My long, one-car garage studio, construction phase

Hello All-- Time for a short update. I have now completed the back wall to the control room along with the frames for the cloth in the front of the room. Here's a couple of shots of the back wall with plastic on it, before the cloth went up. The slits in the plastic were Stuart's solution for ensuring that it didn't become a vapor barrier in the wrong location. The slits are spaced 12" apart, roughly. And here's a couple shots with the cloth in place: Finally, here are a couple shots of the final wall finish. The slats are not intended for any acoustic purpose; they're only there for protection of the cloth so that it doesn't get beat up over time. The slats are 2" wide and are spaced every 4". The maple panel above the electrical breaker panel is there to protect a section of tubing for the mini-split that protrudes from the wall at that point. Next, I built frames for the front wall, which won't be in danger of abuse, so they will just have cloth stretched over them--no slats. I used a biscuit joiner and glue to assemble them securely. Here are some pictures of the frames tacked in place: The green plywood panel in the center section is there in case I get a wall-mounted computer monitor at some point: Here's a shot of the center panel with the cloth installed. As luck would have it, I ran out of cloth before I could finish the two panels below the soffits: Per Stuart's suggestion, I ran REW tests with and without plastic on the wall between the soffits. Although there doesn't seem to be a big difference, I felt like when I listened to music with the plastic up, it sounded brighter to me. So, unless you see something troubling in the REW results, Stuart, I think I'll leave it that way. Here's a link to my latest REW tests: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ygnu8e4r12tq ... alled.mdat I have to say that, while I don't pretend to have "golden ears," the control room sounds amazing to me, even for such a small room. The stereo imaging is clear, the bass is focused, and I'm hearing things on songs I'm familiar with that I've never noticed before--I get a big grin on my face when I turn up the volume. To anyone reading this who is daunted by the amount of work the experts tell you to do: The results are worth it, and they really do speak for themselves. So thank you, John for creating this forum and sharing so many of your awesome design concepts, and Stuart for being so generous with your time and detailed advice. I'm incredibly grateful. My question at this point, given the latest REW results, is there anything more I should do treatment-wise to the room? I don't really know what that would be, since every surface in the room has some kind of treatment, but I'm open to suggestions. My Adam A7X's are set with the high shelf and tweeter level controls straight up at 12:00. The bass shelf I set all the way counter-clockwise, to -4 db. I'm interested in any thoughts about these settings, as well. If I have your blessing, that I've treated this room as much as possible to address its inherent shortcomings, I'll move on to the live room treatment. Mark

It looks terrible! The only solution is that you dismantle the entire room and ship it to me, so I can re-assemble it in my garage and analyze it for, oh I dunno, maybe the next 20 years or so!!!! :) 8) :lol: Seriously, it looks damn good to me, and your comments on how it sounds tend to agree with the REW tests. Your overall frequency response is within +/- 10 dB, which is very acceptable for a small home studio, the IR looks good (no problematic reflections), the modes seem to be under control, etc. The decay times are a little low in the mid range (around 110ms), and a little high in the highs (around 170 ms) (which is unusual), but nothing that I'd be concerned about. The plastic didn't do a lot either way, so yeah, leave it in. I just went back and re-read the early part of this thread, and I realized just how small your control room is! :shock: What I'm seeing on REW is telling me that you have done an amazing job on designing, building and treating it, as the graphs are about as near to perfect as you could ever expect for that size room. Job well done, for sure! One thing you could try is tweaking your A7 controls just a bit: First, set your "Low Shelf" all the way down to -6, isntead of -4 (where you ave it now), to smooth out the low end a bit more. The try setting "Tweeter Level" to -2 and "High Shelf" to +4. That should tilt the high end response up just a bit. That might make it a bit too bright though, so listen carefully as well as doing another REW test. If it is too bright, then back off the high shelf to +2 (instead of +4), and see how that sounds. - Stuart -

Stuart--thank you so much for your kind words--it means a lot coming from you! :D I've adjusted the A7X's as you suggested, although I already had the low shelf at -6. I don't know why I wrote -4 earlier. So to be clear, the current settings are as follows: High shelf: +4 Low shelf: -6 Tweeter level: -2 My ears may be deceiving me, but with these settings it seemed a bit bright. I'll be curious to hear your opinion of the REW tests, Stuart. I have a lot of tests in the file now, so I'll remind you that the the most recent tests (before I changed the speaker settings) are called "Both with plastic, Left with plastic, Right with Plastic." The plastic being the sheet between the soffits, which I left in place. The readings I took with the speaker adjustments are called "speaker tweaks both, speaker tweaks left, speaker tweaks right." Here's a link to the most recent REW tests: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1vpkcl0560p6j ... ments.mdat Thank you! Mark

