Anyone built a clever SMALL desk and care to share their design?

[Max Dread]

Hi all

I'm using a rather large desk at the moment.... I've considered adapting it by angling it so that it slopes down toward me (thanks for the newletter John H. Brandt) and reflects high frequencies away below ear level.

But the more I think about it the more I think I might be able to make do with a much smaller DIY desk - literally just big enough to house my qwerty keyboard and mouse. The thing is though, that would leave no where to do anything else, such as write things down, place things etc. etc.

So I'm now thinking along the lines of adding some kind of slide out shelf, or a flip up shelf, revolving, etc. etc......something that can be there when I need it and not when I don't. And whilst my brain is in DIY design overload, I thought I'd ask the good people of this forum whether they have built something along these lines, and - if so - if you'd be up for sharing....?

One other thing:

seeing as they would now be an empty space where the back end of the larger desk used to be (i.e. between me and the monitors), what would be the best thing to do with that space acoustically? The floor is carpeted (quite thick carpet with a quite thick underlay), and the ceiling directly above has a cloud made from RS60. 100mm thick with a 100mm air gap.


Cheers all

Max

[takman]

i built my own desk because i couldnt find ones i liked, and the higher end ones were ridiculously expensive.

I had a sawmill, cut the pieces to the dimensions i wanted. The whole thing cost me something like 40 euros.

i also built my own speaker stands, you can find pictures of them in my bass trap build link in my sig.

im not sure about your question regarding what to do with the empty space. a picture would help.

[mhch]

Yes I just finished the design of a desk intented to support displays located in between monitors (on separate stands) and having a slide out workspace to hold keyboard, mouse, whatever when doing "computer" kind of work (that may include transcribing music !). Now in the process to build it (pics to come when finished)

A separate small angled stand will be used for "music" work requiring a good listening position. It will be a two level workspace, top level for piano keyboard or mixer, and a slide out lower level for computer keyboard and mouse (or trackball). This is far easier to design than the monitor desk, just make it as small as possible.

Search for my recent posts to see the design of my speaker stands, and a global view of the overall setup

Will upload the sketchup file in a separate post

[mhch]

Sketchup file

By the way, you can do without building drawers and instead using 4 open "boxes" to put stuff in. Add a small plywood rectangle where the drawer bottoms are .... Actually I'll do so myself as a first step, adding the drawers later, cos' it's more important to build an overall thing first (desk and separate music table).

[Max Dread]

Originally Posted by takman

im not sure about your question regarding what to do with the empty space. a picture would help.

Hi

What I meant was...... If you visualise the triangle made between speakers and listener, most of the triangle is currently taken up by my large desk. Once I have made the small desk, the triangle will mostly just be floor (carpeted). So I wondered if it is best to just leave this as open floor space, or whether some kind of absorber (lying flat on the ground with the rockwool facing up to the ceiling) would be better? The theory being that lower frequencies will be absorbered from the first reflection off the floor than if there was only carpet down there.....

Thanks guys for the responses. What program do I need to be able to view the last attachment?
Cheers

Max

[SAC]

We could supply a generic answer, but let me explain why that would not be of much value and also propose a more effective and efficient alternative.

Yes, we can assume that there may be reflections from the floor and that some absorption placed there might help.

But quite frankly, we can make that assumption in many places in the room as well. The problem is that you result in absorbing lots of energy that may or may not be of actual destructive significance on the way to establishing a dead room.

Additionally, any generalization would ignore the actual polar dispersion of the speakers. This is a significant shortcoming with passive techniques such as the mirror technique as well, as we assume an energy dispersion which in many cases is not accurate.

On the other hand, if you run an ETC plot for each speaker, you will know precisely what actual reflections are present, their gain, and also, how effective any treatment is that you place in the incident region.

While measurements may seem like a hassle, once you are familiar with the setup, they become routine and very simple to conduct - and they will not only improve the quality of the treatment, but they will save you considerable time and money spent on unnecessary treatment.

Oh, and the attachment is a Google Sketchup CAD file.

[Max Dread]

Fair comment SAC. I'm hoping to learn about ETCs in the next week or two. I'm currently learning REW for FR and waterfall/decay measurements to get a better understanding of the LF behaviour in my room. Once I understand that sufficiently I will learn how to take and read ETC measurements - at which point I can try different treatments on the floor as well as other reflective surfaces around the room.

The only reason I asked was because it seems like a "given" that big reflective desks are a bad idea. So I wondered "if big desks are generically bad news, is there a generically good approach to dealing with that area"? In a similar way to how ceiling clouds at the first reflection point are (usually) generically prescribed.....

Cheers

Max

[SAC]

The answer is yes, you minimize the reflective work surface and angle it so as not to direct reflections into the ISD.

Large desks were a norm when large analog Neve, SSL, Yama, etc. consoles were the norm - and even then astute designers places speakers on stands set back from the surface so that reflections did not occur.

But as the virtual console emerges, what has remained as the large analog consoles are fading is the emotional association of big desks with status.

If one simply examines a work space and performs basic napkin ray tracing, it should be rather obvious as to how a work surface can be a source of early reflections. And it fascinates me to watch as many still want to make excuses for work surface reflections while thinking that addressing the side walls and ceiling will somehow compensate for this problem.

But as far as looking for some 'standard' in work surfaces, as each setup is site specific, I am not aware of a standard, except one that says 'design it without early reflections'.

[TPBaker]

SAC is correct. (see I can agree with you on real matters).
I think people also ignore the density and possibly resonances of the work surface as well. In my last studio, I built this beautiful, very functional desk angled to avoid early reflections and covered in stainless steel only to have it resonate slightly around 254hz. Without the desk the room was awesome, with it was a nightmare. Now that I have moved and having to build a new mix suite, I am seriously considering building the top out of concrete. Any thoughts?

[DanDan]

Take a look at Desktop Reflection Revealed
Cute desk design in post 36.
I noted that the result of the reflection, i.e. the comb filtering, looks much more spectacular than the actual reflection viewed in the ETC.
If I were looking for subtle reflectivity differences I would be inclined to use this 'view enhancer'.
DD