- Posted by Dynaudio_Rules (A) on April 29, 2009 at 16:25:17
In Reply to: RE: Almost quit hobby due to room acoustics! long-ish posted by Jim P on April 29, 2009 at 09:56:34
Karma Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry 音楽は力です。
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In Reply to: RE: Almost quit hobby due to room acoustics! long-ish posted by Jim P on April 29, 2009 at 09:56:34
Karma Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry 音楽は力です。
Should be here by the weekend...will post pics and comment of sound difference after install.
Karma Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry 音楽は力です。
There are lots here that are giving you advice on specific acoustical treatments, but I would like to recommend a few simple things that are more "normal". One of the big issues with a room like this are the flat perpendicular walls, you get major resonances and waves bouncing back and forth. A big help is just to break things up a bit.
Simple things like putting pictures on the wall. Put some plants around.Not just little tiny ones but you can put in fairly big things like a rubber tree plant, a small ornamental tree etc. Put in a shelf with various art objects. Try and randomize things a little so you don't have perfectly regular structures.
Simple things like this can go a long way towards taming such a stark room. And it makes it look more interesting too!
THEN you can go for specific acoustical treatments to work on specific issues.
John S.
when he says "And it makes it look more interesting too!" is that we spend a lot of time in our listening rooms. I think that if it's a room that is inviting, that we feel happy walking into and feel happy to spend time in, even without the system playing, then we're more relaxed and in a better mood when we listen and that will always translate into more enjoyment of our music. We all know how we don't enjoy listening if we're "not in the mood" and how we can really get into it during those times when we're really "in the mood" so doing things which help set us in a good mood when we walk into the room is always going to be beneficial, even without room treatment.
Other things which can help acoustically but which aren't obvious are heavier curtains on the windows, and bookcases full of books if you're a reader. Instead of pictures, especially if they are framed behind glass, you can also consider hanging fabric objects like tapestries, quilts, or even an attractive rug.
And the most effective non-treatment thing you can do with acoustic effects is always working with your speaker and listening position placement.
David Aiken
And for the books in the shelf don't line them all up, have some sticking out a little further than others. You can do this with CD and LP racks as well. If you really want to get fancy you can implement one of those fancy diffusers by carefully arrangeing the CDs or LPs in the rack and it doesn't cost you anything!
My wife is a quilter and I had her make a couple quilts for "wall hangings" that are hung in appropriate locations. They add a lot of color and interest to the room as well as making it sound better.
Then there are the telescopes on one wall, but thats another story...
John S.
I don't know what the room shape is behind the camera, but if it is a simple rectangle, you might benefit from large pieces of furniture against the walls. These could help break up standing waves. It looks like the width of the room is about eight feet. If that is also the height of the room, the wall to floor and wall to wall standing waves will reinforce eachother. If the length of the room is about twelve or sixteen feet, the eight foot nodes will be reinforced even more. Absorbtion panels in the middle of the side walls might help with that, or if you really want to put in some effort to correct the problem, tuned helmholtz resonators could neutralize the peaks.
There's a tendency for people to think of room treatment as a pretty uniform "one approach fits all" sort of thing but it isn't. For example, some people like precise imaging while others are distracted by imaging and prefer to avoid it. How you treat the room depends on what kind of result you're chasing. Apart from that you also want to address any specific room problems/anomalies you have in the process.
Bass traps in the corners will never go astray. Regardless of what you want to achieve, bass traps are pretty much guaranteed to be beneficial. In fact they're probably the one universal recommendation.
Treating the front and rear wall first reflection points will always help with imaging. There's debate about treating the side wall first reflection points. Floyd Toole recommends leaving them untreated on the basis that research shows that most people prefer the sense of spaciousness those reflections add to the sound but he also points out that there are people, especially many musicians, who prefer the sound with those points treated. It's worth experimenting with treatment there and going with what you prefer.
There's a lot of argument about absorption vs diffusion. In a small room you will not achieve a diffuse soundfield but that doesn't mean that diffusion can't help. The big problem with diffusers in a small room, however, is that they cause sound problems if you sit too close to them, just as sitting too close to a speaker can cause problems. The basic rule of thumb seems to be that you need a minimum of 10' between you and a diffuser in order to avoid those problems though there are some products which claim that they can be placed closer than that. In my experience diffusion will tend to work against precise imaging so I'd tend to go for absorption treatments if you want precise imaging and to only consider diffusion if you've got a large enough room to put the necessary distance between you and the diffusers and also are less concerned with imaging.
If you use absorption, make sure that the materials you use provide wide band absorption. That tends to require thick layers of material, a minimum of 3" or so, and some space between the material and the wall, around 4-8" or so. Thin layers of foam or other materials placed directly on the wall don't provide broad band absorption and tend to work on the higher frequencies only. That tends to result in a duller, less lively sound and is probably the cause of most criticisms of room treatment. Good broad band absorption doesn't change the tonal character of the overall sound.
David Aiken
I'm always rather suprised to see so many ( not David who knows better) automatically suggesting damping side wall reflections as an inherently good thing to do.
Depending on your loudspeaker, room and taste regarding spaciousness vs precise imaging, it is either a good or very poor choice.
First let me say I only have a few days of limited understanding of room correction and I'd be most likely wrong. There are people here that have a very firm grasp of room treatment. But side panels, back panels behind the listening areaand behind the speakers and corner bass traps. It really makes a montrous difference. I hope I could help even a little. I'd love to learn more about acoustic analysis,time is all it takes,grumble grumble.
Tube traps
Window treatments
Corner tunes
Damp first side wall reflections
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
Good call on the window treatments forgot that one and supposedly pretty darn important!!
Jim P
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