NICE lookin room, but could it work as a control room??

Well the wife and I may buy a house that includes the sun room pictured below. Pretty fancy huh? The house isn't exactly in the swankiest neighborhood, so it's actually relatively cheap (hey I'm not some rich dude!). Anyway the room has the type of windows you see here on three sides and is reputed to be 17' x 17'. Sorry that's all I know right now, but wondering if for my uses as a guy who routinely monitors music and SFX at very low levels on nearfield HR824s, would I be crazy to try to work in a real live room like this? I really wouldn't want to block the windows with absorptiony/diffusiony type items. Any opinions = mucho appreciated. Thanx! [/i]

don't do it! give it to me :-) just kidding, it looks like a nice room and with some careful placements of some absorders it should behave nicely. putting your desk near the side ? windows where the ceiling slopes away will be the best position. on the flat wall opposite the windows, hang some absorbers and at low volumes you should have a nice looking, decent sounding room. you might need some trapping in corners but it could be hidden under corner table tops etc. to keep the room functional as living space.

Hey thanks for the encouraging words there Gullfo. The vaulted/slanted ceiling does seem like a plus.

I would use that space for recording and try to get another place for mixing.. those kind of spaces usually have very good acoustics for recording (one thing you have to do is to change those tiles in the floor :D I personally think that this room is too live and you are kind of going to destroy its beauty and its acoustics.

would I be crazy to try to work in a real live room like this?

I would say yes and no. You may try to place a few absorbers although I feel you will need quite a bit in order to get the reverberation time into adequate values for critical listening in a room like that. I understand your idea of mixing at low volumes in order not to excite the reverberation field BUT in cases like your room the critical distance is usually quite short. So making the walls near your speakers absorptive is advantageous. The bonus of having such room if it was accurately treated is the size and shape is beneficial for room modes. Altough for prediction matter I usually prefer to have a room with rectangular shapes

Hmmmmm....what about some strategically placed free standing diffusor/absorbers (e.g. ASC tube traps) on the sides of the monitoring position right where those primary reflections would want to be giving me a blast? And maybe also behind the monitoring position...... As you can see I'm stretchin here to squeeze blood from a glass onion. :shock:

That's a lovely room. It's advantage is it's size so first reflections are at least 17msec. I'd use a combination of heavy wall treatment above the sink unit plus heavy curtains are are hung in the corners and can be drawn across the adjacednt window up to the light fitting on the wall. I nice big rug would finish it off IMO. cheers john

I'm a total noobie here and I have to say this is the coolest site ever. With this level of response (even including diagram/mockups, thank you John!!!), I was more than happy to go and make my $ donation just now. At the moment it's looking likely but not absolutely certain that I'll end up in this room we've been discussing. Something tells me I'll be back to ask more advice about treatment and stuff if it goes through. THANKS!!