Hifi room in summer house

Fortunately most councils are very sympathetic to the stress and anguish from noisy neighbours and there are remedies to deal with these situations.

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I doubt many of those who frequent this neighbourhood could be classed as inconsiderate or annoying neighbours. Being prevented from listening to an expensive system in a structure you have invested a lot of money into by the local council would be counter productive. As would listening to loud music in the main house in an inconsiderate way. There is no difference in where you listen as long as you are considerate and not annoying :blush:

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Absolutely

Another option, of course, if you have a spare bedroom, is to convert that.
Very cost effective way of having a dedicated listening room.
Mine is 3.5m x 4.5m. The acoustic treatment means I have no discernible room nodes and sounds awesome. Pictures were before I upgraded to new and full 500 series.

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@Stig Your room looks really nice. Unfortunately I don’t have a spare bedroom otherwise I may be tempted to copy yours.

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I have decided that I will upgrade the Summer House and put the system in there.

Just need to work out the best insulation to use for the walls and ceiling. It will need to insulate against temperatures but also help with the acoustics of the space.
Also, will put carpet down over the existing wooden floor to help with the sound.
One thing I can’t decide on is whether to use plasterboard on the walls or clad with T&G. I like the wood logs that I will be covering up with insulation but not sure if that will negatively affect the acoustics.

In terms of noise for neighbours I should be ok as its far enough away from people and if I do the above insulation it will be minimsed.

Mark

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@Farthings-cat Looks great. How did you decide where to put the acoustic panels?

Have you considered electricity supply/service Mark?

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@Adam1 Wow that’s a substantial cabin. Its like a bigger version of mine. Mine only has single 44mm log walls.
Do you not have any sound problems with the hard flooring?

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@QuickSticks The summer house is already in use as an outdoor room and has its own power and wired internet.
The reason I have been nervous about putting the Naim system in there is due to extremes of temps during winter and summer due to it not having proper insulation and the fact the security of the doors/window isn’t great.
Plus, I want the system to sound great in there and wasn’t sure if the idea was daft.

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What part of the country do you live in? :thinking:
You’re welcome to come for lunch and have a listen to how mine sounds. It would appear that on the surface our systems are similar.
I have been known to put on a good lunch😉

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If you like the internal look of the logs you might consider insulating the outside. I renovated a timber frame Scandinavian style house a few years ago and placed the bulk of the insulation outside over a suitable membrane to mitigate against condensation.

Hi M4rky, the cabin is on a concrete plinth and then there is a few layers of flooring as there are the floor boards, some insulation, then the wooden floor and then on much of it another layer of chipboard sheets (for the load bearing of the weights and fitness gear) and then on top of that rubber tiles.

The sound leakage from the cabin is pretty low, has to be very loud to then hear it by our garage 6 feet away, and even then its pretty residual.

Mark.

Obviously equipment in a domestic environment is always going to be a compromise between ideal siting of equipment and acoustic treatment, verses what is aesthetically acceptable to those sharing the space.
If you are going to dedicate your garden room to your HiFi enjoyment you are going to have more leeway.
To get the most out of your HiFi their are a few golden rules to aim for (which may or may not be achievable even in a dedicated room) :

  1. Try to have symmetry of your left and right walls. If they are the same, even if they are not acoustically ideal, they will behave the same way. This will allow your two chanel soundstage to develop correctly.
  2. The space between your speakers should, if possible, be ‘sacred’. i.e. contain nothing. Equipment placed between speakers can disrupt the development of the soundstage. If it’s unavoidable then try to bring the face of the speakers forward of that equipment.
  3. The speakers and listening chair should be, if possible, along the central axis of the room. Again this provides left/right symmetry for the soundstage.
  4. Having found the ideal placement for speakers AND listening position (which is a whole subject in itself) you can then place the acoustic treatment panels. They should be at the first reflection points of both sidewalls (and ceiling), and can be found by sitting in your chair and getting someone to move a mirror along each wall in turn, marking the places you see the speaker in the reflection. There will obviously be 2 points on each wall (where you see the left speaker and then when you see the right speaker.
    (I also treated the front and back walls to tame the base nodes and designed and built a quadratic residue diffuser tuned to around 800Hz…but that’s another story)
    Symmetry is the key.
    It sounds a lot but it isn’t really. Get it right and you will be treated to a soundstage you never thought possible. Certainly in my room I can ‘see’ instruments projected way beyond the front wall and out beyond the speakers, with other notes literally appearing inches from my ears or dancing in front of my face. It’s quite remarkable.
    The treatment should diminish the room nodes so that nothing is swamping the music that is yet to come, giving a crispness that is fantastic.
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Beautiful conversation F-C

Wish I had a master bedroom that big let alone a spare bedroom of the size.

:disappointed:

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Using the mirror trick I positioned them at first and second refection points on the sides and first on the ceiling. Then treated corners and behind listening position.

Best advise is contact GIK and send a picture and room dimensions and they produce a recommendation. They can go deeper if you take sound measurements but have a look on their website.

Gary

Ps worth doing for sure!

Stings advice is spot on.
Gary

I would recommend a structure built for the task, I.e. fully insulated, double glazing, multi point locks. A radiator with frost guard keeps the winter temp around 10C. Summer temps get to around 25C. An alarm connected to the main house. Temp/sound insulation and just enough security for peace of mind. Not cheap but I’ve no regrets and get so much pleasure out of mine.

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Just wondering whether there were any insurance implications from having this high value equipment in outbuildings or whether this is captured under your household contents. Most burglaries these days appear to target outbuildings, a friend of ours had musical instruments and recording equipment lifted from there garden room :frowning: