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wich are more effective panels or roomlens

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mike slater

last week i built 7 of jon risch's acoustic panels.they seem to help my room alot.i was planning on building a couple of bass traps...but i started reading about roomlens....wich work better???..i dont think i have room for both

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Re: wich are more effective panels or roomlens Jon Risch 10:38:18 01/29/00 (3)
For room mode control, the bass traps will be far and away the more effective device. The very small amount of bass control the Room lens provide is almost incidental to the real effect they provide, that of mid-range diffussion. The Room Lens tubes are tuned to attenuate the highest fundamental room mode, that of the very common 8 foot ceiling height. At this one frequency, they do help some.
The bass traps on the other hand will damp ALL room modes, including the lowest ones, and to a much greater extent.
To answer a more general question of which work better, a room treated with sound absorbing panels, or one treated with a set of Room Lens devices?
Having worked with both, I find that the full treatment of sound absorbing panels and bass traps provides a much more stable and consistent room acoustic, one which tends to be enjoyable on a lot more program material. Room size and basic acoustics also have their effects on which approach will work well. A small bright room does not seem to respond as well to the Room Lens, and very large rooms also seem to need more than a basic set of Lens to derive adequate treatment. The Room Lens seem to work best in medium sized rooms with carpeting, and typical stud and drywall construction. In this setting, they can sometimes provide enough treatment to obviate the need for bass traps or absorbing panels for a lot of people.
I still prefer the sound absorbing panels though, as once you get used to the image specificity and rock solid center image, it is hard to go to one that is so much more diffuse sounding in nature.
Smaller rooms might benefit more from sound absorbing panels, yet these rooms have little space to place such items, and so must almost always be a dedicated listening room to allow such treatments to be used. If a small room is treated with panels and bass traps, it can sound much larger and spacious, without any sense of being a closed in space, and in this sense, the panels and traps will work where the Lens just doesn't have enough space to bloom.
I would say that the Lens ends up with a more lively and forward presentation, and for best results, the speakers and room situation should have a fairly flat/even/balanced tonal balance to begin with. If the speakers sound bright in the room, they will not get tamed by the Lens very much at all. On a bright system and/or bright recordings, the Lens does not tame this, and sounds too aggressive sounding. BTW, the Lens CAN be used with some corner bass traps, say one in each front corner, without losing their effectiveness, and the use of the bass traps will help tame the low end quite a bit more, and allow a smoother more even bass presentation, while retaining the lively sound field.
The sound absorbing panels and bass traps might seem like they would make a room dull sounding, but if constructed according to my recommendations, e.g., of a suitable thickness and size, they will not make a room sound dull or bass heavy. Instead, the acoustic will become very tight and precise, and more of what was on the recording in terms of spatial or reverberant information can be discerned. In some cases, they can help tame an overly bright speaker situation, and will make bright recordings more tolerable, but there is no sense of a loss of HF energy as such. The overall effect of the panels and traps is not going to have that lively aspect that the Lens does, but as I have stated, I think this is a case of a bit of extra reverberant energy in the room, and not totally accurate.
One other observation. The Lens seems to work well with more directional speakers, such as planar speakers, and those that use horns. Wide dispersion designs seem to react much better to the sound absorbing panels and bass traps approach. Planar speakers, especially Maggies, love having a bass trap right behind them. There is an improvement in the deep bass level, tonality, and bass punch, as well as less sensitivity to room placement overall.
Jon Risch
- Re: wich are more effective panels or roomlens Grant 15:23:19 01/30/00 (1)
  Late catching this thread. Where is the original article posted?
  - Re: wich are more effective panels or roomlens Jon Risch 10:25:34 01/31/00 (0)
    The sound absorbing panels and bass traps are in my DIY Acoustic treatment note at:
    http://members.xoom.com/Jon_Risch/a1.htm
    and the DIY Room Lens is at:
    note at:
    http://members.xoom.com/Jon_Risch/catch2.htm
    Jon Risch
- Re: wich are more effective panels or roomlens Gary Jacobson 18:19:38 01/29/00 (0)
  G'Day
  Having used the Room Lens 'clone' with electrostatic speakers for some time now, I can confirm that Jon's remark (above) regarding interaction with planar speakers is right on the money.
  Regards,
  Gary Jacobson

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