yrtimed

I am very glad to see the topic is still alive I can tell you what I ended up doing. For speakers, I bought plain "AudioQuest CV-1 bulk" ($49.98 for 9 meters, year and a half ago from Amazon), cut it to exactly the length I needed and have been using with no complains since then. Didn't use any plugs, just tightened the screws. Till recently I've been using it in the "bi-wire" mode, then I suddenly felt weird about using so different gauges (look at the picture of CV-1) for lows and highs, so yesterday I put back the jumpers. I am not saying I can hear the difference, but my feeling of symmetry is no longer offended

Thanks, artto!

Rudy, Thanks, I'll have a look! Briefly to your comments: This is going to be a listening room in the first place (one day I might add a projector and a pull-down screen between the speakers, but probably not before I am done with all the stereo upgrades I have in mind, including the acoustic treatment). As well, I'll have my study there (I often work with quiet music playing "in the background"). That is why I am thinking of the couch as the primary seat, but the desk and the chair should also be there.

Mike, Thanks for the help! I just looked into the book you recommended. If I understand correctly, he basically says that the room dimensions are not everything, and it's likely that the things will have to be corrected later. I am fine with that, I am just trying to start with some "reasonable" dimensions, afterwards I'll probably add some treatment. Btw, would you recommend adding "standard" acoustic treatment (bass traps, reflection-free zone, etc.) or first performing acoustical measurements and then addressing specific problems? How would you actually make the walls not too stiff? Say, using double drywall everywhere is, in your opinion, not a good idea? Yes, I already have the Khorns. If I go for open rafters, that doesn't have to be all the way to the roof, right? Can I just build the "ceiling" above the rafters (solving the thermal insulation issue)? If I do that, what ceiling shape (and height) would you suggest?

Istari, Thanks, I will probably go for some fiberglass insulation too. As the thing is in the garage, heat insulation is also important, so the more I have is probably the better. Btw, do you have any "tricks" how to make heating/cooling quieter? Our heating system is forced air.

I was going to do some basic acoustic treatment, probably. Insulation - I do not know whether I need it, as the house is in a quite area. What kind of insulation would you recommend? At some point I was thinking of double drywall with Green Glue on walls and ceiling. Probably, "Room in a room" would be too much, and also would eat a lot of space.

Istari, Thanks! I am not sure I understand what you mean by bracing the corners, could you please post a link to some picture? Are you talking only about the 2 corners where K-hors should be placed? Later: I guess, I got your point. When you say "the first 4 feet" you mean 4' up from the floor (and not 4' along each wall), right?

On second thought, everybody's saying that placing K-horns by a longer wall is recommended. So, given that I am designing a room specially for these speakers, trying to place them along a shorter wall would be rubbing the wrong way. Again, played with calculators and found that 9.3'x17'x20' is a good and "height-robust" ratio. If I go for it, I place the K-horns along the 20' wall. Makes sense??

Thanks Istari, I see your point. Also the "official" recommended placement is along the longer wall. If I place the K-horns by the shorter wall, then probably the couch would be in a close to optimal position, but not the desk chair. On the other hand, if I put the speakers by the long wall then it would be impossible to find a decent symmetric placement for both couch and the table. Another issue is that if I build slanted ceiling then I would not really have a choice to try and compare placement by shorter vs. longer wall. I am not sure what shall I do...

I looked into "Master Handbook of Acoustics", and played a little with this and this calculators. The following seems to be close to the best I can get, given my size restriction: It really makes sense to have vaulted ceiling, unless I want to place panels on it. The "naked" height is 10' (at least), I am not sure how much of it will be eaten by the construction, but aiming to the average height of 9.2' should be enough to get more than 1' gap between the high and the low ends. So, I would do that. Assuming that height=9.2' and given that I want the room length to be more than twice the height, I started from one of the nearby "recommended ratios" and adjusted it to cancel some coinciding resonances (they depend on the actual dimensions, not just the ratio). I got to the room size 9.2'x15'x21'. It is also "height-robust" in the sense that apparently, nothing terrible happens if I change the height between 8.5' and 9.8' (using the averaged height in the calculations gave me some feeling of uncertainty, so I wanted to compensate for that by checking what is going on in the wider range). Makes sense?

Mike, I plan to do something like this (assuming 14'x19' room): Here (1) is the listening room, (2) is a small library room, (3) is a corridor attached to the house and (4) is the garage leftover (that should grow back into a garage one day, by moving forward the car door). Currently all (1)+(2)+(3)+(4) is the 25'x29' garage. It does have sort-of-attic (there are beams, but no attic floor). Between the beams and the floor the distance is at least 10' (ranging between 10'3" and 10').

Don, thanks for the help! [H]

I've made a new approximate chart of the room:

Thanks, Don, you answers are very helpful! You're right, before the room is built is the right time to look for the optimal shape of it. Ideally I would love to only add a couple of bookshelves in the right locations, instead of using more artificially-looking acoustic treatment panels. B.t.w., bookshelves with glass doors would be a bad idea, am I right? When you're talking about 2" per wall, do you mean making a room, say, with straight walls of sizes 13'10.5', 14'1.5', 18'11" and 19'1"? Structurally, it would be the easiest to have one of the angles equal to 90 degrees, and all the rest would be determined by that. Shall I make the "rectangular approximation" of the room corresponding to one of the recommended good ratios? In the case above, I was thinking about the 10x14x19 suggested ratio for rectangular rooms. Now, you mentioned sloped ceiling. Shall I, instead of having the height of 10' everywhere, have the ceiling linearly rising from, say, 9' to 10' (and adjust the room dimensions, in this case taking 9'6" as the height to put into the 10:14:19 formula)? The lower end wound be at the wall where the speakers will stand, of course. We have concrete floor in the garage, and I am thinking of making a wood floor in the listening room. Is it OK? Shall I use some special floor materials? Shall I use special materials to build the walls and the ceiling? We live in a quiet area, so I do not care much about noise isolation. Is it OK to have a window in the room? If so, does it necessarily have to be between the two K-horns, or may I put it on one of the side walls (maybe, compensating with some special acoustic treatment on the opposite wall)? Thanks a lot for your help!!

Hi David, Thanks for you response! I cross-linked this topic at another thread of this forum, http://community.klipsch.com/forums/t/124678.aspx, and there I got more responses. In particular, according to some advices I looked up recommended ratios on the web and changed a bit my mind regarding the size of the room. Right now I am thinking about a room of dimensions 10x14x19 (in feet). The questions that you asked are exactly the ones I am trying to answer myself right now (as the room is just planned, not constructed yet). If you do not mind, please have a look at the parallel topic, I'll post there the answers to your questions right now. Thanks!