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Robert Peirce Robert Peirce is offline
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Default Glass walls

I am contemplating buying a house with a screened in back porch I want
to close off for an office and music room. My wife wants to replace the
screens with windows. That will leave me with mostly windows on three
sides and Hardiplank, a cement based exterior clapboard siding, on the
fourth.

What kind of problems am I going to have? My current room is
double-layered 5/8" wall board on 12" studs. It is pretty solid. It is
also tapered to reduce any standing wave problems. This room is all new
to me and I'm not sure what I am getting into.

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Audio Empire Audio Empire is offline
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Default Glass walls

On Sun, 8 Apr 2012 10:39:17 -0700, Robert Peirce wrote
(in article ):

I am contemplating buying a house with a screened in back porch I want
to close off for an office and music room. My wife wants to replace the
screens with windows. That will leave me with mostly windows on three
sides and Hardiplank, a cement based exterior clapboard siding, on the
fourth.

What kind of problems am I going to have? My current room is
double-layered 5/8" wall board on 12" studs. It is pretty solid. It is
also tapered to reduce any standing wave problems. This room is all new
to me and I'm not sure what I am getting into.


Every structure is different, of course, but I have a friend who bought an
Eichler home here in California. It was very much like this one:

http://tinyurl.com/7wvesy9

It had a vaulted ceiling and one whole wall of floor-to-ceiling glass with a
concrete slab floor. No matter what he did (and believe me, he tried
everything!) he could get no bass in that house (even with speakers like the
Infinity IRS with their TWELVE - 12" woofers in two 8 ft tall enclosures!).
He said that the glass just passed the low frequencies like there was nothing
there!. He also couldn't heat the damn thing, but he seemed less concerned
about that than he was about the lack of bass. He eventually sold the house
and moved into another, more normal structure.
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Greg Wormald Greg Wormald is offline
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Default Glass walls

In article ,
Robert Peirce wrote:

I am contemplating buying a house with a screened in back porch I want
to close off for an office and music room. My wife wants to replace the
screens with windows. That will leave me with mostly windows on three
sides and Hardiplank, a cement based exterior clapboard siding, on the
fourth.

What kind of problems am I going to have? My current room is
double-layered 5/8" wall board on 12" studs. It is pretty solid. It is
also tapered to reduce any standing wave problems. This room is all new
to me and I'm not sure what I am getting into.


With 3 glass and one hardiplank wall, the bass will go right through and
the treble will bounce around.

I'd suggest that you will need some very thick curtains on some of the
walls to reduce the bouncing, and some clever positioning (maybe
nearfield) so that the loss of the bass is not too apparent.

If you can make the room walls other than parallel this would help. A
sloping ceiling would also be an advantage.

What are the dimensions of this new room?

Greg
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Robert Peirce Robert Peirce is offline
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Posts: 140
Default Glass walls

In article ,
Audio Empire wrote:

Every structure is different, of course, but I have a friend who bought an
Eichler home here in California. It was very much like this one:

http://tinyurl.com/7wvesy9

It had a vaulted ceiling and one whole wall of floor-to-ceiling glass with a
concrete slab floor. No matter what he did (and believe me, he tried
everything!) he could get no bass in that house (even with speakers like the
Infinity IRS with their TWELVE - 12" woofers in two 8 ft tall enclosures!).
He said that the glass just passed the low frequencies like there was nothing
there!. He also couldn't heat the damn thing, but he seemed less concerned
about that than he was about the lack of bass. He eventually sold the house
and moved into another, more normal structure.


I was afraid of that. My current room has almost no glass. The front
(speaker end) has a small window covered by solid wooden shutters I can
close. The rear has a glass door and two door-sized side lights, but
they do no harm that I have ever heard. From what you say they may
actually be beneficial in that bass that works its way down the room
wouldn't be contained by the end walls, an interesting idea.

The porch is about 12x27 with a sloped ceiling on the long side, as
opposed to my current room, which is 9x15 at one end, 10x16 at the other
and about 25' long.

I never was faced with a lot of glass, but I've heard it can be pretty
bad. Also, as with the Eichler house, the floor is a concrete slab.
The ceiling does slope, continuing the roof line of the house over the
porch.

