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In Reply to: RE: High WAF "bass traps" posted by felrob on August 28, 2009 at 10:57:47
I'll disagree with Ethan on this one. Books can absorb a fair bit and can be useful as I discovered a bit over 7 years ago. I was packing to move from my previous home to my current home and the audio system was one of the last things to be packed. I'd never had books in the room with the system but I ended up with a pile of book cartons filled with books stacked at the opposite end of the room to the system and noticed that the system had never sounded better. That prompted me to put the books in the audio room when I set up in the new home and they certainly helped, but not as much as proper treatments and they've been moved to different rooms since I installed RealTraps.
You will get some benefit but probably not at bass frequencies. You'd need more depth than the average book for that. You'll also need the shelves to be as full as possible and as little wall space exposed as possible so that will take a lot of books since you've got 2 floor to ceiling spaces which are 4' wide to fill, and you will need about 7 shelves per side, more if your books are predominantly paperbacks which aren't as tall as hardbacks or art books. Magazines would probably better if you stack them on their side and fill the space between shelves, but then pulling the issue you want to refer to becomes more difficult.
You'll get more benefit if you place the books so there's several inches of space behind them between them and the wall.
LPs won't be as beneficial since the vinyl won't absorb sound and you'll end up with a lot less paper/cardboard—which is what is doing the absorbing—than with books or magazines.
The other thing to consider is that the "absorption spectrum" of books isn't as broad or as smooth as a good acoustic panel or bass trap so there will be some colouration of the sound. You probably won't notice it unless you swap to proper acoustic treatments since the sound is likely to be better with the books than without them, but that's another way in which books or magazines won't stack up—pun intended—as well as proper acoustic treatments.
If WAF is an issue and you can't go with acoustic treatments, then I'd go with books but be prepared to start reading a lot in order to fill the shelves if you don't have enough books to do so already. I had enough to fill a 13' width of 6' tall bookcases when I installed them in my room after our move so I could fill your spaces but most people don't have that many books. A lot of half empty shelves or a few full shelves won't do much at all, you're really going to have to stack the space with books.
David Aiken
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