I would drop the high shelf back down to +2, polish the window glass, mop the floor, dust off the chair, and call it "Done!" :) I reckon it ain't gonna get much better than that, so I'd say it's time to move on to the live room. Or maybe just to sit down and enjoy your favorite music for a few hours, and take a break while you revel in your achievement. It's just a couple of weeks early, but it looks like you gave yourself one helluva neat Christmas present! :thu: - Stuart -

Stuart, that is music to my ears, as they say! While it's been a lot of fun building this room (in a sort of masochistic sort of way :) ), I'm thrilled to be able to say that I've done everything I can in there, treatment-wise, so thank you for all your help in getting me to this point! Your advice has been indispensable! :yahoo:

I just saw an announcement that John posted that definitely applies to me:

Ok, so now it's Christmas time, the time of good cheer. maybe it's time to reflect on the unending contribution to your studio designs that Stuart, soundman2000 has offered you, free of charge, throughout 2013. The donate button on my site has contributed maybe $200 throughout the year, yup really, (it goes to the data fees) yet you have all, especially some of you, received ongoing contributions from this site and Stuart to your studio designs.......... you know who you are. I would like you all to contribute to the PayPal donation button on my site and I will guarantee that the contributions will go to Stuart so he and his family can enjoy a happy Christmas for his ongoing consistent contributions to this site. He's been unrelenting over the past year in answering all your requests and he truly deserves a generous donation from all of you. Donate to my Stuart Xmas appeal by donating via the paypal link on my main page. I guarantee it will all go to Stuart and his family. Cheers john

I have to second what John says above about Stuart and this site in general. It's been a long time since I've donated to the site--it's long overdue for me to do it again. Thank you John, for creating this community, and for sharing so many of your great design concepts with us. And thank you, Stuart, for stepping up the way you have over the last few years! I know that I would be lost without this site and all the good advice I've received, as John rightly observes, all free of charge! Mark

Happy New Year, All! Here's a quick Live Room treatment update. I decided to cover almost all of the live room ceiling (except for about a 10" perimeter all the way around) with clouds. I built a center section from which I attached "wings," as follows: I then attached the center section using long screws drilled into the center beam: The following are typical for how the side sections were built…. I then attached the side sections to the center section using 1/4" diameter lag screws. I forgot to take pictures of how they attached along the lower edge; I'll do that next time. Next, here's a couple pictures of the slat wall. I used the same dimensions as the Control Room: 2", 3", and 4" slats with 1/8", 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" slots. The slats will extend the entire length of the wall. So, that's about where things stand presently. More to come soon in the New Year! Mark

More to come soon in the New Year!

Well, it's New Year already, so where's the "more to come"? :) :roll: :shot: Seriously, Mark, your place is looking awesome. It sure has come a long way! And even better: the end is in sight... - Stuart -

Well, it's New Year already, so where's the "more to come"?

Hah! Well, I need to recover a bit, first…. Thank you for your kind words, Stuart, it means a lot coming from you. And this studio would be nowhere near where it is now without your help!! I hope you have had a wonderful holiday season, and are having a great New Years Day! :D Mark

Well, I've made more headway on the live room, so here we go… Once I had "dry-fit" the clouds I took them back down and installed the Roxul Safe 'n Sound: Then stapled some strong netting across the clouds to prevent sagging of the Roxul: Finally, I added plastic to help keep the room bright (and fibers contained!) and a wood strip around the perimeter to give it a clean edge once the cloth was attached: Here's a detail of the lower edge "attachment system" for the clouds; basically eye screws that are bolted to the ceiling. Once the cloud was lifted in place, I used a bolt with a large washer to go through each eye screw into the cloud itself. I did seal each penetration around the eye screws with caulk, although that's not shown in the photos: I placed the clouds on the drywall lift to make it easy to position them in place: Here's a shot of the center section frames, painted and ready for cloth: …and then lifted into position: I also finished the wall treatments for the live room. Here's some shots of that…. The wall below was covered in plastic, with strips cut out to keep it from becoming an incorrectly-placed vapor barrier (same as CR). The slats I installed are only for protection of the cloth, not for any acoustic purpose: More to follow….

