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Does anyone use bass traps?

L

luckyguliver

pfm Member
Hi,

It dawned on me that instead of spending money on more expensive gear I might be better off improving room acoustics. When I was moving around with speakers, sub and furniture in my room I put, out of curiosity, my mattress behind the chair I sit on and I was amazed by improvement in bass department. Soundstage appeared far more clearly too.
Somebody recommended to me bass traps. Do you use them guys? I found some on bay site. They are not very expensive. I guess I could spend £100 on them bearing in mind that I paid that amount of money on speaker stands :)

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/efoam-uk/_i.html?_fsub=1

What do you reckon? Are they worth it?


Many thanks,
 
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I think you will find the majority of people on here and other forums would rather spend their time and money on silly money cables and stands that they think makes a big difference to sound while ignoring the proven physics and acoustics that form the basis of the sound in your room. But I digress, I tried some home made 'panels' in my room once but the difference was small and I did not have any measuring devices to see the real situatuin but I will try that again sometime in the future when I get the system sorted properly.
 
I have some DIY trapping. It is approx. 2 foot square 8" thick, seat and back foam cushions from an old sofa, propped into corners of the room, reaching right up to the ceiling, on top of bookshelves. It certainly helps.
 
I once had the whole 1 meter behind the speakers filled with damping material (sponge mattresses, heaps of old clothes, etc, etc). It did a difference, but mostly, I think, from having less early reflections in the upper frequencies than the actual damping of bass frequencies.

I have since used a Behringer Hi tech digital EQ for the same purpose (together with measurements), it was much more effective. It did, how ever, color the sound a bit when used in analog in/analog out mode.

Room acoustics and speaker placement is one of my pet concerns in audio, there is much one can do, but trying just to damp low frequencies doesn't do much, from my experience. Our hearing seems to swallow gigantum anomalies here!

JohanR
 
As aquapiranha intimates - the room is one component in the hi fi chain which can have the most drastic influence on music reproduction. Most men on planet earth aren't interested (or do not have the luxury of being able to experiment). This is why there are so many box swappers.

Do a search on BBC acoustic papers if you have any doubts. It's measurable and audible. I mean really audible. The trick is to determine what you need and then make it - and make it half-way domestically acceptable. If you can get wood, rockwool and grille cloth - miracles are possible - with a little experimentation (well - OK - quite a lot of experimentation). Absorption is a good place to start. Diffusion becomes essential once you have absorption. There's a ton of stuff on the internet......

http://www.bobgolds.com/DifuserKgveteran/home.htm

http://www.soundscapes.nu/rb_dif.htm

http://www.soundscapes.nu/!gallery/dif/index.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/ultra/hifi/diffusors.html

http://www.acousticsciences.com/articles.htm

http://www.asc-hifi.com/articles.htm

http://www.gikacoustics.com/education.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8766851/Recording-Studio-Design-2nd-Edition

http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/a2.htm

http://www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk/help.htm

http://www.mh-audio.nl/AcousticCalculations.asp

http://www.customaudiodesigns.co.uk/help.htm

http://www.mh-audio.nl/AcousticCalculations.asp

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread/t-24519.html

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/diffusers.html

http://www.gcmstudio.com/acoustics/acoustics.html

http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7qhAAAAEBAJ&dq=5401921

http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/articles15.htm

http://www.mh-audio.nl/diffusor.asp#calcul
 
Books. Lots and lots of books. Works a treat, is functional and looks much nicer than traps.
 
Of course.

But which book works best at 63Hz? And do you have to read them all for optimal results?

Seriously. Books work excellent as diffusor, but they don't damp, and certainly not in the bass range.
Probably the cheapest real tube-based bass trap on the market. Haven't any experience (yet).

http://www.thomann.de/gb/hofa_basstrap.htm
 
open all the doors and windows to your listening room , see what effect that has. Opening the doors and windows may have the effect of opening the resonant tube that is your living room , if I do it at my house the bass nodes/nulls dissappear to a very great extent.
 
Werner said:
Seriously. Books work excellent as diffusor, but they don't damp, and certainly not in the bass range.
Click to expand...
The complete works of Yukio Mishima (1st edition Japanese hardback). Several editions of Le Petit Larousse, a goodly number of large, heavy tomes on art, archaeology and paleoanthropology. Complete works of Shakespeare, various French English dictionaries. Junk thrillers as filler - my bookshelves are two deep in a number of places.
This does work. Seriously. And it's a lot more interesting than "traps".
 
