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#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Glass walls
I am contemplating buying a house with a screened in back porch I want
to close off for an office and music room. My wife wants to replace the screens with windows. That will leave me with mostly windows on three sides and Hardiplank, a cement based exterior clapboard siding, on the fourth. What kind of problems am I going to have? My current room is double-layered 5/8" wall board on 12" studs. It is pretty solid. It is also tapered to reduce any standing wave problems. This room is all new to me and I'm not sure what I am getting into. |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Glass walls
On Sun, 8 Apr 2012 10:39:17 -0700, Robert Peirce wrote
(in article ): I am contemplating buying a house with a screened in back porch I want to close off for an office and music room. My wife wants to replace the screens with windows. That will leave me with mostly windows on three sides and Hardiplank, a cement based exterior clapboard siding, on the fourth. What kind of problems am I going to have? My current room is double-layered 5/8" wall board on 12" studs. It is pretty solid. It is also tapered to reduce any standing wave problems. This room is all new to me and I'm not sure what I am getting into. Every structure is different, of course, but I have a friend who bought an Eichler home here in California. It was very much like this one: http://tinyurl.com/7wvesy9 It had a vaulted ceiling and one whole wall of floor-to-ceiling glass with a concrete slab floor. No matter what he did (and believe me, he tried everything!) he could get no bass in that house (even with speakers like the Infinity IRS with their TWELVE - 12" woofers in two 8 ft tall enclosures!). He said that the glass just passed the low frequencies like there was nothing there!. He also couldn't heat the damn thing, but he seemed less concerned about that than he was about the lack of bass. He eventually sold the house and moved into another, more normal structure. |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Glass walls
In article ,
Robert Peirce wrote: I am contemplating buying a house with a screened in back porch I want to close off for an office and music room. My wife wants to replace the screens with windows. That will leave me with mostly windows on three sides and Hardiplank, a cement based exterior clapboard siding, on the fourth. What kind of problems am I going to have? My current room is double-layered 5/8" wall board on 12" studs. It is pretty solid. It is also tapered to reduce any standing wave problems. This room is all new to me and I'm not sure what I am getting into. With 3 glass and one hardiplank wall, the bass will go right through and the treble will bounce around. I'd suggest that you will need some very thick curtains on some of the walls to reduce the bouncing, and some clever positioning (maybe nearfield) so that the loss of the bass is not too apparent. If you can make the room walls other than parallel this would help. A sloping ceiling would also be an advantage. What are the dimensions of this new room? Greg |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Glass walls
In article ,
Audio Empire wrote: Every structure is different, of course, but I have a friend who bought an Eichler home here in California. It was very much like this one: http://tinyurl.com/7wvesy9 It had a vaulted ceiling and one whole wall of floor-to-ceiling glass with a concrete slab floor. No matter what he did (and believe me, he tried everything!) he could get no bass in that house (even with speakers like the Infinity IRS with their TWELVE - 12" woofers in two 8 ft tall enclosures!). He said that the glass just passed the low frequencies like there was nothing there!. He also couldn't heat the damn thing, but he seemed less concerned about that than he was about the lack of bass. He eventually sold the house and moved into another, more normal structure. I was afraid of that. My current room has almost no glass. The front (speaker end) has a small window covered by solid wooden shutters I can close. The rear has a glass door and two door-sized side lights, but they do no harm that I have ever heard. From what you say they may actually be beneficial in that bass that works its way down the room wouldn't be contained by the end walls, an interesting idea. The porch is about 12x27 with a sloped ceiling on the long side, as opposed to my current room, which is 9x15 at one end, 10x16 at the other and about 25' long. I never was faced with a lot of glass, but I've heard it can be pretty bad. Also, as with the Eichler house, the floor is a concrete slab. The ceiling does slope, continuing the roof line of the house over the porch. There is another room that could work. This room is 12'1"x15'10", a fairly decent size. However, it is under the eaves of the house. The walls on the short end rise a hair less than 5' before sloping in at about a 45-deg angle. There is a flat ceiling about 5' wide and about 10' up, if you can visualize that. I can see putting speakers on the long side. If it were a box it would probably sound pretty good. I have no idea what the sloping sides might do. Anybody tried a room like that? |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Glass walls
