How to best deal with an ANGLED CEILING

Learn how to build your own professional-looking broadband bass trap that works down to 40Hz and a diffusor front that keeps your high-end lively:

Let’s say you are setting up a new home studio and the shape of the room is a bit odd.

This particular room has a sloped ceiling.

It starts off low on one end and rises up towards the other end of the room.

How do you best deal with that from an acoustics perspective?

Is there anything special to consider when setting up your speakers?

And how does it affect any treatment that you put in the room?

It’s easy to get a little put off by the thought that there might be something that you’re missing.

Or that there must be something particular you should do to really get the most out of the room and speakers.

So let me break it down for you in this week’s video.

To be honest, this same approach applies to any oddly shaped room. Whether it has an angled ceiling or angled walls for that matter.

At its core, it’s just a matter of divide and conquer.

Looking at the bass separately from the mids and highs we can get an idea how room modes change vs how reflection patterns are affected.

Related blog post on Acoustics Insider:

Resources in this video:

Acoustics Insider on Social Media:

[johnthorpedidge]

Years ago I had a room with two sides of the room with angled ceiling. It was angled on both sides, right and left, about two thirds to three quarters up the side walls (& across the ceiling) and the sound in that room was very good. It was quite a big room too which was handy. So in my case it was Best Case or good case but not the same as you describe with just a complete angled ceiling which is a different kettle of tuna fish!

[saverioricchiuto]

Nice one Jesco. To your last point (asymmetry) let’s imagine the shape at timestamp 7:00 is my front wall (I.e. one speaker is closer to the ceiling that the other one): in that case which speaker would you increase in volume and which side would you put additional absorption?

I have my system in an attic so I have 3 sloped ceiling (front, one side and back) and the stereo image totally collapses on one side (where the ceiling is lower) so I have only partially addressed the issue by toeing-in the speakers differently.

[Herfinnur]

Maybe this odds a bit off-topic, buy my ceiling is at a 25 to 30 degree angle, I think (I’m on holiday so I can’t check), but the whole building is glue-free wood with some adobe for moisture regulation so there’s very little boominess to be found. The construction materials of the building that the studio is in is a highly under-appreciated aspect. The absence of drywall in particular solves so acoustics problems

[palmal]

Your angled ceiling model isn't very angled...so not very useful. You need to base this around attic studios. So the angle is the roof pitch, which varies.

[tubedude]

Thank you for another very good video. I do like and understand your approach to find a good/optimal listening position by listening for balanced low end. But, what if you are lucky enough to be in a situation where structural changes to the room is actually an option? Do you have a video of a way to measure and verify the predicted room modes, which would be important in order to simulate any changes before changing the room.