There is another room that could work. This room is 12'1"x15'10", a
fairly decent size. However, it is under the eaves of the house. The
walls on the short end rise a hair less than 5' before sloping in at
about a 45-deg angle. There is a flat ceiling about 5' wide and about
10' up, if you can visualize that.

I can see putting speakers on the long side. If it were a box it would
probably sound pretty good. I have no idea what the sloping sides might
do. Anybody tried a room like that?

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Greg Wormald Greg Wormald is offline
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Default Glass walls

I like the sound (!) of the smaller room better, although you will have
to actually try to know for sure.

The 'odd' shape should be fine. I've had very good sound in such rooms.
The non-box shapes do a good job of spreading out the resonances so
nothing is too reinforced.

The overall dimensions of the small room seem pretty good, too. From my
visualisation, the speakers on the short wall could project the sound
into the room they way theatres do. Again, I suggest that with such
non-standard options you best bet is to experiment.

Greg



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Peter Wieck Peter Wieck is offline
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Default Glass walls

On Apr 8, 1:39=A0pm, Robert Peirce wrote:
I am contemplating buying a house with a screened in back porch I want
to close off for an office and music room. =A0My wife wants to replace th=

e
screens with windows. =A0That will leave me with mostly windows on three
sides and Hardiplank, a cement based exterior clapboard siding, on the
fourth.

What kind of problems am I going to have? =A0My current room is
double-layered 5/8" wall board on 12" studs. =A0It is pretty solid. =A0It=

is
also tapered to reduce any standing wave problems. =A0This room is all ne=

w
to me and I'm not sure what I am getting into.


My Goodness!

OK - a few basics of acoustics - and really these are basic!

Glass is a highly reflective material at all frequencies. With that in
mind, how it performs at very specific frequencies will be based on
how it is assembled. Large sheets of thick glass with no dimension
less than 24" (62cm) will resonate below most audible frequencies.
Dimensions less than that will resonate at higher frequencies. So, the
larger the dimension, the lower the resonant frequency. Unless the
glass resonates, it will reflect. This is true of any other hard
surface including GWB (gypsum wall board AKA Drywall), plaster, wood,
concrete, and similar.

Bass response (as perceived) is a combination of many things, salient
of which are woofer placement relative to the nearest flat, hard
surface, and the amount of air they move - directly related to the
size of the woofer, the signal fed into it, the power behind that
signal - the amount of headroom available. Placing the woofer centers
less than a diameter from a hard surface will (all other things being
equal) enhance bass response. Placing a woofer against a wall will
enhance bass response. Placing woofers on a long wall asymetrically
(as compared to a short wall) in a room will enhance bass response.
Placing woofers in corners will enhance bass response. Sometimes small
changes in placement can have huge effects.

I keep three essentially different types of speakers: Maggies (MG-
IIIs), AR3as and ARM5s. All others are variants on that theme. I have
listening rooms that are 17 x 28 x 10 feet (maggies), 17 x 14 x 10
feet (AR3a) and 14 x 12 x 9 (M5s). The maggies are fed from an HK
Citation 16. The 3as by an AR Model W receiver. The M5s by an AR
amplifier (US version). All of them are quite capable of getting to
near-ear-bleed volumes without strain. All of them are capable of
vibrating the floor quite nicely.
All of the rooms are very 'live' by any standard with hardwood floors,
lots of windows (the library (biggest room) has three full-glass
French doors to the exterior, and one French door to the inside. There
is a large brick fireplace, and the walls are 120 year old plaster.
The other rooms are smaller variations of the same elements. Lots of
glass, lots of hard surfaces.

I have had to struggle with speaker placement (and an extremely
tolerant wife) to get the speakers in the ideal position for sound-
stage, bass and so forth. Bless the woman who will decorate "around"
these needs. As to the AR3as, a difference of less than 6" (15mm) in
distance between/distance to corner was the difference between bone-
rattling bass and very even bass.

It can be done. Typically without equalizers, without 'sound tubes'
and without heroics or major costs - just experiment. Glass is no
worse than any other material once the essential nature of it is
understood. And, for the record, it is much better in so many ways
than soft surfaces.

And I have not even gone into resonances based on room shape. This is
why asymmetrical placement is often critical. There may be no standing
waves in the room itself, but the speakers may be cancelling each
other. Try it.

Back to lurking.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

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