Do you use acoustic treatment in your listening area?
- Thread starter rough edges
- Start date
david ellwood
Kirabosi Kognoscente
I have always fancied trying a Helmholtz Resonator in between the speakers.
Mainly because I like the name.
Mainly because I like the name.
darrenyeats
pfm Member
Speaker and listening position is the biggest thing to get right IMO. A faultless dealer demo yesterday has inspired me to get round to moving my listening position this week! Been putting it off due to first reflection treatments needing to be moved!
After the above basics, bass trapping and dealing with echos. If the speakers are near the side-walls (<1 metre) then also treat first reflection points (I do this).
I believe narrow band bass traps tuned by measurement are far better than broadband bass traps.
David, such helmholtz resonators and membrane traps need to be as near the appropriate wall as possible, I prefer the wall behind the listening position if possible.
After the above basics, bass trapping and dealing with echos. If the speakers are near the side-walls (<1 metre) then also treat first reflection points (I do this).
I believe narrow band bass traps tuned by measurement are far better than broadband bass traps.
David, such helmholtz resonators and membrane traps need to be as near the appropriate wall as possible, I prefer the wall behind the listening position if possible.
uncl_nigel
pfm Member
Having treated the ceiling I would say the same about bare reflective ceilings
Tony L
Administrator
Having treated the ceiling I would say the same about bare reflective ceilings
Theoretically you only need one (live-end/dead-end), though I’d argue the floor was more significant as the distance from drives will be shorter (our brains are apparently better at rejecting later delays). One of the real strengths of horns is their extreme directionality as the listener gets the sound way before that of the room. PWK had a lot of interest to say on this subject and how to work with a room rather than to fight it.
mandryka
pfm Member
I have bare wood floors, which I value as much as I value good sound.
I also have "interesting" but reflective ceilings, which I'm not going to cover up, this sort of thing:
And I'm not ready to move.
So I've got a problem except . . . . if I could find some mushrooms like the ones you used to see in the Festival Hall . . . . I could use them pretty effectively in design terms,
Tony L
Administrator
You couldn’t be persuaded by a really nice rug or two at the key reflection points? I love the look of genuine real-wood flooring (especially parquet), but I still think it is improved with a genuinely nice rug. It would tie the room together....
PS If you sneak a bit of underlay under the rug they can be pretty effective at killing that first and highly destructive bounce.
PS If you sneak a bit of underlay under the rug they can be pretty effective at killing that first and highly destructive bounce.
mandryka
pfm Member
ToTo Man
the band not the dog
The biggest upgrade to my system was the installation of passive acoustic treatments.
Pre-2013, when I had vey little appreciation of the importance of room acoustics, the way in which my room was furnished made it a pretty decent sounding room, though this was entirely by accident and not design! I had a huge bank of wardrobes, two seater sofa, and four unused IMF transmission line loudspeakers occupying the corners that were inadvertently acting as bass traps.
Turning this room into a dedicated listening room and reclaiming square footage in the process, I removed all of the aforementioned clutter. This had dire consequences. I was utterly dejected when I realised how poor my hifi now sounded. TV speech in particular had deteriorated to the point of complete unintelligibility, a smeared, resonant, boomy mess. I dread to think how worse it would have been with bare floors (thankfully I retained the carpet!).
Installing GIK 244 absorption panels at first reflection points on the side walls helped to restore some of the focus/clarity, but the biggest improvement was filling every corner of the room with GIK Tri-Traps running floor to ceiling. This really got the low frequency decay times back under control, reducing my RT60 from 0.7 seconds to 0.3 seconds for all frequencies above 80Hz, making everything sound clearer, more agile and dynamic.
I still have bass issues below 100Hz, as do most listeners with typical UK-sized rooms. These are incredibly difficult to treat with broadband acoustic absorbers unless you sacrifice a significant % of your room's volume to them. Tuned membrane and Helmholtz resonators are more effective at targeting problem modal frequencies, and these are something I'd like to experiment with at some point, together with a first reflection ceiling cloud and some diffusion, but my room isn't really big enough or structurally designed in a way that could accommodate everything that's been recommended to me (and neither is my wallet!).
Thus I have settled for a combination of 1) the passive treatments I currently have; 2) optimising the listening position and loudspeaker position to minimise the remaining issues; and 3) using digital parametric EQ to take the edge off the peaks in the response caused by my axial room modes). I'm currently very content with this compromise.
EDIT - If I were doing my room treatments again I would probably choose corner traps faced with diffusers, as I have since read that, unlike primary-reflection absorption, the absorption of secondary reflections is not necessarily desirable as it can over-damp high-frequencies and thus reduce "room ambience". In some modern houses though with tiled-flooring, stretches of glazed walls, glass coffee tables and leather seating I suspect you'd want all the primary and secondary absorption you could get from passive treatments!
