New room, help with acoustics

[Seacat77]

Hi all, I put a similar post in the Linn Selekt thread & someone suggested that I put a dedicated thread up.

So here goes, I’ve recently moved house and I’m not 100% sure I am in an OK spot to enjoy my system - room issue wise.

I’ll put up some pictures to help show my area, please excuse the clutter, I’ve only just moved in a few weeks ago and I’m still adjusting things around and such.

My set up is:

Speakers 80cm to back wall, 40cm to each side wall, speakers 2.23 m apart (tweeter to tweeter) and 2.27 m each speaker to my listening position.

The room itself is all drywall (except the outside facing walls, they are brick veneer and drywall inside. Solid concrete house pad floor with vinyl floor covering.

Just got the big wool rug in the picture today and it “appears” to have tamed the flutter echo a fair bit.

I’m getting a quote for an internal door and plastering to block of the hallway in the floor plan picture.

So question, I think that I need some time - possible weeks to “get used” to my new house and set up.

The exact same system was in a room that I had for 15 years. I’d say it will take some time to adjust to a completely different sounding room.

So I don’t want to make significant changes until I can baseline my new room.

Perhaps I will still put in that internal doorway, as it will be useful for other reasons not just for hifi use.

Is there any harm to perhaps try out in say 1x acoustic panel in at a time to gauge the effect ?

I’m thinking 1x panel on the roof above my system / listening area to try and tame the slight flutter echo on a reflection point there first. So a panel that is targeted to mid and treble reduction.

I am a bit restricted one side (glass) but the other wall is relatively free of clutter (except a few PowerPoint’s and such).

What I assume is what I don’t want to do is go all in and put a lot of acoustic panels in and end up having the opposite of what I’ve now - a dead sounding room vs a brighter sounding one.

Just after some advise and tips on fine tuning the room and system to get it as best I can before I start making significant changes like acoustic panels and a an internal doorway etc.

I can move the ATC’s around a bit more, I’ve not git excessive bass at all, it’s pretty good actually , perhaps a bit bass light , so I can play with distance to back and side walls to dial in bass / image / vocal / detail and that balance and get that right first.

I’m not able to get a professional out as I’m in an isolated region with no hifi dealer support locally.

[Edmund-of-Essex]

Hi,

I really understand your situation. When I was a student I lived in a shared house which was a three storey Victorian terrace- I occupied one of the larger rooms which had a bay window but was otherwise acoustically pretty good. Then when I started work and bought a flat, which had a large rectangular lounge/diner with large nearly floor to ceiling windows at each end, and the acoustics were hopeless. The only way I was able to get that room to work was set the HiFi up, listening across the short dimension, so that the glass windows were the furthest away from the speakers.

Since that time I understand a lot more about room acoustics. For your situation, you could consider using something called a ‘screen panel’ to cover the first reflection point on the left hand glass area. The panel can be folded and moved out of the way when HiFi is off. Such floor standing items are available from GIK Acoustics. Of course you will also need to mount an absorber on the right wall. These can have artwork printed on or even your own pictures or images.

Hope this helps.

E of E

[Edmund-of-Essex]

PS, if you are up for it Vicoustics do a ceiling treatments with some options that may also help.

E of E

[Innocent_Bystander]

The problem is very obvious: the cat is in the wrong place!

[Innocent_Bystander]

That looks to be a challenging space, though at least it looks as if rear reflections from kitchen end aren’t likely to be an issue. Given the window being a fixed feature, first I’d be thinking a large area of acoustic panels on right wall, most critically on the reflection points but better much of the way along, md to high frequency. (Aesthetically I’d suggest ‘art’ panels with images of your choice -photographs or painting reproductions.) Low frequency absorbers in corners on each side of the TV may be beneficial as well. Something with ceiling at the two reflection points likely would Not sure how thick that rug is - the thicker and larger the better.

Heavy curtains to cover the huge window would undoubtedly improve things for night use - and pulled to the corner front left could even be beneficial when open.

Not sure where exactly your seat is: best not in centre front to back of the room. A theoretically best position is with ears 38% of room length from front (or same from back), in your case 3.4m. . If not done already it would be worth a try, and moving front and back, and ditto playing with speaker positioning.

But re treatment perhaps best to engage services of someone like GIK Acoustics, who offer free assessment and advice.

[mikebu]

Cat needs to be as shown in this picture.

Seriously though from the pic you can see my room is similar. My move to sorting the room acoustics was prompted by changing from Isobariks to Titan 707’s which showed the bass in the room could become overwhelming. Large glass panels can vibrate at quite low frequencies.

I found that the corner bass traps made a large difference to improving the intelligibility of the bass and mid range. The two cloud absorbers certainly improved the upper frequencies and are placed at the first reflection point. Behind the camera position I do have a solid wall (with a door to the kitchen) where I have a 3rd corner bass trap plus 2 diffuser panels and a couple of tuned resonators(which give the least noticable difference IMH). If I were to do anything else I would possibly add a couple of diffusers on the ceiling behind the sofa but wall and ceiling space as you can see is pretty restricted.

[Hifi_Naim_CNNL]

My friend has an acoustic frame with print hanging down from a curtain rail. It can normally hang on the wall between your left windows. Then when you listen you slide it to the first reflection point. On the wall on the right you hang something similar but then just fixed to the wall.

You can change the print to anything you like and switch it in less than 10 mins. I have a similar panel but mine is fixed to the wall as you can see in the photo. It’s a December pic so ignore the Christmas tree .

