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Help with room acoustics

ex brickie

ex brickie

pfm Member
I've just moved home and the room that will take the hifi is hard and cold. Picture this....

Room 18' X 11'
Speakers can only go across the 11' width with a speaker either side of a fireplace
On each long end are Windows
One end is almost wall to ceiling glass (glass doors to conservatory) - as yet no curtains
Other long end has a full width window from 3' up. Below the window is a full length radiator
That window has a slatted fabric blind - no curtain
Floor is all hard polished wood
On part of the rear wall opposite the speakers is a window - only a slatted fabric blind, no curtains

When my furniture arrives it will be a leather sofa on the listening wall - plenty of cushions
We will have a rug which is around 6' X 3'

The hifi and furniture in the house yet so the room is pretty much a blank canvas. But with just a radio on it is bright and almost echoes.

I have no fancy gizmos for measuring sound waves and no such software on any devices.

I'm assuming the room won't sound too good but I will try it before I jump on any suggestions

So, to help me narrow down how I avoid a hard sound what cheap options should I try as a starter? We may well buy curtains but if we do, they will be at the long ends of the room.

Do I start with floor coverings (more rugs) or wall coverings (curtains or absorber material)?
 
Sounds like when I moved in. Stupidly I set up the system before I had anything in the room; it sounded terrible. But don't panic: the difference between a room without stuff and a room with stuff is immense.

Rug and Sofa are a big help. Then books and records. More chairs. Just lots of stuff.

I made acoustic panels too, but that was much later. The stuff is the key step.
 
2 big windows & wooden floor......I’d be strongly thinking of carpet, or at least a larger thick rug to cover as much floor as possible.
After that, move in a bit of furniture, the sofa etc, some books, record collection etc. Set up the system, live with it for a while & see how it goes from there. Probably try to keep the sofa a bit away from the wall if you can.
You may get flutter echoes, ( a metallic ringing type echo) or bass humps, but jumping to conclusions before you’ve even tried it is unwise.
 
As others - wait until you get in. But in reality most hifi is easiest in rooms with plenty of soft furnishings. Hard floors, windows and walls will just bounce sound around.
 
I would second the suggestion of moving the sofa / listening chair out a touch from the wall where practicable, I also got appreciable benefits from hanging a lighweight rug from the handy picture rail on the back wall behind the listening position.
 
Elephantears said:
Sounds like when I moved in. Stupidly I set up the system before I had anything in the room; it sounded terrible. But don't panic: the difference between a room without stuff and a room with stuff is immense.

Rug and Sofa are a big help. Then books and records. More chairs. Just lots of stuff.

I made acoustic panels too, but that was much later. The stuff is the key step.
Click to expand...
Agree with all the above... furniture, stuff and many stuff around the room.
 
Exactly like my room 2 houses ago. Sounds like the ideal room to experiment with nearfield listening...small speakers, move the sofa forwards a tad, rug on the wall behind your head, curtains everywhere for sure and that central bit of floor, at least, covered, + as all have said...STUFF + more STUFF! :)
 
I think my wife will go with all that but she is strongly resisting the rug on the wall idea (even if I let her choose the design) . :)
 
Much better than the rug , would be a GIK acoustic panel , which can be custom printed with a scene/picture of your or your wife's choice.
 
The Gik stuff is very good & their customer service likewise.
I use gik panels to cover the 1st & 2nd reflection points, as well as to lose the flutter echo I had in the room.
 
It all depends how far you want to go with room acoustics.

There are really two separate issues. Firstly, bass. All small rooms have bass issues. It's something most people don't address because it requires large absorbers (bass traps) to deal with the problem These aren't all that nice to look at and take up space. If your room is the living room that is not really practical. What bass issues? Put your room dimensions in this calculator and you will see:

https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc

The second issue is reflections of the medium to higher frequency and that is where things like carpets, furnishings etc. can help. Acoustic panels (on feet if required to move about) are better.

If you want more info, check these sites:

http://gikacoustics.co.uk/

http://realtraps.com/

There's a lot to digest!

Positioning your speakers and chair can help alleviate some of these problems. Here's one idea that works for me:

http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/monitoring.htm

Another solution to avoid all this room treatment is to use DSP (Digital Signal Processing), basically a sophisticated equaliser. I've not used it and it's not ideal but some say they get good results:

https://www.minidsp.com/dirac-series/ddrc-22d

or some other version of it.
 
With all that glazing you should have a fair amount of LF absorption, but until the rug and sofa are in you have almost no mid or hf absorption. The room will have a tendency towards thin and bright.

Put in sofa and a bigger thicker rug if you can.
On the 3 Windows some absorption and diffusion would be useful, such as fabric box section blinds which would be better than nothing, and floor to ceiling curtains at each end would be useful even if not drawn across the windows.
If you need additional reverb control then the printed gik panels are a good call.
Best if luck
 
The leather sofa may reflect sound and mess things up. You could put a blanket over it to hear if it does.

Try not to put something like a coffee table between you and the speakers - that could also lead to damaging reflections. Again, try it to find out.

A rug between the speakers and you would also be useful to stop floor reflections.
 
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