Room Treatment thread

[alpina]

Hi all,

For those of you who know about my setup, you would know that i have a have a horrible acoustic room to work with - ie, polished concrete floors, high ceilings (3.5mts) with skylights and a wall of glass (bifold doors) on one wall.

I am now looking at things that i can do to soften the room acoustically w/o losing all the things i love about the room (namely, everything that Imentioned above).

So far i've come up with a rug and some acoustic paintings opposite the front speakers - eg, http://www.acousticart.com.au/

the room is about to be re-painted. is there a sound deadening undercoat/primer that i should look at that i can paint over?

Any stealth like suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Julie

[Kobus]

I will be surprised if it exists and really works. I am involved with paint manufacturing and will keenly await what others say on this.

Kobus

[Boombox]

I've got a suggesting....

I used empty egg trays to reduce the amount of scattering off my flat walls....

it tightened up the bass and reduced the highs dramatically...

it works :T ........., however,..........it is extremely ugly........and cheap;






unless you are impressively artistic....

[Kal Rubinson]

Hi all,

For those of you who know about my setup, you would know that i have a have a horrible acoustic room to work with - ie, polished concrete floors, high ceilings (3.5mts) with skylights and a wall of glass (bifold doors) on one wall.

I am now looking at things that i can do to soften the room acoustically w/o losing all the things i love about the room (namely, everything that Imentioned above).

So far i've come up with a rug and some acoustic paintings opposite the front speakers - eg, http://www.acousticart.com.au/

the room is about to be re-painted. is there a sound deadening undercoat/primer that i should look at that i can paint over?

Any stealth like suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Julie

Paint won't do much. Take a look at www.realtraps.com, www.ethanwiner.com, www.rivesaudio.com, and other acoustics info sites.

Kal

[Briz vegas]

I had a chat with my B&W dealer on the weekend about room treatment. My room is not bad, in fact I know it is the best sounding room in the house as I had a few options and tried them all. I just thought it would be nice to iron out a relatively small dip in the frequency response. He told stories of customers that had spent a large fortune on a "perfect room" that was as dead as a doornail and sounded awful. Others had rooms with lots of hard surfaces, high ceilings etc that sounded fine "because they had good speakers". This was after I had purchased the speakers, although it could have simply been that he could not turn off the "salesman" auto pilot.

I think you should consider setting up your system and having a listen for yourself. If there is still a problem then check out your options to iron out any annoying characteristics.

[Glenn Kuras]

mmmmmmmm I am totally new to this forum so I do not want to come off as Mr. Negative, but egg cartons do nothing for room acoustics at all. If you visit our FAQ page it talks about this. There has been a lot of testing on this and every one of them comes up saying the same thing. NO NO NO NO NO..
As far as the paintings go, I looked at the website and could not find any acoustic info on the page. Really hard to say if the stuff works or not. Is there some info I am missing on there site?


Glenn

[Kal Rubinson]

He told stories of customers that had spent a large fortune on a "perfect room" that was as dead as a doornail and sounded awful.

Dead as a doornail is theoretically and practically wrong. No surprise.

Others had rooms with lots of hard surfaces, high ceilings etc that sounded fine "because they had good speakers". This was after I had purchased the speakers, although it could have simply been that he could not turn off the "salesman" auto pilot.

The latter. He does sell equipment.
There is a science to this but most audio salesmen ignore it.

Kal

[Bob]

He told stories of customers that had spent a large fortune on a "perfect room" that was as dead as a doornail and sounded awful. Others had rooms with lots of hard surfaces, high ceilings etc that sounded fine "because they had good speakers"

One of the most interesting two rooms in the recent Stereophile Show in Los Angeles was the Rives Rooms. Two hotel rooms side by side with excactly the same equipment setups and music playing. One modestly treated (they couldn't modify the hotel rooms with nails, etc.) and one totally untreated. The difference was much more profound than you would hear from two good speaker systems. There is no doubt in my mind that excellent source and electronics with moderate speakers in a very good room will out perform great speakers in a poor room and modest source and electronics.
About five years ago I met a retired artchitect at a local audio dealer. At the time he was picking up a very expensive cartridge and we got to talking. He had recently purchased the top Clearaudio Turntable available at that time. I asked if I could come over and give it a listen and, like most audiophiles, he was happy to share his system. He had a very large investment in his audio gear, by my estimate, easily $250,000. Yet, it was in this horrible room two small for the speakers, which were crammed right up into the corners with no space to the sides or behind them and this huge cabinet full of electronics between them, and a antique buffet table also between the speakers.
I couldn't beleive that a architect wouldn't have designed a room specific to such a expensive setup, or at least converted his garage. At the time I had a modest Vandersteen speaker setup with a old Audio Research pre amp, also in a poor room. But, at least I could bring the speakers out into the room and had some modest room treatments. My system out performed his in every way, better soundstaging, more bass, more detail, all because of speaker placement and room treatments.
In short, your dealer is full of it.

[Chris D]

He told stories of customers that had spent a large fortune on a "perfect room" that was as dead as a doornail and sounded awful.

Well, you have to be careful about this. Acoustic treatments to rooms DOES, repeat, DOES make a dramatic difference in improving an audio experience.