The wall behind your speakers you can put 5cm rockwool covered with wooden slats to have some absorption on that wall also and still have a pleasing design.

[Seacat77]

Hahhaha, yes I just noted the cat photobombed me !

She’s hilarious sometimes Torts are special ones alright

I did call me old hifi dealer who can sell me Visoustic acoustic panels - at a good price.

But he suggested a few easy things first to gauge which ones and how many.

Get a thick bed deviate (I’ve a spare queen size one) and put it up on that RHS wall and see over a few days (moving around a bit if needed) and see if that helps.

That will tell me if that wall is a good place to then invest in some panels.

Also try a basic reverberation App that can give me a very rough reverb. time. Artnovion have an App that he said wasn’t too bad.

That “should” at least suggest a midrange / treble or both of these and what panels to tame those freq.

Looking at Vicoustics they do have semi nice wall panels that can be in a few colours and you can adjust the panel boxes to make a nice pattern. Not insane prices either.

Start with a couple and add more if needed was his advice rather than paint the entire wall with 10 of them.

[Edmund-of-Essex]

Hi,

I thought I might add something at this point. Initially (circa 2019) I hated the look of acoustic treatment and was adamant I did not want it.

Slowly with baby steps I started my journey (with some GIK Acoustics 242 art panels), liked the look and more importantly the acoustic effect and look what happened…………

E of E

[duf666]

Have a look there…

Wooden slat wall, wall panels & acoustic panels » WoodUpp

[mikebu]

Whereas Diffusers are always good, looking at the OP’s photos there are a lot of hard surfaces. He will need some absorption as well I think, maybe like Hifi_Naim_CNNL has done in his room with combined diffuser and absorber. Some of my panels are made in this way although not necessarily with wooden slats

For reference I used mainly GIK acoustics who offer a free design service - you just supply the room details and they model it for the main resonant frequencies and give you recommendations.

[Edmund-of-Essex]

Hi,

The serious acoustic treatment companies offer advice online. Some of them even cover that consultation as a free service.

I used GIK Acoustics for the service. But very quickly I found online tools that can help model simple rectangular space such as the OPs.

Look up ‘Amroc room mode calculator’ and that should take you to the website modelling tool that I used.

If it all seems a bit daunting, there is a small sub link from the main Amroc webpage that helps understanding of room acoustics.

E of E

[Innocent_Bystander]

One invaluable tool is REW (free software) and a measuring microphone (REW’s suggested UMIC-1 can be had for around £120, maybe 2/3-3/4 of that secondhand, and easily sold on if you don’t see a future use, With that you can literally see what the room response is like, and see the effect of changes almost immediately. GIK can accept REW files to give more accurate assess ent, and recommend what and where to test. REW is also very useful for simpler things like helping assess speaker/listening positions and even comparisons of other gear if tweaks, far quicker than listening tests which can then be used for final decisions.

[angelface]

What’s the problem? If you are getting poor imaging, absorption panels on right wall and curtains on left wall will help.
If the bass is thin, then thick bass traps behind the speakers will give you more bass.
If the room is over damped, it is probably too many thin absorbers removing high frequencies.
GIK give free advice even from a room sketch and some photos. You can buy their panels off ebay if you want

[Innocent_Bystander]

Just for completeness, reflections don’t just cause poor imaging, and if someone isn’t getting the sharpness and clarity the system is potentially capable of they likely won’t know until or unless the muddling reflections are removed. And yes, bass traps can increase bass when there are cancellations, and often more importantly decrease reverberation time thus cleaning up the bass.

BTW, re absorption vs scattering (diffusion), often in at higher frequencies each is beneficial to some extent, and combining can a good approach. For what it’t worth some commercial panels combine scattering and absorption.

[Camphuw]

It’s a tricky space; I would be tempted to change the orientation of the room so the speakers fire across the room rather than down. I understand that this might not fit with your life style but it may help you identify any inherent acoustic issues with the room.

I’m in favour of measurements, curtains across the window, etc., but would concentrate on getting a handle on the room acoustics. I used Housecurve, a simple iPhone app (REW is more sophisticated).

[Seacat77]

@angelface

What’s the problem? If you are getting poor imaging, absorption panels on right wall and curtains on left wall will help.

I’ve adjusted my chair and speakers again and it’s about as good as I can get it now.

Still have poor imaging/ a slight flutter echo / generally diffused and not defined treble and midrange. Something just “isn’t quite right” type feeling as well that I can’t really define.

I’ll play around with speakers again, but the listening chair is now in a spot that works practically and has the most pleasing bass.

I’ll have a go at some reverb Apps and see if it confirms that.

Then it’s acoustic panel time I’d say.

[Adrian-Glasgow]

V difficult as it is, with so many hard, smooth, reflective surfaces. Suggest try almost any kind of fabric panel behind your head, which will cut down at least some of the reverberations.

Good luck!

[DiggyGun]

@Seacat77

Then it’s acoustic panel time I’d say.

Contact GIK Acoustics. They have an online form you complete with your details. You have very detailed room dimensions, plus photos, so you’re halfway there. They can then work out what would be best for you.

DG…

[Innocent_Bystander]

@Adrian-Glasgow

Suggest try almost any kind of fabric panel behind your head, which will cut down at least some of the reverberations.

With the length of room behind the listening position, and some scattering be kitchen units, I doubt something suspended behind the OP’s seat will fix much.