Home Theater Room Size (1 Viewer)

[Mark Hudzinski]

My fiancee and I are in the beginning stages of planning the house that we are going to have built late next year after we get married, and I'm going to have a dedicated Home Theater Room. My question is this: Since I'm going to be building the house from the ground up, what dimensions of room are ideal for a Home Theater system? I'm probably going to be running 7.2, and want to have dedicated seating for at least 6 people. Any ideas or information? Any websites I may want to check out for more information? Thanks in advance.

 

[Terry Montlick]

Hi Mark,

Less than concert-hall-sized room have audible low frequency room modes, which can give you very uneven subwoofer response. Good room dimension ratios can help to some extent. Here are some of the "classic" room ratios:

1:1.4:1.9 (Louden, 1971)
1:1.25:1.6 (Knudsen, 1950)
1:1.14:1.39 (Sepmeyer, 1965)
1:1.28:1.54 (Sepmeyer, 1965)
1:1.60:2.33 (Sepmeyer, 1965)

No particular ratio is guaranteed to give absolutely optimal room resonant modes, because there are other acoustical subtleties involved. They just avoid the known bad cases, as when one dimension is close to an exact multiple of another, for example.

Not to scare you, but even with good room ratios, room modes should be measured and addressed with optimal subwoofer placement and equalization.

For a nice flexible room dimensions calculator, see the one written in Excel on our website:

http://www.componentacoustics.com

Click on "New! Room Dimensions Calculator"

Regards,
Terry

 

[Erik Farstad]

Mark, I basically did what you just described and I my theater comfortably seats six and the dimensions are 12 wide, 18.2 feet long, and 8.2 feet tall. Or 12x18x8 for short!

I chose this based on the aforementioned dimension calculators, etc.

You can follow my construction process through the link below...have fun buddy...you're in for a great ride!

E

 

[scott>sau]

The right room is 1000-5000CF (LXWXH). The right room shape is rectangular. Dimensions should not be multiples of each other (8x16x20, 10x16x20, 8x14x28 are all bad). Either stack dual subs, or place one in a front corner and the second asymmetrically to yield smoothest bass response. Standing waves will be more controlled with this placement. Plan for acoustic treatment, it means the world to sound quality.
Terry's site is great: http://www.componentacoustics.com/and also
http://www.acousticalsolutions.com/