HOWEVER... what he's somewhat alluding to, is that you need to have a good balance of absorptive and reflective items. It is rare, but some people have been in rooms that are *virtually* anechoic, that is to say, that the room has maximized its ability to absorb ambient noise in the room. This is the opposite of rooms that are very "live", where you hear echoes of echoes. I have had the opportunity to be in a vitually anechoic chamber (as Kal mentioned, it is realistically impossible to have a room that absorbs 100% of sound) and it is VERY uncomfortable. The human brain is used to hearing slight reflections, or low-grade echoes, of noise. If you twist your body, you expect to hear your body make tiny noises, your clothes rustle a bit, and it to be very slightly reflected off the walls. In an anechoic chamber, there is a deadness to the sound that makes you feel like the life has been sucked out of the room. You feel compelled to shout and scream, and you hear the sound go directly from your mouth to your ears (and physically travel through your body as normal) but you hear no echoes. Very unnerving.

The opportunity I had was to actually enter a fighter jet engine test cell, made as anechoic as possible. Gives you goosebumps. On a side note, it also had sound baffled exhaust to vent the engine from the cell. You could walk into the baffles, and you only had to travel a few yards into them before you could no longer hear someone screaming at the top of their lungs in the cell. This whole experience was also one of the max "testosterone" moments of my life, watching the jet engine through a thick glass window in the dark, be lit into full afterburner. You could barely hear the engine, even right next to it, but you could feel the raw power vibrating through your soul and the afterburner lit up everything.

Okay, back on topic and the bottom line: Virtually NO theater rooms are in danger of being too "dead", unless you just have gone way, waaaaaay overboard with absorptive material. So... in general, every theater room could greatly benefit from absorptive treatments, properly applied.

[Kingdaddy]

The article I read on the web site posted talks about Open Weave cloth and specialized paint over acoustic foam and typical absorption materials, the trick here is obviously the paint and fabric allowing the sound to freely pass through the artwork painting, the rest is typical panel bass traps from what I could tell. It really is a good idea and one that nearly everybody has probably thought of about after hanging several panel traps around a room, I know I which mine looked like paintings, most people oddly enough think they are speakers, don’t know why though.

[dknightd]

Amost all rooms can benefit by broadband bass absorbers in the corners.
These can be disguised as plant or artwork display stands.
Basically, have a triangular table made that is empty on the inside.
Fill the inside with rigid fiberglass or minieral wool. Cover the fiberglass
with a suitable cloth. Put a plant or vase on top. Put one in every corner you can.
Make them as big as you can tolerate.:wq

[Kingdaddy]

Amost all rooms can benefit by broadband bass absorbers in the corners.
These can be disguised as plant or artwork display stands.
Basically, have a triangular table made that is empty on the inside.
Fill the inside with rigid fiberglass or minieral wool. Cover the fiberglass
with a suitable cloth. Put a plant or vase on top. Put one in every corner you can.
Make them as big as you can tolerate.:wq

It’s my understanding that bass absorption is all about coverage, so small corner devices and tube traps just don’t do enough according to many experts.

[Glenn Kuras]

Amost all rooms can benefit by broadband bass absorbers in the corners.
These can be disguised as plant or artwork display stands.
Basically, have a triangular table made that is empty on the inside.
Fill the inside with rigid fiberglass or minieral wool. Cover the fiberglass
with a suitable cloth. Put a plant or vase on top. Put one in every corner you can.
Make them as big as you can tolerate.:wq

You mean kind of like these?
http://www.gikacoustics.com/product_info.html :T

[alpina]

The article I read on the web site posted talks about Open Weave cloth and specialized paint over acoustic foam and typical absorption materials, the trick here is obviously the paint and fabric allowing the sound to freely pass through the artwork painting, the rest is typical panel bass traps from what I could tell. It really is a good idea and one that nearly everybody has probably thought of about after hanging several panel traps around a room, I know I which mine looked like paintings, most people oddly enough think they are speakers, don’t know why though.

So how effective is this solution and how much of it would i need?

Sure is a lot more aesthetically pleasing than the other options. Seen the product in real life and would pass as "real artwork". Quality could be a little better, especially where the material is pulled around the edges (ie, the one I saw had bubbles)


Julie

[dknightd]

You mean kind of like these?
http://www.gikacoustics.com/product_info.html :T

Yep, that is more or less what I meant.
Are those sturdy enough to put a plant or large vase on? Say 10-20 lbs.
Looks good

[dknightd]

It’s my understanding that bass absorption is all about coverage, so small corner devices and tube traps just don’t do enough according to many experts.

Four of the GIK traps, as linked to above, should make a significant improvement in most rooms (especially if they are solid blocks of fiberglass, or, have a front face at least 6" thick). Obviously 8, or more, traps would be better ;-)

[Glenn Kuras]

Four of the GIK traps, as linked to above, should make a significant improvement in most rooms (especially if they are solid blocks of fiberglass, or, have a front face at least 6" thick). Obviously 8, or more, traps would be better ;-)

You are right on the money.. 4 is a great start and will do wonders, but think more like 6 to 8 if you really want to slap that room into shape. When people call me I always point this out, but tell them to start with 4 and go from there. You can get to a point of demising returns with bass trapping. In my own room I have 13 bass traps, but the first 8 are doing 90% of the job.

For the other guy about how much weight the trap will take.
It will hold 50 pounds without any problem at all.

Glenn