I am approaching the time of our house refurbishment that will allow me to create a dedicated cinema/media room lounge on the first floor. I have spent many years gracing numerous demonstration rooms which have all employed various methods of decoration attempting to create the perfect listening environment. I have only tried a few of the many techniques I have seen implemented and wonder if you can advise me on simple improvements to my ideas as follows:
I plan to build solid shelf supports into the brickwork of an otherwise unused chimney breast ready to accept heavy, rigid shelves with a combination of spikes and soft silicone feet at the contact points.
The electricity supply for the HiFi/AV kit will be on its own dedicated ring main.
The back wall will actually be two interlocking stud walls (made from heavy sound block plasterboard joined to stud with a soft, flexible silicone) that don’t touch each other, isolated from the floor and ceiling and with the gaps filled with loft insulation to minimise sound transmission to the room behind.
Thick underlay and carpet to the floor laid on heavy weight floorboards laid with a soft, flexible silicone between them and the floor joists.
I’m planning on heavy weight velvet curtains and a blackout blind to cover the window.
What I am less certain of is the wall coverings. Is it worth hanging carpet or curtains to cover the walls and reduce reflections (like many demo rooms have)? Are there certain walls or sections of walls that benefit from this method or reducing reflections? Is it different for listening to stereo music and 5.1/7.1 channel surround sound? (i.e. are reflections beneficial for surround sound but not for stereo?) Should I just rely on the amplifiers auto setup to compensate? I was planning on thickly textured wallpaper as a minimum but would you expect this to make any difference?
I currently have a Pioneer VSX-AX5Ai running Mission 755i fronts, 75C centre and four 77DS surrounds for side and rear surrounds connected by QED Silver Bi-Wire cable. However, the plan is to upgrade to Monitor Audio RX6 AV12 with two pairs of RX-FX speakers and either an Onkyo TX-NR5008 or a Pioneer SC-LX83 to drive them.
I plan to build solid shelf supports into the brickwork of an otherwise unused chimney breast ready to accept heavy, rigid shelves with a combination of spikes and soft silicone feet at the contact points.
The electricity supply for the HiFi/AV kit will be on its own dedicated ring main.
The back wall will actually be two interlocking stud walls (made from heavy sound block plasterboard joined to stud with a soft, flexible silicone) that don’t touch each other, isolated from the floor and ceiling and with the gaps filled with loft insulation to minimise sound transmission to the room behind.
Thick underlay and carpet to the floor laid on heavy weight floorboards laid with a soft, flexible silicone between them and the floor joists.
I’m planning on heavy weight velvet curtains and a blackout blind to cover the window.
What I am less certain of is the wall coverings. Is it worth hanging carpet or curtains to cover the walls and reduce reflections (like many demo rooms have)? Are there certain walls or sections of walls that benefit from this method or reducing reflections? Is it different for listening to stereo music and 5.1/7.1 channel surround sound? (i.e. are reflections beneficial for surround sound but not for stereo?) Should I just rely on the amplifiers auto setup to compensate? I was planning on thickly textured wallpaper as a minimum but would you expect this to make any difference?
I currently have a Pioneer VSX-AX5Ai running Mission 755i fronts, 75C centre and four 77DS surrounds for side and rear surrounds connected by QED Silver Bi-Wire cable. However, the plan is to upgrade to Monitor Audio RX6 AV12 with two pairs of RX-FX speakers and either an Onkyo TX-NR5008 or a Pioneer SC-LX83 to drive them.