Pre-2013, when I had vey little appreciation of the importance of room acoustics, the way in which my room was furnished made it a pretty decent sounding room, though this was entirely by accident and not design! I had a huge bank of wardrobes, two seater sofa, and four unused IMF transmission line loudspeakers occupying the corners that were inadvertently acting as bass traps.
Turning this room into a dedicated listening room and reclaiming square footage in the process, I removed all of the aforementioned clutter. This had dire consequences. I was utterly dejected when I realised how poor my hifi now sounded. TV speech in particular had deteriorated to the point of complete unintelligibility, a smeared, resonant, boomy mess. I dread to think how worse it would have been with bare floors (thankfully I retained the carpet!).
Installing GIK 244 absorption panels at first reflection points on the side walls helped to restore some of the focus/clarity, but the biggest improvement was filling every corner of the room with GIK Tri-Traps running floor to ceiling. This really got the low frequency decay times back under control, reducing my RT60 from 0.7 seconds to 0.3 seconds for all frequencies above 80Hz, making everything sound clearer, more agile and dynamic.
I still have bass issues below 100Hz, as do most listeners with typical UK-sized rooms. These are incredibly difficult to treat with broadband acoustic absorbers unless you sacrifice a significant % of your room's volume to them. Tuned membrane and Helmholtz resonators are more effective at targeting problem modal frequencies, and these are something I'd like to experiment with at some point, together with a first reflection ceiling cloud and some diffusion, but my room isn't really big enough or structurally designed in a way that could accommodate everything that's been recommended to me (and neither is my wallet!).
Thus I have settled for a combination of 1) the passive treatments I currently have; 2) optimising the listening position and loudspeaker position to minimise the remaining issues; and 3) using digital parametric EQ to take the edge off the peaks in the response caused by my axial room modes). I'm currently very content with this compromise.
EDIT - If I were doing my room treatments again I would probably choose corner traps faced with diffusers, as I have since read that, unlike primary-reflection absorption, the absorption of secondary reflections is not necessarily desirable as it can over-damp high-frequencies and thus reduce "room ambience". In some modern houses though with tiled-flooring, stretches of glazed walls, glass coffee tables and leather seating I suspect you'd want all the primary and secondary absorption you could get from passive treatments!
I suggest you read up on it:
https://gikacoustics.co.uk/articles/
http://realtraps.com/info.htm
Like To To Man, I learned some years ago about the concept when trying to get good sound from decent speakers. I'm lucky to have a dedicated room.
As mentioned above, I got the positioning of speakers and chair as best I could, added bass traps etc., and use careful EQ, all this being measured using Room EQ Wizard (REW).
I bought from GIK over a number of years and got their advice but didn't always follow it!
I should add, regarding ceiling treatment, that is very dependent on your speakers and how they disperse the sound. My speakers with ribbon tweeters and mid range drivers have a relatively narrow vertical dispersion and so don't reflect off my ceilings. I did experiment with placing something on the ceiling and as expected it made no difference. You could ask your speaker manufacturer about this.
I use:
* A thick Turkish rug
* The speakers fire directly into a large corner sofa
* There are loads of bits and pieces in the room, like big lamps, side tables, that break up the room boundaries
* Although not strictly room treatment, decoupling my speakers from the floor stopped my suspended wooden floor from booming next door.
* A thick Turkish rug
* The speakers fire directly into a large corner sofa
* There are loads of bits and pieces in the room, like big lamps, side tables, that break up the room boundaries
* Although not strictly room treatment, decoupling my speakers from the floor stopped my suspended wooden floor from booming next door.
Hoopsontoast
pfm Member
Yes, bought from GIK but installed myself.
The panel on the radiator in the middle is now properly mounted above the TV.
There is also another diffusor/absorber panel to the right of the window as well
The panel on the radiator in the middle is now properly mounted above the TV.
There is also another diffusor/absorber panel to the right of the window as well
Jonathan
pfm Member
especially given what people spend on their setups! pity they dont get to hear it ...
Rick_F
pfm Member
I bought one of these last week.
https://www.homebase.co.uk/matrix-decor-screen-riverbank-1800x900mm-charcoal_p375150
I hung it off the wall between my speakers about 5 inches away. The difference it made was really surprising, vocals are better defined and more focused and sound stage has also improved. The system isn't as bright as it was, and is taking a but of getting use to so may increase the treble on the digital equalizer. It's also revealed an issue with the bass as it sounds muddled compared to without the screen. That may be because I can hear it better, or I need to tweak something. Still, I'm really pleased with the result and may get another one.
https://www.homebase.co.uk/matrix-decor-screen-riverbank-1800x900mm-charcoal_p375150
I hung it off the wall between my speakers about 5 inches away. The difference it made was really surprising, vocals are better defined and more focused and sound stage has also improved. The system isn't as bright as it was, and is taking a but of getting use to so may increase the treble on the digital equalizer. It's also revealed an issue with the bass as it sounds muddled compared to without the screen. That may be because I can hear it better, or I need to tweak something. Still, I'm really pleased with the result and may get another one.
