Design New England - July/August 2008

sions required more creative collaboration. To ensure that the seating for listening to music was positioned perfectly between the speakers and surrounding walls, Goodwin asked Hubner to enlarge the lower-level listening space. The change pushed the air conditioning unit outside, making the studio even quieter. When Dixon asked for CD and album shelving, Goodwin designed custom cases that match the angled wall panels and sit below ear level. At Goodwin’s urging, the loft banister features thin, curved rails whose round edges and slotted braces are acoustically transparent.

Even the fabric for the window panels and the thickness of the Oriental rug were subject to acoustic analysis. After discovering that typically unobtrusive halogen bulbs audibly buzz and crackle in such a silent space, Dixon

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added LED lighting. “Music is all about these small little details that you have to be

just fastidious about,” he says.

The structure’s signature shape was an acoustic challenge. “Normally, we don’t deal with curves,” says Goodwin, explaining that “a curve focuses sound.” The solution was tiered acoustical panels that cover the walls and ceiling. Each panel is a triangle of acoustical fiberglass with a soft fabric underside, custom-cut by computerized milling machines and hand-veneered with English sycamore. The result is a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall scalloped texture that is both acoustically and visually stunning. “Peter wanted something extraordinary, and we did it for him,” says Goodwin. “This is a design statement.”

The studio also has cutting-edge audio-visual technology and a custom control system that combines top-of-the-line speakers, surround sound, a hidden projection screen, and a 15-piece audio suite. The shelving that houses the electrical components is acoustically treated for an exact weight load

signals

to absorb the audible vibration of the specific piece of equipment it supports.

More than just fancy equipment, the studio embraces the centuries-old tradition of music appreciation. “There was some high technology put into structuring the space acoustically,” says Hubner, “but the result is very low-tech, old-fashioned listening.” Even the acoustical design process occasionally harkens back to a preindustrial age. “Acoustics is a science and an art,” says Goodwin, “and you have to be able to conceptualize — something that you couldn’t get a computer to do. The computer doesn’t think through creative solutions.”

For Dixon, the sound studio may be new, but the idea certainly isn’t. “This is my teenage male fantasy basement,” he says. “It’s basically an extension of the room where I had the $300 stereo with the black lights.”