Re: [ARSCLIST] Small sound booth for transfers and restoration

[Eric Jacobs <ericj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carpet is over-rated as a damping material.  The
walls and ceiling are far more critical than the
floors for reflections when monitoring - especially
in a small room crowded with equipment.

More importantly, if you drop anything (small head
shell screw or mounting nut for example), finding
it in the carpet can be very frustrating - if you
do find it.  If you don't - well you better keep
spare parts handy (which is a good idea anyway).

Finally - and perhaps most important of all - is
that carpet is a great harbor for dust.

Bottom line: there's more bad than good in having
carpet in a transcription room (just one person's
opinion).

Eric Jacobs
The Audio Archive
San Jose, California


---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 03:16:27 -0800
>From: RA Friedman <yiddishsong@xxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Small sound booth for transfers and restoration
>To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>Steven:
>
>That's approximately what I had in mind, and your
>floor plan is pretty close. The door is where you
>wrote "not to scale" so the counter will have to be
>along the long wall. The powers that be are planning
>on insulated sheetrocked walls. Do you have an
>suggestions for the interior materials? Should we
>carpet the floor? Should we put up any damping
>materials. Suggested placement of speakers?
>
>Thanks so much for your suggestions.
>
>-RA
>--- "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "RA Friedman" <yiddishsong@xxxxxxxxx>
>> > I've been asked to help come with a design for a
>> sound booth that is going
>> to be part of a larger room. We'll be cleaning and
>> transferring mostly 78rpm
>> shellac discs and 16" radio transcriptions.
>> >
>> > The space they've allotted is very small--7' x 13'
>>  with an end the last
>> three feet, about 11 feet wide, so the space is an
>> "l" shape.  Does anyone
>> have an suggestions concerning things to consider.
>> I'll probably be working
>> mostly with headphone monitoring, but I will have a
>> set of monitor speakers.
>> Other equipment will most likely be an SP-15
>> turntable, SME 3012R arm,
>> Stanton 500 with a variety of stylii, a pre-amp,
>> amplifier, outboard
>> digitizer, and a computer with DVD burner--pretty
>> basic. We'lll probably
>> have a separate area for cleaning discs with Disc
>> Doctor and then a rinse on
>> a Keith Monks unit.
>> >
>> > I realize this is a "whole ball of wax" but I'm
>> mostly interested in ideas
>> concerning the space and it's sound insulation,
>> sound reflection, workflow,
>> lighting, outlets, etc.
>> >
>> Just at a guess, I'd say that the sonic qualities of
>> the room won't
>> be reflected in the transfers...or, for that matter,
>> in what you
>> hear, since you will be using mostly headphone
>> monitoring.
>>
>> Since you have about 10' of wall space, you could
>> set up a table/
>> "bench" about 30" by 10' along that wall, and place
>> your turntable(s)
>> there, with the other hardware rack-mounted at one
>> end of that space.
>> Note that a second TT might be advised should you
>> wish to burn a
>> CD-R from more than one analog source (you could
>> have one of those
>> 16"-compatible). Keep in mind that this should
>> function like a
>> radio-station setup...all controls should be easily
>> reachable.
>>
>> Note that the acoustic qualities of the room depend
>> on a number
>> of things you don't note...reflectivity of walls and
>> floor
>> (carpeted or not, wood or masonry, etc) and such.
>>
>> Plan (of sorts:
>> <--------7'------->
>> |_________________|
>> |           |     |
>> |           | rack|
>> |           | area|
>> |           |_____|
>> |           |     |
>> |           |     |
>> |           |     |
>> |  bench--->|     |  Not to scale
>> |           |     |
>> |           |     |
>> |           |     |
>> |           |     |
>> |           |_____|________
>> |                          |
>> |       could be           |
>> |       listening area,    |
>> |       or?                |
>> |                          |
>> ----------------------------
>>  <--------11'-------------->
>> Steven C. Barr
>>
>
>
>
>
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