things I didn’t do, and some I may still do. I originally planned to build in the home theater (HT) 5.1 speakers. I planned to use Fostex FE126E speakers for the front, rear and center speakers and a pair of 38 cm subs to go with them. I built spaces in the walls for them, but have not use them (yet). If you look at the finished rear photo, the rear HT speakers (Radio Shack ceiling speakers 17 cm woofer and 2.5 cm tweeter) are hidden behind the picture frames. Power to the subwoofers is controlled by a DIY electronic relay control from the HT amp. I am using a pair of DIY Dayton BR-1 bookshelf speakers from Parts Express for the fronts and an Infinity MTM for the center.


Good Listening,
Bruce
Other DIY Audio Projects by Bruce Heran: