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Provided that DIY is out of the question, room treatments can cost quite a bit of money (those with $100K systems will probably spend much more). But most of us probably have some decent components all around. You can obviously use the extra thousand or more on upgrading your CDP, your cables etc. things that you eventually want to upgrade when you have the money. Room is also something that comes up sooner or later.So the question is, when is it time to start looking at your room? When $1000-3000 can no longer buy you better gear? Or is spending on room treatments as good of an investment as any?
Follow Ups:
If you can swing the rearrangement of the furniture, I highly recommend it. Put your speakers on a diagonal in the room. It has made a huge difference for me. Soundstage depth went through the roof -- oops, mixed metaphor!
I really have my system almost exactly where I want it lacking only some kind of power conditioning. Now I'm ready for room treatments. Then I hear this little voice. I could sell my N802's, the amp and preamp I'm not using along with an assortment of cables put some money with it and buy the N800's. Of course, I would never want to upgrade those. Now I might have to buy another amp so I could run them bridged. Surely, the N800 would sound better with more power.
Your predilection for component upgrading is distracting you from the possibility that what you lust for in sound (or lack) may be due to the acoustics more than the components. Consider that.Until you have done some room acoustic experimentation, how do you know you are even getting the most out of your current rig?
Don't take this wrong, but you can transfer your desire to fiddle with things to room acoustics just as easily as you developed it for the hardware side...
Path of least resistance is a pretty accurate description. I've heard what changes in equipment will do. It's very easy to stay on the equipment path. I have always told myself (perhaps to justify not dealing with acoustics sooner) that I would focus on the room when I was happy with the equipment. I'm definitely happy with the equipment. It's just a little difficult getting excited about tube traps. I'll get there.
Try room lenses (easily cloned), absorption materials (easy to test on walls, floor, ceiling before buying better looking stuff), etc.The biggest sex organ in the human body, to quote the researchers, is the brain! So for those who are obsessed with size of other organs it can be a leap of faith to work on the less "sexy" stuff... LOL
I have made this mistake myself. The path of least resistance is to throw money at the problem by buying more and better components. My system never improved much though until I spent the time and effort to understand room acoustics and then make the proper corrections (most of which were cheap).
First things first and the room is number one.
Since I believe the room is the second most important "audio component" after the loudspeakers, once you purchase speakers you can't ignore the room. After building a dedicated listening room in my new house, it took me over a year and a half to get it fine-tuned to the point that I felt I was realizing its potential. Here's a link:http://img.audioasylum.com/cgi/view.pl?UserImages=19321&session=
It's certainly not necessary to go quite this far with room treatment, but every little bit helps.
Regards,
Mike
No time like the present. In a well treated room, you may find the desire to upgrade gear dissipate. Modest gear in a well treated room can sound better than great gear in a crappy room. I think the room is the most underestimated and ignored component of a system, and the most important. I recently built a custom designed room, and although I thought my system and sound were pretty good before, the results after were staggering. Prior to this project, I'd always DIY treated for bass modes and side wall/ceiling reflections with definite improvemnts, and without exhorbitant expense. That and speaker/listening position adjustments are reasnoably inexpensive ways to get the most from your system. It's a wise investment that may save you money in the long run.
I think I will go ahead and put some money down for room treatments. I know I'll have to deal with the room sooner or later, it's just hard to convince myself that spending several thousands for a few tube traps will make as much difference as putting it towards a component. But I guess I just got to lose the logic. Thanks for the help guys.
What is a custom designed room? Is it treatments everywhere? Is it strategic placement of different types of treatments? I take it your previous treatment efforts did not produce near the results you currently enjoy. In retrospect, do you believe your previous efforts were worth the time and money. Or do you wish you would have skipped straight to the custom room?
Well, yes I wish I could have skipped to a custom room, about 25 yrs ago :-) Always wanted an acoustically designed dedicated audio room, but what with raising kids, WAF, yada yada yada, never quite got round to it till recently. And in no small part because WAF became ex-WAF. My previous DIY treatments with additionally added commercial products actually resulted in drastic improvements, and I was quite happy with the room acoustics. Far, far better than no treatments. I somewhat went with the "deader is better" approach, but not to an extreme degree, didn't like recording studio quiet, preferred a just this side of live sound. Pecunia was the fundamental rate limiting factor, and reason for not skipping straight to a designed room. That and there are not a whole lot of people out there doing commercial room designs. My current room was designed by Rives Audio and built by a local const. co. under Rives direction. It's quite good, and yes, far better than my previous efforts to treat my rooms in the past. But it was also significantly more costly. Capitol S. But one can treat an already existing room for a reasonable price and attain outstanding results, which IMO is a great bang for the buck and possibly more cost effective than certain equipment upgrades.
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they have veto power on decor....and since they started this silly show on TV (trading neighbors) they have vision of "grandeur", in direct opposition to room treat. Pillows, books, mutlifaceted sharp edged objects can modulate high freq., "enhance" the illusion of being there, orienting speakers away from listener also, and putting them away from reflecting surfaces can bring focus to soundstage.try the free cheap stuff, before the bass trap monsters and tiles that will be veto'ed anyway....
These room treatments are low cost and I haven't heard a room, where they didn't improve the sound significantly. You can send them your room and they will tell you what you need.I have a combination of them and other DIY absorbers.
Have a great day,
Recently purchaced the 'room pack' plus a few more pieces from EightNerve. Spent a total of $465...They folks there drew my listening room to scale and showed me where to put each of their products. Everything and I mean everything is clearer and more focused. The bass especially is tighter and seems faster. For the $$ a major improvement and a terrific value.
The problem with room treatment is that when you move and the new room is different, it also will need different treatment.One possibility to overcome this is to buy speakers which have little interaction with the room. This means that the overall sound won't change much when moving from one room to another. Speakers with high directivity throw less energy into the room off-axis, so that reflections and reverberation are no longer a major issue. Room modes may always pose some problems but strategic placement (hence no costs involved) of speakers and listening chair helps.
This said I did apply only RT60 treatment (special ceiling) to my room in order to lower reverberation time. You can do this by using special devices or by simply using furniture and/or decoration/draping. I then placed the speakers on the longer room wall, so no side wall reflections. The high directivity "treats" reflections from floor and ceiling. The one room mode I've detected so far can be eliminated by moving the head 4 inches forward.
Do it now, and the improvement will be with you through any component changes over the years.
A good room also has a feel about it that even modest equipment makes use of.
This stuff about components vs. acoustical treatments is a red herring. You need them both. If your room is ideal (go find one of those!) then you don't, but otherwise you'd be shocked how much the acoustical environment mitigates all the money you can spend on componentry. Y.oOu won't believe it until you hear it in the real world and there's no better testing ground than your own idiosyncratic room.Can't handle DIY? I'm somewhat dubious about that claim, as there are a variety of easy tests at low cost for acoustical treatment impact. Quick and Dirty Bass Traps, noodle room lenses (I do full clones on these and it's a relatively simple DIY), absorption panels - you can do easy ones first to see what solves your problems or resolves your sound that much better, then spend your hard earned dollars on commercial versions of what works for you.
Even without DIY, the very first room acoustical adjustments are:
1) speaker placement experiments,
2) speaker height experiments,
3) speaker toe-in adjustments,
4) closing curtains, moving objects, other manipulations of the sound environment.
Until you've done at least a little experimentation with these NO cost options, you're a bit premature on the acoustical treatments (maybe even on component upgrading) anyway IMO (and I ain't bein' humble about this because I learned it the easy way and it works.)
You can at least treat behind the system if possible. The money is well spent. As a matter of fact there's no doubt in my mind that most systems don't sound nearly as good as they could because people don't or can't treat their room. It's a bargain for the outlay of cash considering how much it helps. Do some research but the live end/dead end is common and works well. You don't need to do the entire 1/3 of the system end of the room but the rear wall alone will help considerably. You'll probably wonder why you waited so long, I did.
Thanks for the responses guys. I actually didn't anticipate such a consensus. Since room treatments from companies such as ASC and Echobusters cost $1000-3000 to really get things going I would assume there would be more people suggesting I spend the money on components. And no I'm not going the DIY route because I'm not handy at all and do not wish to partake in such a project. So I will pay for the convenience. I thought about having Rives draw out a floor plan as well but their Level One Service costs almost $1000 which can buy me two tube traps.I'm thinking I simply start with two tube traps in the front corners and maybe some absorption panels in the back to start with and go from there. With my room having no treatments I feel I can't go wrong. Then I'll break out the measurements and see what else I need. Does this sound like a plan? Or should I just plop down the money and start with a trap in every corner kind of thing?
Sounds like a good plan. You can get acoustic foam any size you want and reasonably priced here:http://www.foamorder.com/products.cgi?cart=b0W0t0n29193142221n6A2c1Z&item=acoustic
Be sure to get the thickest stuff and you'll need spray adhesive to put it up. Works wonderfully. Cheers
- http://www.foamorder.com/products.cgi?cart=b0W0t0n29193142221n6A2c1Z&item=acoustic (Open in New Window)
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Start with a modest system, make acoustic measurements, and then treat the room. Why? Because the room and your loudspeakers are the 2 most important factors that influence what you hear.People these days are listening to hi-rez acoustically comb-filtered music because they refuse to treat their rooms.
I have my speakers. I have a good pair of amps although there's always room for upgrade. I have a good preamp that I'm not looking to upgrade. I have a Sony SCDC555ES as my source which is not a horrible source but can obviously stand for some improvement in redbook performance. My cables aren't too bad but can be upgraded. My room is untreated so it can be treated. I don't think I can go wrong with upgrading any of my components although I would like to maximize my current resources.
in spending some money on books that deal with acoustics, and spending some time reading about the room/speaker interface and planning proper room treatments now. This is a common subject here and there is much in the FAQ's, archives, and one sponsor's site on this subject. Also, if you provide a good description of your room and speakers, many here will have advise for you which can be very valuable.
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