The King is dead. Long live the king !

[Elberoth]

dot two - I noticed that you are a big AN fan as well. OTO is one of my all time favourite little amps.

I live in Warsaw, Poland.

[jpspock]

Dear Elberoth,

many thanks for your beautiful pics and congratulation. I'm a little bit surprised you use a Pass XA30.5, great amp. I listened a few weeks ago Sasha with and the results was very, very good. But I found that it Sasha needed more for low medium and bass. The XA100.5 have solved this. Can you give me your impression. I have no idea about your preamp Dartzeel. Can you give a little description of it.

jp

[Sharp 1080]

Elberoth,

Congratulations on the new speakers.

Looking forward to your feedback regarding the new Sasha. I need to check audiogon more frequently.

[Elberoth]

OK gang, here is a complete story behind building my new dedicated listening room.

It took me one year and a half to complete, but it was well worth the wait. I simply love it.

The room size is 555 (L) x 430 (W) x 255 (H) cm.

The room was designed by a company that specialises in acoustic design. The room acoustics was first designed in a digital domain and then improved upon with a real world measurements taken during all stages of construction work.



The room is soundproof and - among other things - features soundproof windows, double doors and 22cm thick double walls. The measured noise level inside the room is 26dB during the day (measured during rush hours, at 16:00), so it is almost dead quiet.

I always dreamed about a dedicated listening room, but never had a chance to build one. The opportunity arouse when I bought a new appartment. In a true act of generosity, my wife let me take 2 out of 4 bedrooms for my future project.

The appartment I bought was unfinished.



As it quickly turned out, the existing walls needed to be razed to ground. Both my architect and acoustic engineer agreed that they need to be moved, although for a different reasons :-)

Another reason to dismantle them was insufficient soundproofing - and making the room sound proof was one of my highest priorities (my listening room is adjacent to my baby's room, which in normal circumstances would preclude late night listening).



We decided to build the new walls from Fermacell (TM) boards. Our first thought was to build the brick wall, but as it turned out, the 30cm thick concrete floor was not strong enough to support several TONS of walls (yeah, brick wall weigh a lot more than one may think). Fermacell is somehow similar to the popular plasterboard, but is much stronger and three times heavier. And the mass is the key word in soundproofing.



After rising the steel skeleton and filling it with a heavy mineral fiber, the whole wall was covered with a Acoustical Sound Barrier - rubber sheet used to block and reduce sound transmissions through walls, ceilings, and floors.



After completing the first wall, we build the SECOND wall to improve the soundproofing characteristics. So what we got is basicly "a room inside the room". The spacing between the two walls is 2cm.



The outer wall was covered with the more conventional plasterboards.

[Elberoth]

The total wall thickness is 22cm. The inner wall uses 3 layers of Fermacell, glued together to form a 40mm thick, inert sandwitch. The outer wall consists of tho layers of sheetrock - 32mm thick in total. You can see the 2cm spacing between the two walls.



Sound proofing wouldn't be complete without taking care of ceiling and the floor.

The ceiling, like the inner walls, was covered with Fermacell.





The 10cm space between the Fermacell and the concrete ceiling was stuffed with mineral fibre.



The floor was covered with special dampening mats (here seen as the blue mats sticking from under the concrete) and covered with 5cm of concrete. The concrete on the floor does not directly touch the walls at any point - this way the energy transfer between the ceiling and the walls in minimised. (The same is true for wall/wall and wall/ceiling conections - there is always a 5mm gap between them, filled with silicone).



Since I wanted to make the room soundproof inside and out, I also ordered new windows to seal me off from the city noise. The new windows have the Rw = 44dB - some 15dB higher than the standard double glaze stuff. Pls note that the new windows are made of aluminum, instead of wood. It is becouse of the massive weight of the glass inserts, which are made of several layers of glass, glued together (just like the car's windshield).



The noise level inside the room is down from 38dB to 26dB during rush hours ! This is almost dead quiet.

The next thing we build were rear and front diffusors. As you can see on the pic, the whole part of the rear wall, to which the diffusor will be later attached, pertrudes 12" into the room. It is done on purpose and it is a part of room acoustic design.



The diffusor "bed" is again stuffed with mineral fiber.



After completing the walls, the acoustic engineer took our first measurments.

[Elberoth]

The walls were covered with sandstone. It was done for acoustical reasons only, although doesn't look half as bad as I thought it would :-)




In fact, we have even extended the sand stone theme to the hall main wall - and although the pic doesn't do it justice - it in person it looks simply stunning with big mirror and stainless steel inserts.



The reason for using the sand stone, is his natural diffusive properties. I can tell you that after putting the sand stone, the whole slap echo, which is typical for empty rooms, was almost gone !

The floor was covered with exotic hardwood floor.

Next, we have installed the diffusors. They are made by German company called Acoustic Control Systems. I have 3 sets of those, one on the rear wall and two on the side walls.



The gaps left in the sandstone were filled with custom made absorbers, made in maple real wood finish.



At that point, we were still missing the front wall absorbers - as you can see by the empty spaces between the sandstone on the first pic. The reason we made everything step by step, was becouse we wanted to make measurements on every step of construction work, so that the acoustical project could be constantly improved.



The front wall was finally filled with the next 6 custom absorbers, tuned to two different frequencies.



If you look carefully, you will notice, that there is an MDF plate with lots of small holes fitted inside, which divides the internal volume of the absorber into two smaller chambers. The sound enters the traps by the front gaps, goes to the first empty chamber and then through the holes to the next chamber, where it can dissipate in a mineral fiber (fitted on the second pic).

[Elberoth]

Over the listening chair we put a set of 5 custom diffusers. They made a very noticable improvement in soundstaging.




We have finished the room off by installing audiophile circuit breakers from AHP ...



... and two triple audiophile outlets from HMS Energia (I have two 20A dedicated lines - one for analog and one for digital).



In the meantime, Daikin A/C split system replaced my McQuay unit after just a year of usage. The difference in noise levels generated by those two units is staggering. Daikin is so quiet (22dB) that you can barely hear it from the listening chair. There are CD-players that generate more noise than this ! The other outstanding feature of this unit is that it can work when outside temp drops to 10'F - so it can be used during winter too. Hello tubes - here I come !



This is the RT-60 curve of my room. Black trace is our target curve, blue one is base curve (empty room, no acoustic treatment, no floor), red curve shows how the room responded after ACS diffusors, wooden floor and sand stone were added. Green curve is the most recent one (with no front wall absorbers - they were installed later).



Room Frequency response. Quite nice if you ask me :-)



Well, that's it ! The end effect was well worth it !

[Still-One]

Elberoth - Thanks for taking the time to post your efforts. That is a beautiful room, you should be very proud.

How do you like the Pucinni player? Were you able to compare it to any others?

Jim

[jdandy]

Elberoth.......Wonderful open and bright atmosphere, excellent design, and the finished product is gorgeous. Congratulations on a job well done. It is a beautiful room to enjoy, and show off.

[gtubes]

I agree on showing it off, the level of detail in its construction should be profiled in a publication of some sort, it's amazing to me. So tastefully done. Wow. Greg