We have lived in the UK for coming up to six years and I am totally hacked off with the compromises I have had to make on my music room in that time. We are close to being in a position to buy a house finally (permanent residency, finally settled in a good job etc)… It is proving rather difficult to find a house with a suitable music room as it must be a minimum of 5 x 6m, 9ft ceilings and a concrete floor. My current thinking is to buy a nice character cottage which Mrs Mondie is keen for too, and build a separate room close to the house, even link it with a glass passage if possible. Something like this twin walled, insulated log cabin built on a concrete slab for example:
A timber building is ideal as it will allow the bass to escape. I would want a sloping ceiling too and would fully sound treat the walls and roof.
The other alternative is to buy a new build with a double garage and convert that provided I can find a house with the right configuration. I have concerns over the bass but if the garage is integral to the house it will only have two brick walls so may be ok.
Has anybody done something similar and able to offer up their experiences?
Yes, I have.
I converted a barn, with a concrete floor, to a dedicated music room.
I built a room inside the existing building, so the original building is untouched.
I went the solid, no loss, approach, but you might want to look into walls/ceilings, with some loss.
Lots of support for either. I got the dimensions wrong, and it made a huge difference/problem.
Get the dimensions right, for the size you have to work with; that is the most important thing.
You are welcome to come view,listen.
I am curious as to how you decided to take the lossless approach, and what dimensions you chose that later turned out to be wrong? Did you make changes that sorted the SQ issue? Would love to see what you have done and have a listen but that may have to wait for when I am over your way
Most choices were very ill informed. I just did it.
I had some room design help, from a professional acoustic design firm, which was awful.
I left it unused, for 10 years, before I treated it, again, with just a little knowledge.
It is now, pretty well sorted, through mostly, trial and error.
Made attached long garage into music room . Far from perfect dimensions but it was MY space. Got dedicated mains ring with lots sockets. Insulation pads boards added inside onto double brick walls and thick carpeting which adjusted the acoustic. Used aerated concrete blockwork to make an altar for kit . Use a radiant electrical heater because it’s Silent. Really noticed improvement in mids and’ prescence’ (on that kit lineup.)
By day I am a professional acoustics consultant, and have designed rooms for audio.
In my experience many of my professional colleagues are into music, but very few are into high end audio or the room acoustics attributes for good music reproduction.
There is a huge amount of stuff out on t’interweb on room acoustic design, but be careful as much of it is pro audio related, and the rooms tend to get overdamped compared to optimal for home audio, imho
Very much this. Way back, i worked on the construction of recording studios. it was a nightmare because it went against everything I’d been taught regarding keeping everything level and square.
I did all that, but the use of the space I had available, was poor, and the effects are immense.
Find out what space you have available, find the best ratios, then correct with panels, etc.
You can make almost any space work, but if you have a choice, large as possible, NOT SQUARE, high ceilings, if you can, solid floor.
As mentioned in a previous post, you could pay attention to power supply.
In my parent’s house, many moons ago, when I was taping, I got a glitch when my mum turned on the ventilation in the kitchen when she started cooking.
I read in posts about ‘rings’, in D/NL we have ‘groups’ for power supply.
So, in our house (no dedicated room, but in living), I now have 2 seperate groups, one for audio, one for video.
And no cabled network; bad decision.
In hindsight, I would like to have 2x network (one for audio, one for video) and 4 groups.
One for pre/power/analog if ever, one for digital (cd), one for streaming, one for video.
Would have cost maybe 200 more, but cannot do afterwards now with concrete floor and floor heating
And you might consider to facilitate cabling for AV. I put cables in for rear wall speakers.
Have fun with your design!
Its been ten months since I last poked around AA. Thank you for those who posted with advice in the meantime. We are still renting and waiting for the right house to come on the market. The area we want to live seems to have a lack of new listings which I hope changes come summer.
Since I started the thread I have gone right off the idea of having a music room in the backyard and would much prefer it to be integral to the house but have to accept that if a great house comes up I will be left with little choice. My new speakers will be finished soon and being sent over from Oz, in the same shipment I will bring in enough 2.4 x 1.2m 100mm semi-rigid fibreglass panels to adequately treat any room I may ultimately end up with. These are a great sound treatment product that my mate uses in his business to treat music venues. I guess the upside of a separate music room is I can make it as ugly as it needs to be
The first thing I noticed about our current house was the room that I use as my listening space. My wife was taken by location, proximity to schools, period features etc. I was standing there thinking ‘that looks like a tremendous space to make an unholy racket in’.
I would argue that it is very important to keep this kind of perspective in any prospective property purchase.
Built extension with concrete floor, vaulted ceiling, dedicated mains, rectangular, view of garden etc etc. So damn nice it got turned into our lounge.
However the music room is mid 1800s, irregular & with ceiling beams. They knew a thing or 2 about acoustics them Victorians.
That sounds like one idea I have for a room, shame you lost it but yes Victorian houses around here (and 99% are of that era) have mostly 10ft ceilings. Any pics of your extension Barney?
