What are the perfect room dimensions?

[@progressiveguy9959]

I very much enjoy your stories,Paul.

[@WarinPartita6]

Big​ thanks, Paul.

[@draganantonijevic2441]

Golden ratio and proportion ... yes, but ... it is not necessary to be exact in that ratio and to have exact number of 1,618 ... it is more important that the dimensions of room-space are approaching this ratio ... in nature and the universe, everything that is in the golden ratio, in fact, it's only near and endlessly approaching to that number and proportion - God's proportion. So, Paul's room is (approximately): L= 25-26, W= 15-16, H= 9-10 feet ... or anyone can see very good next explanation from Jiri Horak and ''The Golden Trapagon''. Cheers!

[@BlankBrain]

If you're building a room, throw in a cathedral ceiling. My listening room, which has one, reduces a lot of problems. It helps compensate for other problems, such as a stone fireplace and asymmetric window and door placement.

[@Gregor7677]

BlankBrain That sounds like my living room. It’s terrible. Fortunately I have a good rec room w good h/w ratio and it’s 56’ long.

[@jimhines5145]

Square rooms are fine, as long as they are filled. I assume you mean an empty square room. Love your videos!

[@Armonia2810]

First of all, the proportions of the dimensions of the room must obey(approaching ±5%) the golden ratio, 1x1.62x2.62(yes, it was the Greek mathematicians who determined the golden ratio, which is the number 1.618, and specifically the related theory was formulated for the first time by the female Pythagorean philosopher Theano.) from there and then the length must meet the wavelength of the lowest frequency we want to reproduce, taking as the speed of sound 344.7m /sec at a temperature of 22°C frequencies with a wavelength longer than the longest dimension of the room are attenuated at a rate of 6db/oct. as for standing waves, you can break them by using diffusers and reflectors on the walls and corners as well as heavy furniture on the floor. however in any case the room will still have a central resonant frequency, albeit diffuse. if you can get this frequency to be in the range of frequencies below 63hz then you will achieve the perfect room

[@BobGeogeo]

Very helpful, thanks Paul. Is the "Resources" page now under Support / how-to ? Or is the room calculator somewhere else?

[@CaveyMoth]

Can't forget about acoustic treatments and the dichotomy between deadening and diffusing reverberation within the room.

[@waynecharlton3081]

In my humble opinion, the ancient Greeks didn't invent the Golden Ratio so much as discovered it. It is intrinsic to nature predisposed, and the universe as a whole - in as far as science is currently aware, that is. For the boldness and audacity of this comment, I beg the reader's indulgence and pardon. I promise to try to not let it happen again.

[@jagjet9153]

Wow Wayne, do you feel better now ? While I thought to myself two things.... He might have said discovered if he was working off a scripted and correct 2nd or third pass. And how long would it be before somebody jumped in and had to appear smarter. Congrats You get the snarky little bitch award ! Try not to always make it about you, at least until you have offered the world as much as Paul has....

[@jonathansturm4163]

It is in fact a rectangle that can be bisected into a square and another rectangle in the same ratio. The smaller rectangle can then be bisected to create another square and rectangle in the golden ratio. This can be continued to infinity and a logarithmic spiral generated by inscribing a segment of a circle in each square. The log spiral occurs many places in Nature: the distribution of seeds in sunflowers, nautilus shells... Search for "golden ratio" in Google images.

[@jonathansturm4163]

@@jagjet9153 I think you make a mountain out of a mole hill. The Golden Ratio was described mathematically by Leonardo Pisano Bigollo Fibonacci. Mathematics is arguably a human invention (contra Plato), though I once possessed a plant that could count to two. The Fibonacci Series, the actual mathematical description of the Golden Ratio, was arguably invented by Leonardo Pisano Bigollo Fibonacci. Thus the Golden Ratio, as humans understand it, is a mixture of both discovery and invention. Maybe it's jagjet who wins the snarky little bitch award...