…some more wall treatment shots…. Here's the finished resonator wall: And with that, the walls are complete, except for the filling of many, many, many nail holes! :shock: Next, I worked on the window opening. Many people on this site have decided to place dessicant in between the panes to mitigate any condensation that might somehow get in there. I decided to do the same, even though the gap between the LR and CR leaves is well-sealed with a strip of rubber in the window opening. My approach was to use styrofoam with holes cut out to hold the dessicant. This would then be covered with cloth for a clean finished product, as follows: I then dry-fit the styrofoam pieces to be sure everything was fitting properly: Then, I covered the styrofoam with black cloth, permanently installed it, and put up my second piece of glass, forever sealing in a smudge between the glass panels :oops: BE SURE you've cleaned your glass thoroughly before installing it!! Actually, the smudge is hardly visible, but still, I know it's there! So I think that brings us up to the present day. Getting really close!!!!! Thanks, Mark

Hey Mark, Fantastic work man, really !!! :thu: It's all great but the slat wall is just something else , very very precise :D - ! Keep up the good work…SO much work BUT SO close to the end, right?!! Simo

This has been a great thread, thanks for posting. I've been lurking again on the forums looking for ideas about a future studio, and your slat walls just look awesome. well done! kevin

Thanks for the kind words Simo and Kevin!

SO much work BUT SO close to the end, right?!!

...truer words have never been spoken, Simo!

Hi Folks-- A quick question (I hope): I've been building a desk for my control room and I'm wondering about the potential for reflections off the top. I've got a couple of filing cabinets to the left of my listening position and my 19" rolling rack to the right. The grey rectangle in the center is the slide-out computer keyboard tray. The desk as it's currently configured will be about 3" away from the bezels and about 5" below the bottom of the speakers. Here are some photos: I don't have a lot of "real estate" for my desk, and I'm hoping that the current shape will be workable. However, if it's a really terrible idea to have it this way because of reflections, I could square it off and end up with a rectangle that extends about 3" in front of each bezel. The desk needs to be this close to the front wall in order to keep my listening position in the proper place. I'm also wondering that even if I changed it to a simple rectangle shape I might still get reflections given the angle of the speakers(?) Anyway, any thoughts/advice are much appreciated as always. Thank you! Mark

Hi Mark, nice desk! :thu: The top surface of the mixing console (or a desk in your case) for sound is still a surface thus another source of early reflections. So I reckon it should be treated the same way you've done with all other surfaces (i.e. walls) in your room What about angling it 12-15 degrees? would that be feasible? you could also place some rigid insulation covered with cloth behind it (facing the speaker) besides acoustics, if you will end up having rack of equipment on your desk angling it can make things easier to see and access... … just an idea Simo

Simo is spot on! It's not just the desk, but also what goes on top: usually the console. Angling the console (or even angling the desk itself a bit in extreme cases) is a good idea. Another idea is to lower the desktop as much as you can comfortably, so reflections hit your chest, instead of your head. I have even had to embed the console in the desk surface in some cases, to get the reflections under control. The best way to figure all this out is by ray-tracing (either on paper or in SketchUp), to see where your first reflections are really going, and try out all options. To me, from what I can see in the pics, it looks like you are OK with just the desk, but putting a thick console on top might be an issue. - Stuart -

Thank you, Stuart and Simo, for the quick replies. I should have posted a bit more info to show how the desk will be used, so I'm attaching a few more photos. The frame for the desk is one that I cannibalized from an old IKEA desk: There won't be much on the desk--my antique Radikal Technologies controller (if it still works--if not, I'll probably buy a Mackie controller eventually), my Drawmer monitor switcher/talkback, and my computer monitors (although looking at them right now makes me think I ought to mount them to the wall to get them out of the way of the speakers--thoughts on that?). I also have a pair of Avantone Mixcubes--not sure where I'll put those yet. I doubt I'll ever get a big console; my mic pre's will live in the rolling rack to the right of my chair. The rest of the desk space will be handy for note-taking and things like that--not planning on having much more on the desk. I'd rather not angle the desk (rolling pencils, etc). I suppose I could lower it a bit, but I'm pretty tall, so I don't think I could go very far without sacrificing ergonomics to a degree. Long story short, given the relatively low profile of what will be on the desk, do you think I can get away with it as planned, or do I need to seriously re-think things? If it would help significantly, I could cut off the triangular-shaped ends and just have a small, rectangular desk, but again, I'd rather not do that, either. However, after all the work I've put into this little control room, I don't want the desk to mess it up! :shock:

Wow a Sac 2k, I used to have one of those- Did you try to mirror trick? IE put a mirror on the desk and see if you can see the reflection of the speakers from the listening position? This is helpful but keep in mind that the inverse square law is still in effect so a near miss may not be a miss at all for the acoustics. Still it can be helpful. But also with a small room like that with a short delay gap, I would measure and play with the gating on the impulse (you can do this easily in ARTA using the free demo mode). Because the desk will only reflect frequencies above the shortest dimensions wavelength (looks like ~20 inches? so ~700hz), you can look to see if there is any obvious comb filtering above 700hz and more importantly if that same comb filtering forms canyons and ridges in the CSD/waterfall. It may be practically mitigated by many other *early* reflections when the gating includes the whole room... Awesome build BTW!

