Trying to find a good $1500 HT audio setup for my parents. The receivers and speakers I'm looking at in this price range usually say they'll work very good in small and medium sized rooms but could be lacking in large sized rooms.


I don't have the measurements on my parents room off the top of my head but was wondering if there was a general standard for a "large" sized room....either in perimeter or hopefully in cubic foot volume since they have a ceiling that slopes from like 8ft on one end to like 18ft at the other end. The room also has the back wall half open. If I had to guess i'd say the perimeter is like 20x15

That would generally be considered a medium to large room. Since your parents are unlikely (?) to be blasting movies at full reference volume, any speaker setup you get from a quality manufacturer should be fine. Acoustics will be another story.

Yeah it's definitely not an ideal acoustic setup but I doubt they gave that type of thing much thought when they built the house.

Your right about them not blasting things at really loud volumes....i just wanted to make sure it won't be underwhelming but it sounds like I should be fine.....they're upgrading from an old Bose system so I want to really wow them...thanks.


When me and my wife move into our next house (probably 5 or so years down the road) it will be custom built and I can't wait to design a dedicated theater room. :D

I believe that THX addresses a large room as larger than 3000 cubic feet. I am doing this from memory though.

Using your numbers, 20 X 15 X (8+18)/2 is 3900 cubic feet. That's a pretty big room.

It's the same volume as a 24' X 18' room with 9' ceiling.

I like to use Hsu's numbers, easy to remember....increments of 1500 cu ft. :)

1500 cu ft ~ small room
3000 ~ midsize
4500 ~ large
6000 ~ huge

My room is even more confusing. The actual listening area is 10' X 20' ("small"), but one side is open to a total area of 20' X 20' ("medium to large".)

My room is even more confusing. The actual listening area is 10' X 20' ("small"), but one side is open to a total area of 20' X 20' ("medium to large".)

And that is the problem with "open floorplan" houses. They are great for living in, not so great for optimized stereo listening.

To the OP, realize that room size is relative, and you've got good guidance above.

This is my issue as well my downstairs room is 14x20 but the area where my HT system is setup is half of the room which is 11x14 but open to the other half of the room which is the kids play area.

Now is this bad? Do i lose a lot of Sound quality? What could i do to improve it. Putting up a wall divider is out of the question.

Just wondering if this degrades the sound quality a lot by the rest of the room being open.

Any suggestions?

Room treatment (sound panels, bass traps) will improve rooms that are asymmetric. Actually, they will improve any rooms :-)
The original room sounds like it's "medium to large."
Here's a help to select a system from my favorite speaker manufacturer (but they're more expensive than $1500):
http://www.genelecusa.com/ht/learning-center/suggested-system-setup/
They suggest their 240 W two-way amp/speaker (times 6) as the guideline for 4000 sqft, with a separate subwoofer.