[@alexk1682]

Wayne Charlton okay kid, relax.

[@Paulmcgowanpsaudio]

A fine distinction, there, but you're right. I stand corrected.

[@jeffhunter4395]

Crown molding,that's a fantastic idea.

[@lroy730]

Even better than 45 degree corners is Round Corners . A friend of mine had a old house with plaster walls. It had rounded inside corners and where the ceiling met the wall was rounded. It had great sound everywhere and just a few curtains cut the standing waves to nothing . My last house had standing waves so bad they would all the sudden blow your hair back and scare the shit out of you. People would say "WTF was that ?" I would say "That's the S.W Ghost !"

[@societyofhighendaudio]

I pick another lesson. Thanks

[@Alexandra-Rex]

I could not find the room calculator on the website, so I am curious if it has been taken removed.

[@renatogomes2396]

Theres evidence of Golden ratio usage back in 2700 BC (King Kufu from Egipt)

[@ramsaybolton9099]

Excellent. Thank you!

[@komoru]

Room calculator not found on your website anymore (?)

[@timothycooley2455]

hello,what about some (crown moulding) where floor meets side and end walls??

[@johnsweda2999]

I think the best explanation Paul is to explain it like water in a tub you drop a pebble in the tub and the Waves bouncing off the walls and corners interact with each other and can Accelerate and amplitude the returning waves try and have round corners will help and it's attractive, if you can insulate it with natural hay bales even better and wattle and daub lime mix it is a great insulator make sure it's fire retardant treated straw/hay. Height is very important try and go above 10 feet at least where the speakers are you could have it at a sloping angle 3 ft in front of the speakers if you can't do the whole ceiling? Make the ceiling transparent with cloth and above that rockwool an air gap between the cloth and the rockwool

[@jonathansturm4163]

"insulate it with natural hay bales" Why hay? It costs a _lot_ more than straw because of its nutrient content. I have come across straw bale construction and found myself somewhat bemused. Walls are the cheapest part of a house and obsessing over reducing their cost makes less sense to me than seeking cost reductions in the more expensive parts such as the roof and windows. The super-thick walls increase the roof area by a significant amount and if you include this extra cost straw-bale is not anywhere near as inexpensive as is frequently claimed. I have heard several owner-builders describe straw-bale construction as "rat heaven". Rats love to live in them. I much prefer my rat-proof corrugated zincalume walls. They were very quick to put up as well as strong, durable and attractive.

[@johnsweda2999]

Straw or hay I don't know what the difference is. I'm not sure why it should be a rat Warren rats shouldn't be able to get in if it's built on a proper foundations with proper lime cement outside walls, I don't think it's any worse then a wood house! Plus it protects you against gunfire great deadening construction, blocking outside noise if its a problem like traffic, keeps you warm Naturally in the winter and cold in the summer, Or even an earthquake zone I don't know how it would behave hear? but should be alright to stand up to earthquakes. You would use a galvanised metal mesh anyway in the outside walls as well. If rodents are a problem they won't be able to chew through that. I think the benefits outways the disadvantages, cost is a problem but that's because not many people use it and if you get it from a local farmer possibly you could get it at a good deal! but has to be treated for bugs and fire-retardants. I'm curious now how it would stand up against earthquakes.

[@jonathansturm4163]

