Sound mirror that is 200 feet long. A whisper at one end is clearly heard at the other end. Outdated by radar.
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An interesting place, and I was there once when the chap that wrote the history books (Richard Scarth - Mirrors by the Sea and Echoes from the Sky) was guiding, and I had a small film point and shoot camera, that for one of those odd and maybe rare moments was not loaded with film, and my pictures were never recorded…
And architect of my college chapel.
Roger
To my ears the RAH improvements were more successful than the ones at the RFH. Not a fan of the Barbican, either. But really, London has no large concert hall to match Symphony Hall, Birmingham or even, in my prejudiced opinion, Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.
With apologies to the OP for thread diversion.
Roger
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What you want is a copy of Amsterdams Concertgebouw 
Anything sounds right there.
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Wasn’t apples/gravity Newton?
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My brother has made his own pair of electrostatic speakers which I have yet to hear.
Your shelving has my attention and I’d like to know more if you’re willing to share.
Ah, right. You may have me there. I knew that it was an old geezer. Apologies.
If I did a lot of searching, I could probably find where you are describing, but to save me the bother…?
The shelving was made for me by a very clever chap, who did quite a lot of work on finishing details in my house in Brighton when I moved here in 2010.
It’s basically a bIg panel, which - I suppose - would lift out from the wall, but I can’t remember now how it’s actually fixed to the wall. It certainly feels very solid indeed.
Sorry, that’s not a lot of help. (I’ve lost touch with the chap who made it, otherwise I’d pass on his details. Shall I try to find him for you?)
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The amount of thought going into this is impressive. On the hand, I’d be inclined to build a room with dimensions and decore that you find most pleasing and then overlay hifi considerations over the top.
In my experience, “sound quality” and “listening” are not the same. The goal of the former can lead to some very extreme rooms. To me listening is more important and the listening experience is only partly about sound quality. As an emotional experience the room you’re in, what the hifi looks like how you feel interacting with it are all important. Ultimately total comfort, both psychological as well as physical.
So when presented the same opportunity, I did not agoniise over dimensions. I basically asked myself what makes a comfortable room? What window locations look nice? Then threw (considerable) money at a third party vendor to treat that room for audio. Even then, I scaled back some of their design for aesthetic reasons. The most perfect hifi room in the world means nothing if the space isn’t one you want to spend time in.
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One with as few parallel surfaces as possible to minimize standing waves
The perfect listening room - sometimes it is the room you least expect!
When we moved into our new place 10 years ago I did not think we would have much luck with good sound given the angles and glass - I now consider never moving from here since it turned out the best sound of any room we have had - and I had about 17 different rooms over the years and listened to many highly treated rooms; each room is measured with REW and speaker position optimized. Also really no preference for speakers - the Devore O/96, Graham LS5/9 and Falcon LS3/5a sound equally good. In fact I have not heard the Falcons sound this huge anywhere I tried them.
A telling signal - the room is also good for regular conversations with lots of clarity even when watching basic TV. I can’t say the same for some of the custom designed rooms I heard.
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Non-parallel walls likely have an awful lot to do with it
Lovely room, lovely view and lovely Devore 0/96’s.
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That is of course the explanation - there are very few resonances in this room below 120Hz. First reflection on the left is mitigated by chair/pillow placement, first reflection on the right is almost nonexistent given the angle and size of room. Blinds do help to mitigate reflections of the glass slightly. Placement was trickier - the current long wall placement works best - the other direction do not sound nearly as good.
I think most choose too much symmetry when selecting or designing a listening room, breaking the symmetry avoids exciting room nodes. And careful measurement for speaker placement is IMO even more important than treatment - treatment cannot fix a challenging speaker positioning.
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Thanks for the kind comments - difficult to not spent time in this place and perfect place to enjoy the sun and some music!
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I found the same affect as @NigelB (post #14) regarding sloped eaves on both sides, opposite direction to your ceiling drawing. The sound was very good, in fact the best I’ve had in any room.
I think the sloped walls/ceiling must break up the sound waves properly. I was getting an excellent spread of the band/orchestra with quite accurate placement of instruments and vocalists. And this was with a conservative setup … well, compared to Nigel’s kit …
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Thanks, I think you mean like in pic 1 with the eves on the left and right hand side of the listener rather than behind and in front of the listener as it is in pic 2 which is how my ceiling is in my current listening room.
I suppose it works a bit like having non parallel walls without actually having non parallel walls.
Pic 1
Pic 2
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