Hey mark, great thread... thanks for posting... i have a question, this isn't meant to be critical, just curious...

I prepared my sub-bezel by stapling black cloth over the vents:

won't that reduce the airflow from the port? Is the port in the soffit meant for the airflow required to keep the self powered speaker from overheating, or are they intended to allow acousticail movement, such as the subfrequencies to be absorbed by the superchunk/hangers? again, great build post! kevin

won't that reduce the airflow from the port?

As long as the fabric is "breathable", that's fine. There isn't much airflow through there: just convection flow, due to the warm air rising from the rear of the speaker. Of course, if that where an HVAC vent, you would not want to cover it with cloth! But for a soffit vent, there shouldn't be an issue if the cloth is breathable.

Is the port in the soffit meant for the airflow required to keep the self powered speaker from overheating,

Right! That's the main purpose of those vents. There is an air inlet under the rear edge of the speaker, and a sort of "chimney" up through the damping insulation inside the soffit box, leading to the vent port at the top. Convection takes care of moving the air: there is normally no fan, although you could put one in if you wanted to.

or are they intended to allow acousticail movement, such as the subfrequencies to be absorbed by the superchunk/hangers?

I guess you could go to all the trouble of tuning that port, but there's really no need for that, since the baffle itself takes care of extending the bass range, and eliminating the power imbalance: That vent is also rather far away from the speaker itself, in a box with a very large volume of air, and well damped, so I doubt there is enough energy to do much tuning with a port that size. But that's an interesting question: I'll look into it one day, and see if it would make sense to actually try to tune that.... Hmmm... - Stuart -

Hello--I've been a bit busy with work, so haven't had any time to think about my desk, much less do anything about it! Thank you for your reply, Ryan. I did the mirror test, and found that, yes, I can see the reflection of the speakers when I move the mirror on the surface of the "wings" of the desk. I haven't had time to just play music and compare how things sound with and without the desk top, but I will try that, as well. My solution may end up being to cut the wings of the desk off, and mount them lower, out of the way of first reflections. We'll see…. And Kevin, Stuart is right, the fabric is "breathable" (I actually made sure I could breathe through it before I put it up there). So far, I haven't had any overheating issues while running the speakers, although I haven't had them on for hours on end yet. I'm pretty confident in the design, though, especially since it's been repeated so many times on this site by better men (and women) than me! :lol: Thanks, everyone, for reading my thread! Mark

Hi Mark, My build necessitated cutting my silencer return vent in half to go through both of my leafs because of space concerns. Can you tell me what kind of Neoprene you used to wrap the gap on yours, ie; density, thickness, whatever specs you used. There seems to be many options out there and I do not want to make the wrong purchase, such as foamy vs a more dense version. Thanks so much, Allen

Hi Allen-- I just used neoprene from an old scuba wetsuit, about 5/8" thick. I think that it would have been more proper to use solid neoprene from a roll (or however you're able to buy it), but I wasn't able to locate any at the time. I later saw some in a store that was about 1/8" thick--it seems like you could just wrap that several times around your duct to get the desired thickness. I don't have any density specs, but I can say that my approach was quite effective. I'm guessing that Stuart and the other experts here would encourage you to buy some new neoprene, though; I assume it would work even better. Sorry for the unscientific response--I guess I wasn't very scientific about this detail :oops: Mark

Hi Everyone-- I've finally gotten around to doing REW tests with and without my desk in place--the concern being that the desk is so close to the speakers that first reflections off the desktop are unavoidable. The tests can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m9ihuip6mbc9c ... 0desk.mdat "speaker tweaks" is the last measurement I took before "completing" my room treatment. The rest of the descriptions are self-explanatory. One thing to note: the test mic position may be slightly different from when I did "speaker tweaks" because I used tape on the floor back then to mark the mic stand position and I have since finished the floor. However, the mic position for the "with desk" and "without desk" measurements is the same, and that's what's important right now as I'm hoping to get advice on any possible eq tweaks, etc. to compensate for the desk reflections. As a reminder, this is what the desk looks like: This is what my testing setup looked like without the desk in place. The rack on the right and cabinet on the left were there for both the with- and without desk tests: So, a couple questions: 1.To my uneducated eye, when I view the response in overlay mode, the measurement "both (speakers) with desk" actually seems to be a bit smoother than "no desk both." Am I looking at this correctly? If not, are there any eq tweaks you recommend to compensate? 2. Would a subwoofer be a good thing to acquire some time down the road, even in such a small room? Thank you! I'm so close to being able to use the studio I can taste it!! Mark