@@johnsweda2999 "Straw or hay I don't know what the difference is." I thought I explained that already. Straw consists of the stalks left over from harvesting cereals such as wheat, oats, barley and rye. Hay is made from leafy crops such as grass, clover, or lucerne (alfalfa in the US). Usually these days hay is made into cylindrical bales wrapped in plastic weighing ~250 kg (550 lb), or more. Good luck building a house with modern hay bales! I'm not sure what you mean by "proper lime cement". Usually, straw bale walls are rendered with lime plaster. This is made by mixing 2.5 parts clean sand with 1 part hydrated lime and water. While you can render with a plaster made with cement, it has a number of disadvantages. The first is that unlike lime render, it doesn't stick to straw. It falls off. To overcome this, you need to have a layer of chicken wire (usually a double layer). Unlike lime render, cement render doesn't "breathe" so any moisture in the straw will stay there and rot the straw. If the spores from the fungus get inside the house, they can cause a rather nasty disease called farmers' lung. Apropos vermin, I quote Dr. Owen Geiger Ph.D. former Director of Builders Without Borders: "[mice are] a common problem with straw bale houses. Often there there are grains left in the straw that would attract the rodents initially, and then once they find a way into the straw, they discover that it is warm and cozy and makes a nice home. To keep this from happening, one must be very careful to completely seal all possible entry holes with solid plaster. This is easier said than done, given the abilities of mice." Mice are very good at getting through remarkably small holes. Rats on the other hand, although larger, are more persistent in chewing their way through things. Lime render is rather soft. The copper in a motor vehicle wiring harness not so soft. A friend had to replace his in a Subaru WRX. The rats chewed off the PVC insulation then proceeded to chew through the copper. I have no idea why. I will add that a lime rendered straw bale wall also needs extra overhang of the eaves to protect the wall from rain. This is in addition to the extra (expensive) roof area required to compensate from the extra wall thickness caused by using straw bales. I'm not here claiming no advantages to straw bale construction; just that there are disadvantages that advocates rarely mention. Nor am I attempting to dissuade anyone from owner-building. The best 18 months of my life were spent building my bespoke, architect-designed home. It was both great fun (most days) and I saved a huge amount of money. It's clear to me at least that you know sweet fuck all about farming, or building.

[@DonHamlin]

Rock wool!!

[@sudd3660]

i would keep the corners, sharp, so i could fill them with absorption. that saves space for absorption other places in the room, like the walls. depending on if you got a absorsion ceiling that goes all the way to the edges that is.

[@scaryperson27]

I think paul likes slightly live rooms. I was thinking the same thing that you were about the absorption though.

[@Harald_Reindl]

You can't save space that way - no matter what you do in your corners naked walls have the same impact - you need to treat all 4 walls and the ceiling - and before some audiofool creeps out of his hole: no, that don't mean making the room dead when done right

[@SuspiciousAra]

I was looking for "resources" on ps audio website, could not find it. but i have found a very complicated tutorial on some jriver whatever. why not just stream directly with a synology drive? that sucker is DSD native capable over the network

[@djnorm777]

I guess the web site has change I can’t find the room calculator

[@ronjlwhite8058]

Awesome vid Paul.

[@DuzBee]

Hi Paul, Do you believe in The Golden Trapagon for home cinema?

[@doylewayne3940]

1.618 and I wonder whats in that 1%, thanks Paul.

[@tommerchant7542]

And 1/1.618 is 0.618. It's a really beautiful number.

[@Netopia40]

So, what would a dome be? Better, or worse, than any other shape with flat walls?

[@MrIsaacE]

dome can focus waves like a lens, could potentially cause extreme bumps. think of the reflector in a maglite.

[@tomtaylor7292]

P L U G,,,,,,!!! O M G,,,!!!!! And I live in a caravan how will my WILSON & BENECH sound if I close my caravan windows,,??? Better or worse would you say,??

[@DJUwU]

*You can't pick a worse room than a square room....* *"Cube room: "try me"* *Circular room: hides in corner* *Spherical room: "alright kids lets calm down....*

[@justingriffin2546]

My friend wanted to do a room based on Fibonacci spiral like shellfish...crazy but...I'd like to see that...

[@RoaroftheTiger]

The Golden Ratio … the Ionian Greeks

[@ivanmaskov]

Hi paul! Would it be possible to record music on vhs tape? What quality would it be.could you use it like reel to reel machine and make use of all tape space and not space wasted for video? Have a marvalous time Ivan Maškov from Croatia.

