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Room Echo/Treatment

199.68.81.105
Posted on October 14, 2009 at 11:31:48
jgless2@yahoo.com
Audiophile

Posts: 3
Location: Washington DC
Joined: October 14, 2009



Hello. Longtime reader, first real post. My living room is currently my listening room. The main room is about 25' x 25', but one of the walls is open to the kitchen and main hallway (I attached a pic). The ceiling is vaulted to about 12'(but not a pointed peak, it is flat for about 15' from the fireplace to hallway, then sloping down to the walls). The floors are all hardwood. We have an 10'x12' rug in between the couch and the tv/stereo. And a plasma and console in between the speakers. There are a lot of windows in the room and we dont have any curtains. I am limited by WAF to room treatments. I can do corner bass traps in at least the corners behind the speakers. And curtains are a possibility.

My problems are firstly echo-related I think. You can hear it when you clap. Conversation is difficult to understand from a distance. As are voices from the TV.

A first thought I had was to do a lot of ceiling treatment to bring down the decay times without having a lot of on-wall treatment (WAF). Any thoughts on that? I read an article on here a while back on it, but I didnt really come away with a solid conclusion. Is it possible to tame echo with treatment on one major surface?

Any thoughts or questions would be very much appreciated. Even just general directions in terms of how much of what I might need.

Thanks in advance
John

RE: Room Echo/Treatment, posted on October 15, 2009 at 17:00:08
JimBop
Audiophile

Posts: 1085
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
Joined: October 7, 2002
 I had a similar problem in my living room, which is about 14x25 with high ceilings. I walked around the room clapping my hands, and even did this on a step-ladder. I treated the end of the room that had the worst echo by placing some panels high up on the wall. It helped quite a bit. Since then I've added bass traps in the corners, and some triangular traps at the wall ceiling junction. I'm very happy with my room now.

JD

RE: Room Echo/Treatment, posted on October 15, 2009 at 00:03:20
KlausR.
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Joined: November 17, 2004
 >My problems are firstly echo-related I think. You can hear it when you clap. Conversation is difficult to understand from a distance. As are voices from the TV.<

That's typical for rooms with too high a reverberation time. Reverberation is the result of the sound bouncing off the room boundaries multiple times. Since it's a rather chaotic, random process, absorption anywhere in the path of the sound waves will have an effect, so yes, absorbers on ceiling will do. But so will do upholstered furniture, drapes, carpets/rugs. You could also "camouflage" wall absorbers as paintings.

Our room (extension to our house in 2002) is built from bricks, floor is tiled, two large floor-to-ceiling glass panes (sliding door to garden), 2 large and 1 smaller window. We had installed an acoustical ceiling (stretched synthetic fabric with 26 air gap above) and the result is great.

Klaus

RE: Room Echo/Treatment, posted on October 15, 2009 at 07:55:06
jgless2
Audiophile

Posts: 3
Location: Washington DC
Joined: October 14, 2009
 Thanks. I like the idea of ceiling treatment because it gets out of the way. Have you ever heard the wood ceiling clouds? They look like they are slotted wood panels with absorbtion behind them. They hang down from the ceiling a few inches

Ceiling clouds, posted on October 15, 2009 at 21:55:13
KlausR.
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Joined: November 17, 2004
 Sorry, don't known those clouds. If you want to use the clouds, check out the absorption coefficients first. My ceiling has coefficients of 0.65-0.94 (125-4000 Hz) which, in combination with the large surface (42 sqm) is more than enough to lower the decay times.

Klaus

RE: Room Echo/Treatment, posted on October 14, 2009 at 13:58:25
David Aiken
Audiophile

Posts: 5108
Location: Brisbane
Joined: September 25, 1999
 It's hard to give recommendations for asymmetrical rooms because each room is different so experimentation becomes the way to proceed in my view.

Bass traps in as many corners as you can manage is a good starting point. Not only will they smooth the room's frequency response but they will also reduce reverberation time and that may have a major impact on your reverberation problem since reverb times are longer at lower frequencies. Go for the most effective traps you can afford and use them floor to ceiling if possible.

Uncovered windows can cause problems by reflecting too much high frequency sound and curtains should definitely help there. They don't have to be too thick to deal with the high frequency issue but if you have a window at a first reflection point then thicker curtains, possibly with noise absorbing linings behind them, can do a lot to reduce the impact of the first reflection.

Given the size of the room and the size of your rug, I'd think that a bigger rug might help but I'd do the bass traps first and see how you feel about things after that before experimenting with a bigger rug. If you want to experiment, try borrowing some rugs and placing them over uncovered floor areas to see whether they help before you race out to buy. Thicker rugs with natural fibres are better than thin rugs and/or synthetic fibres when it comes to absorption.

I'm avoiding mentioning acoustic treatments in areas other than the corners because you mentioned WAF. Still, there are other things you can do and soft furnishings can help. Obviously you won't get much absorption from furniture with spring type cushioning but foam cushions will provide additional absorption if their covering doesn't reflect sound. Leather is far more reflective than wool and other fabrics so avoid leather covered furniture if you can, and also avoid chairs with bare wood or plastic seats and backs because they'll simply increase the reflective area within the room.

You can also get a fair bit of absorption from a bookcase full of books but the absorption spectrum of books isn't balanced and you can end up killing the mids and highs a little with a lot of books. Still, in a room with a large area of bare hardwood floor, you may get a fair bit of benefit from a bookcase full of books and it has the big advantages of not looking like acoustic treatment and not looking out of place in a living room.



David Aiken
RE: Room Echo/Treatment, posted on October 14, 2009 at 16:47:03
jgless2
Audiophile

Posts: 3
Location: Washington DC
Joined: October 14, 2009
 Thanks a lot for that info.

I will try some bass traps in the corners and see how that goes. A question on that, can bass traps help when placed behind furniture? We have a wood folding leaf table in one corner and a chair in another, I was thinking of placing the traps in the corners behind them?

A larger rug is in the works at some point anyway, but the tip on type helps. In terms of the ceiling, would you just leave that alone?

Thanks again
John

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