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RE: stuck with a cube shaped room

A cube shaped room will have one single set of extremely strong axial resonances since each axis of the room has the same dimension.

I would strongly recommend bass traps in the corners, most definitely in the corners behind the speakers if you can only manage 2 corners but preferably in all 4 where the room allows it, and floor to ceiling if you can manage them. You've got a door in one corner by the look of the photos and that makes bass traps in that corner difficult. You could use stand mounted panel traps placed diagonally across the corner with the door closed but you would have to be prepared to move them each time some one comes into or leaves the room which is a pain. If you leave that corner without traps you may wish to leave the other corner behind you without them as well for the sake of balance.

If you can't fit traps into the two wall corners behind you, try fitting them into the wall ceiling corners there. Note that I'm not talking simple corner treatments, I'm talking about sizeable bass traps running lengthwise along the walls at the ceiling interface there.

Bass traps would be my primary treatment suggestion. I would also recommend treatment of the first reflection points but there's certainly an element of preference as to how you like recordings to sound when it comes to that. I would definitely recommend that you either listen to a system in a room where the first reflection points have been treated or try it yourself with some makeshift absorption at the first reflection points of your room to see whether you like it. I'd recommend free standing panels for first reflection points since their location will change with changes to speaker and listening position placement and free standing panels make dealing with such changes easy. You can use a thick rug on the floor for the floor to treat the floor reflection points and you may get some benefit from using a rug as well as the existing carpet. Ceilings are trickier since you probably need to use relatively permanent attachment to any reflection treatments there so make sure you've finalised your speaker and listening position placements before treating the ceiling points if you decide to do that.

If bass traps don't smooth the room response sufficiently, with or without treatment at the first reflection points depending on your preferences there, then I'd add some large areas of absorption capable of broad band absorption, especially in the bass region. You will get more benefit from the same area of absorption if areas on opposite walls do not line up exactly opposite to each other so asymmetric placement on opposite walls is a good idea. Consider using areas of absorption at least 4' x 2' in size at each point, and preferably at least 3' wide or so since area certainly helps improve bass absorption but the thickness and density of the materials used are the primary factors in getting decent bass absorption.

Some diffusion would probably help also given the relatively small (with the exception of ceiling height) room dimensions.

You've obviously gone to some effort to create a good looking room and acoustic treatments are highly visible. You can try matching the colour of the fabric covers to the walls in order to reduce the visual impact. Unfortunately as a rule of thumb the effectiveness of acoustic treatments depends strongly on the surface area and small, visually unobtrusive treatments are going to be less effective than larger ones which are harder to make visually unobtrusive. It's a pity in many ways but size does count here.



David Aiken

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