[@seymourclearly]

Maškov Production it is possible, I remember people recording music onto vhs tapes in the past, I can’t remember how

[@BlankBrain]

Sony came out with Beta HiFi in 1983. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax#HiFi_audio_upgrade VHS followed with HiFi in 1984. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS#Hi-Fi_audio_system At this point, it makes more sense to record WAV, compress it to FLAC and store it on a NAS.

[@Paulmcgowanpsaudio]

Yes, BlankBrain has it right. I used to own one of the original Sony PCM recorders he mentions and they were actually quite good! It was the device I first started making live recordings with

[@brianmoore581]

I'm no expert, but I used to do just that. I had a stereo VHS deck (they weren't all stereo) and I would hook it up to my CD player to record "mix tapes" of my favorite songs, or record nighttime talk radio shows I wanted to listen to later. This was back in the days before the internet was what it is now and home computers were really just toys. It's probably easier to record to a hard drive now. But if you still have a good stereo VCR and some usable cassettes, you can use it just like an audio cassette recorder, the only drawback being that there is no recording level control. I would recommend using standard play for the best sounding music, which gives you two hours or so, depending on the cassette you have. For talk shows, you can use long play or extended play, which I think could record for up to eight hours or more, if I remember correctly. You can even set the timer to record while you are asleep. Thanks for your post. It reminds me of old times, old to me, anyways. You don't get any extra time by not having video. It's an analog signal, but designed for video. The recording/playback heads spin as the tape moves. The sound quality is fine, depending on your machine and the tape you use, but it isn't something you would want to use to archive important audio recordings. I would choose any purely audio format, a computer, DAT, stand alone CD recorder, even an audio cassette deck over a VCR. The only advantage of the VCR is long recording times if you need that.

[@pirate0jimmy]

Vhs or beta HiFi are wide band audio, but use dbx and have a little bit of breathing. Quieter than Dolby compact cassette. To get pcm on a tape, you are recording a video signal with an external converter like the Sony F1. If it was actually 14 bit a miracle occured, but soooo quiet compared to cassette and smaller than an ATR-102. New stuff is better, cheaper, smaller.

[@MindBodySoulOk]

Acid went bad in the 80s. Maybe it was just me...

[@davidstevens7809]

fibunachi

[@60zeller]

Throwing eggs!!! That’s how Oswald got started.

[@shaun9107]

I try a Pyramid lol

[@Big_Old_Bondy]

Trying to get planning permission for pyramid haa

[@shaun9107]

@@Big_Old_Bondy Yeah ......., stand out a bit lol

[@myronhelton4441]

This is a damn fact. Most people think that speakers have to be in a big room, so to keep music distorting vibrations to hit your ears. Speakers needing to be 4 foot from a wall, in a rectangle room. This is wrong. Rectangle rooms are not needed. Speakers can be 66 inches apart. 2 to 3 feet off the ground for bookshelfs. Bookshelfs can be placed the width of you fist from a brick wall. Speakers can be close to a brick wall because the brick are deffractors. You can buy deffractors. Google deffractors. Speakers close to a brick wall has more bass, making subwoofers uneccessary. A sub will sound muddy in this situation. The bass will be clearer than a subwoofer. The hard brick will give bigger dynamics and bass. material on walls is no good.

[@jonathansturm4163]

"Rectangle rooms are not needed." Back in the 1970s geodesic dome homes became very trendy. Friends built one to live in and discovered it was an acoustical nightmare. It also had apparently incurable leaks. They sold it and built a more habitable home. With rectangular rooms. The new owners demolished the dome and also built something more habitable in its place. This also has rectangular rooms. Paul's advice to make sure the walls are not exactly parallel occurs in Rex Roberts' book _Your Engineered House_ (1964). Paul's advice is quite sound (pun intended).

[@filteredwaters9171]

Please look up the answer before you blabber on and on. I don't believe a thing you say, that way.

[@hardcorecap]

3rd