On the one hand you're saying that Bolt's ratios are overrated; on the other you're saying that some rooms are hopeless.
I don't see any contradiction there at all! I didn't say that Bolt's ratios are overrated: I said that prioritizing ratios over other factors is a common mistake. And yes, I also said that some rooms are hopeless. A perfect cube measuring 8 feet on each side, for example, would be pretty useless. On the other hand, a perfect cube measuring 38 feet on each side, would be entirely usable, and would make a great room. Terrible ratio, fantastic room. But a sphere or cylinder of pretty much any size would be unusable. And likewise, a room measuring 7'4" x 6' x 5'3" would be absolutely hopeless, no matter what you do to it, even though it perfectly hits Sepmeyer's first ratio, which is arguably considered to be the best of all. Fantastic ratio, terrible room.
It's not about ratios
per se: It is about dimensions, volume, ratios, treatment, materials, furniture, gear, people, and how all of those compare to the wavelengths in question.
Studio designers do take ratios into account yes. The smaller the room, the more we take them into account. For large rooms, not so much. Once the room is big enough for there to be a statistically valid reverberant field across the entire spectrum of interest, then there is zero point in looking at ratios at all, since they are meaningless at that point. Total volume, longest free path, shape, and treatment are all extremely important factors that we take into account when designing rooms. Depending on the specific room, they are usually far more important than the ratio.
This is not mysticism on the one hand, nor is it rocket science on the other hand. It is simply a matter of understanding and applying the basic principles and equations of acoustics, and judging how the room shape and size affect acoustic response.
In the end, I need to figure out whether my current room is worth investing money into or not. If so, I' d do it; if not, I'd build a studio from scratch.
Dimensions: 2.66 x 2.33 x 2.18
The room ratio for that is 1 : 1.06 : 1.21 That is far outside the Bolt area, and fails one of the three "Critical tests" that the BBC uses to determine the viability of a room. The volume is 13m3, whereas the generally accepted "minimum" is 40 m3. The floor area is 6m2, whereas the ITU, EBU, AES and other specs all consider roughly 20m2 to be the minimum. The ceiling is also extremely low. There is no modal support at all below 65 Hz, an the Schroeder frequency for that room is way up at 184 Hz. In other words, all of the major modal issues are right smack in the middle of the most critical part of the spectrum, and below that, the room will simply be a "balloon" that pumps and breathes along with any tone that you happen to play.
This is not a happy situation at all.
You also have the room set up sideways, although it doesn't make a huge difference in this case. Rooms should be set up such that the speaker fires down the longer dimension, not the shorter dimension, but given that there isn't much difference in those two anyway, it's probably a moot point. with a room that size, you are pretty much forced to put the mix position in the geometric center of the room, which is the worst possible point, from the modal point of view. In addition, you show your speakers set up on top of the desk and your sub under the desk, with the desk pushed up tight against the wall. I do realize that you have no choice in such a small room, but that's a lousy setup: you will have severe comb filtering from the desk reflections, and an unwanted dip-and-boost in the mid-range, plus possible resonant issues from the air trapped under the desk.
That's a large number of negatives, and no positives so far!
You COULD put superchunks in all four vertical corners plus at least four horizontal corners, but the room isn't big enough for that, and one of them would completely cover the door, which is in a poor location (room corner). To deal with the modal issues, you'd need to make your superchunks at least 90cm on each side, which basically means that they would fill the entire room. Then you would need 20cm of porous absorption on the rear wall, plus 15cm absorption panels between the speakers and the front wall, plus 15cm absorption panels on the side walls (first reflection points), plus a 20cm thick cloud hung at an angle of at least 16°. Which means the cloud would be hanging in front of your face, and you'd have no room to move around at all. The room would sound absolutely dead. Uncomfortably so. There would be no way to change that, since anything you did to put life back in it would also necessarily create early reflections.
And finally, there's the issue of symmetry: your rack gear will create a very large upset in room symmetry, simple because it takes up a substantial volume of the room just by being there. Yes, I realize you have no other pace to put it, but it's going to screw up your sound stage and stereo imaging if you leave it where it is.
That's my rough assessment. I very much doubt that you could make that room usable as a quality listening room or control room. There is just too much going against it, and nothing going for it. I really can't see any saving grace at all.
Questions: Could you move two of the walls to make it considerably wider and longer? Could you take out the floor slab, dig down deeper, to make it higher? Could you take out the ceiling / floor above you, and move it up half a meter? If the answer to those is "no", then I don't see that room as being a viable option for you. It's just too small. It might be usable as an amp isolation booth, but that's about it. The single biggest factor, in my opinion, is the extremely low ceiling.
So that's my US$ 0.02, for what it's worth. Sadly, I don't see any future for that room. I think your best bet would be to go with your "Plan B", to build a purpose-designed studio from scratch. With a ground-up build, you can design it specifically to be the best possible for your needs, with none of the restrictions imposed by that tiny room. As long as your budget is sufficient, and you have enough space, then you could have a great studio.
To my mind, investing money in that room is only going to make it mediocre at best, and even that is questionable. Your money would be far better spent on getting a studio properly designed and built, from scratch.
- Stuart -
Something funny happened to your dimensions on the way to the keyboard...