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:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > Steven Boardman > Sent: 08 March 2014 01:13 > To: [email protected] > 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 > > > -- > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/201403 > 08/2e24cabe/attachment.html> > _______________________________________________ > Sursound mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list [email protected] https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