I like the sound (!) of the smaller room better, although you will have
to actually try to know for sure. The 'odd' shape should be fine. I've had very good sound in such rooms. The non-box shapes do a good job of spreading out the resonances so nothing is too reinforced. The overall dimensions of the small room seem pretty good, too. From my visualisation, the speakers on the short wall could project the sound into the room they way theatres do. Again, I suggest that with such non-standard options you best bet is to experiment. Greg |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Glass walls
On Apr 8, 1:39=A0pm, Robert Peirce wrote:
I am contemplating buying a house with a screened in back porch I want to close off for an office and music room. =A0My wife wants to replace th= e screens with windows. =A0That will leave me with mostly windows on three sides and Hardiplank, a cement based exterior clapboard siding, on the fourth. What kind of problems am I going to have? =A0My current room is double-layered 5/8" wall board on 12" studs. =A0It is pretty solid. =A0It= is also tapered to reduce any standing wave problems. =A0This room is all ne= w to me and I'm not sure what I am getting into. My Goodness! OK - a few basics of acoustics - and really these are basic! Glass is a highly reflective material at all frequencies. With that in mind, how it performs at very specific frequencies will be based on how it is assembled. Large sheets of thick glass with no dimension less than 24" (62cm) will resonate below most audible frequencies. Dimensions less than that will resonate at higher frequencies. So, the larger the dimension, the lower the resonant frequency. Unless the glass resonates, it will reflect. This is true of any other hard surface including GWB (gypsum wall board AKA Drywall), plaster, wood, concrete, and similar. Bass response (as perceived) is a combination of many things, salient of which are woofer placement relative to the nearest flat, hard surface, and the amount of air they move - directly related to the size of the woofer, the signal fed into it, the power behind that signal - the amount of headroom available. Placing the woofer centers less than a diameter from a hard surface will (all other things being equal) enhance bass response. Placing a woofer against a wall will enhance bass response. Placing woofers on a long wall asymetrically (as compared to a short wall) in a room will enhance bass response. Placing woofers in corners will enhance bass response. Sometimes small changes in placement can have huge effects. I keep three essentially different types of speakers: Maggies (MG- IIIs), AR3as and ARM5s. All others are variants on that theme. I have listening rooms that are 17 x 28 x 10 feet (maggies), 17 x 14 x 10 feet (AR3a) and 14 x 12 x 9 (M5s). The maggies are fed from an HK Citation 16. The 3as by an AR Model W receiver. The M5s by an AR amplifier (US version). All of them are quite capable of getting to near-ear-bleed volumes without strain. All of them are capable of vibrating the floor quite nicely. All of the rooms are very 'live' by any standard with hardwood floors, lots of windows (the library (biggest room) has three full-glass French doors to the exterior, and one French door to the inside. There is a large brick fireplace, and the walls are 120 year old plaster. The other rooms are smaller variations of the same elements. Lots of glass, lots of hard surfaces. I have had to struggle with speaker placement (and an extremely tolerant wife) to get the speakers in the ideal position for sound- stage, bass and so forth. Bless the woman who will decorate "around" these needs. As to the AR3as, a difference of less than 6" (15mm) in distance between/distance to corner was the difference between bone- rattling bass and very even bass. It can be done. Typically without equalizers, without 'sound tubes' and without heroics or major costs - just experiment. Glass is no worse than any other material once the essential nature of it is understood. And, for the record, it is much better in so many ways than soft surfaces. And I have not even gone into resonances based on room shape. This is why asymmetrical placement is often critical. There may be no standing waves in the room itself, but the speakers may be cancelling each other. Try it. Back to lurking. Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA |
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