Hi there - sounds like a good venture!
Whether or not you need a regular speaker layout rather depends on how
you're decoding. We built an ambisonic sound lab last year - there's a
slightly blurry but current photo at
http://www.blueripplesound.com/downloads/SoundLab20140311.jpg, and the
speaker layout is actually the GUI example at
http://www.blueripplesound.com/products/rapture-3d-advanced. This is
definitely *not* regular, but sounds great IMO.
The space was about 6m x 7m x 2.5m before the sound proofing / treatment
went in (RT60 ~= 1/6s). The height was okay, but not brilliant, so we
treated the ceiling and walls but not the floor, and went for a low seat to
keep what space we could above. IIRC we lost 18cm on each surface. The
speaker distances range from 1.5m to 3.4m from the centre and their
locations have no particular plan beyond aiming to get reasonable coverage
(i.e. no large directional gaps) except beneath the listener, and to not get
in the way of the screen, windows or door. All speakers can be moved except
the ceiling ones, although we've not done this yet. The speakers in the room
are currently set out roughly left/right symmetric, but this isn't
necessary. We often use more irregular subsets of the 22 speakers when
testing, but for general use it seems a shame not to turn them all on! (With
Rapture3D, this is fine even for first order.) There are no centre speakers
in the ceiling simply because of a metal beam there. The current weakest
points are probably the fans in the projector and PC (there's no separate
control room), but hopefully we'll upgrade those to silent ones soon(ish).
When working with the projector on, the final essential components are a
wireless keyboard and mouse - and sometimes a PC X-Box controller ;-)
Best wishes,
--Richard
-Original Message-
From: Sursound [mailto:sursound-boun...@music.vt.edu] On Behalf Of
Steven Boardman
Sent: 08 March 2014 01:13
To: sursound@music.vt.edu
Subject: [Sursound] Construction of purpose built ambisonic studio.
Hi all.
I am about to embark on the construction of a purpose built ambisonic
studio, which will also double as a 5.1 suite.
I have constructed many studios in the past but never one where all the
speaker positions have equal importance. Normally with stereo it is
beneficial for the sides of the space not to be divisible into each other.
The cube being one of the worst examples of this. It is generally better
to
have the mix position at one end of the longest side of a room too, which
helps diffuse reflections before they return to the mix position. Also
completely parallel faces aren't good either, (but they also need to
symmetrical and predictable) as of course this creates more reflections.
Wider and higher at the back is generally a good thing. The general idea
is
to through all errors behind where they have less importance and where
they
can lose there energy more. This also applies to 5.1, where front has
dominance.
The problem I have is that this doesn't seem to a good idea with
ambisonics, as the mix position needs to be central and all angle errors
need to be equal. This actually leans towards the construction of a
perfect
cube for simplicity of build, as creating a perfect sphere would be
difficult and space would be lost.
It will basically be a third order set up, but not sure on the exact
amount
of speakers yet. I have 4 subs, 25 satellites (120hz roll off) and 10
nearly full range speakers (60hz roll off). Any advice on room shape, and
speaker positioning would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Steve
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