4 Room For Listening

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32361, 29 July 1970, Page 10

4 Room For Listening

The most enthusiastic listeners are going as far as designing and building special listening rooms to house their tape or turn“table equipment and speakers.

These were once a rarity, but these days many people, especially in America, are finding the decided advantages of suitably equipping at least a limited area of their homes for their private entertainment The two essentials to good listening are comfort and acoustics—surrounds have a decisive acoustical effect on sound reproduction. Hard, bare walls, for example, will bounce sound, imparting a hollow or booming quality intolerable to the ear. It follows that wall drapes and similar sound-absorbing materials are important if true reproduction is to be enjoyed. Of immediate importance, however, is the position and installation of the equipment. The trend today is modular or multi-piece equipment comprising separate amplifier, turntable tone arm and speaker boxes. Most of the pieces are attractively finished and can be left unenclosed. '' But the secondary trend association with modules is to build them into existing furniture, or construct specially recessed units. There are some important do’s and don’ts if you are going to join the built-in! set DO buy your equipment! first; DO NOT design the enclo-i sures and then find your choice restricted be-1 cause what you would 1 have liked simply will not fit the space available. DO NOT build the modules in-so well that they become virtually immovable. Your tastes change, and if you want to experiment you may find you need the services of a carpenter.

DO make sure that the recesses can be adapted to some other use if you decide to sell your home. Its resale value will be diminished if great gaping holes take pride of place in the living-room. Adequate ventilation for heat dissipation is important —even solid-state equipment generates some heat and needs venting. Ideally, locate the amplifier and turntable modules at about chest height, certainly no lower than waist height.