Here's one I prepared earlier.

2306018886_89906ec059.jpg
 
One way to try bass trapping on the cheap is to buy some of those rolls of loft insulation in B&Q at about £6 each. Stack a couple in each room corner behind the speakers. If it works well then look at some more commercial options. Or just cover the loft insulation with a nice fabric.

The Behringer DEQ249 is also very effective at low frequencies.

Rockwoo_%20Roll_(group).jpg
 
Oh, and I don't actually use bass trapping, through I did in my previous smaller room.

In my new quite sizeable room, I find a well padded sofa, some boxes, padded chair and other stuff does a good enough job in combination with digital EQ. The frequency response isn't flat without EQ, mainly a big mode at 50Hz, but the rest of the range is well enough damped so I just hit that one on the head with EQ.

Here is the final response of my system. Note that above ~400Hz the response is not correct in this graph as it is the combination of both speakers summing in one mono microphone.

systemresponse.jpg
 
aquapiranha said:
I think you will find the majority of people on here and other forums would rather spend their time and money on silly money cables and stands that they think makes a big difference to sound while ignoring the proven physics and acoustics that form the basis of the sound in your room. But I digress, I tried some home made 'panels' in my room once but the difference was small and I did not have any measuring devices to see the real situatuin but I will try that again sometime in the future when I get the system sorted properly.
Click to expand...

Hmmm.

Cables and stands are possibly not quite so silly then.

Some folks look at my system pics and note the proximity of the right-hand speaker to side wall and they tell me it sounds boomy. Except that it doesn't.

Double hmmm....

One chap suggested that I move the RH speaker further to the left so that the speakers will be approximately 1m apart.

Now that WOULD boom and there would be no stereo image either.

Position your speakers as best you can using the good old-fashioned method of trial & error. Set your system properly to eliminate other causes of smear and overhang.

Then and only then consider bass traps imvho. The chances are you won't need them. If you do then moving house may be more effective. There is only so much you can do with a genuinely bad room.
 
Tenson said:
One way to try bass trapping on the cheap is to buy some of those rolls of loft insulation in B&Q at about £6 each. Stack a couple in each room corner behind the speakers. If it works well then look at some more commercial options. Or just cover the loft insulation with a nice fabric.

The Behringer DEQ249 is also very effective at low frequencies.

Rockwoo_%20Roll_(group).jpg
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I did with a difficult corner. Two rolls of scratchy loft isulation, wrapped in an old blanket and then covered with some curtaining fabric to match the wall curtains. Just stood it in the corner, on an small table. Worked fine, and cost next to nothing.

PS, in the picture above, remove the plastic covering first as that will reflect high frequencies, and reduce the bass absorbtion.

S.
 
Steven Toy said:
Hmmm.

Cables and stands are possibly not quite so silly then.

Some folks look at my system pics and note the proximity of the right-hand speaker to side wall and they tell me it sounds boomy. Except that it doesn't.

Double hmmm....

One chap suggested that I move the RH speaker further to the left so that the speakers will be approximately 1m apart.

Now that WOULD boom and there would be no stereo image either.

Position your speakers as best you can using the good old-fashioned method of trial & error. Set your system properly to eliminate other causes of smear and overhang.

Then and only then consider bass traps imvho. The chances are you won't need them. If you do then moving house may be more effective. There is only so much you can do with a genuinely bad room.
Click to expand...

Steve, I knew my comments would bring you here!

I said the difference the traps made was small, not imagined or non-existant as they would be with mains cables.. I am sure by now you are aware of my thoughts on the matter.

Room acoustics are important, and the changes you make are easily measured, repeatable and follow the rules of physics and acoustics.

Making traps and diffusers is simple and relativly inexpensive and I am surprised more people do not give it a go.
 
I said the difference the traps made was small, not imagined or non-existant as they would be with mains cables.. I am sure by now you are aware of my thoughts on the matter.
Click to expand...

You might like to have a read of another thread on this very subject. Lets just say that the results surprised even me.

Lets also say that in the objectivist camp there may have been a very slight change of position, a move from no difference whatsoever to a slight one that isn't of any real significance, a change nevertheless.
 
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