I have now completed phase one of my room improvement, using Woodupp panelling over 150 mm of RW 60 Rockwool (less in the centre) see photo. I have also made a couple of base traps to go in the rear corners.
This has tightened up the bass and made things much clearer by reducing the RT60 above 200 Hz to below 300 ms and typically around 250. With the curtains drawn, it’s only marginally above 200 ms
At 80 Hz and below it’s around 450 ms if I leave a 300 mm gap behind the base traps which themselves are 400 mm plus thick. Without the gap it’s over 600 ms.
The 37 Hz mode is little affected by any of this of course.
I spent a lot of time trying to include sliding doors to cover the TV, as much for aesthetic reasons as otherwise, but it was too complicated. I’m therefore going to fit a bar on which I can hang something like a tapestry, Persian rug or artwork that will incorporate, something to attenuate high frequencies.
There is also opportunity to add some high-level bass absorption behind the listening position; just not sure whether to incorporate some dispersion plates with that, but currently the room is plenty bright, so will probably leave them open.
I think rockwool is a very cost-effective hi-fi improvement, that more people should try and sooner.
Maybe this is what inspired Lana Del Rey to compose her ode to its inventor, norman.
Very impressive and a stylish look. Can I ask the dimensions of your room?
I presume you made soffit traps for the rear corners?
Phase 2 should be interesting.
Hi John, glad to see you cracked on and it all looks very sleek and tasteful
Re your 37Hz gremlin it could prove helpful to try a couple of GIK Monster bass absorbers on the rear wall, which proved helpful in my room sat just above floor level. This bear in my mind is with Fact 12s, where the low bass notes are vented out right at the front bottom.
I’ve also tried one behind my head resting on the window ledge 3 feet back, but to me that killed upper frequencies too much for my liking, so I ended up with a single Vicoustic Cinema Round mid/high frequency absorber (foam based).
On a different note have you tried moving the speakers closer together to minimise rear corner pressurisation more? I would try as much as 8-10 inches in total to see what happens and hence maybe fire them straight with no toe in. ATB Peter
PS. The chair on the right showing in the photo could that also potentially be causing an issue with higher pressure/slap-back on that side
Why do you think it would look bad? The frame behind the tv will be covered with decotex fabric that’s printed in the same color as the wall. I don’t think it will look much different than my wall looks now.
The other solution I’m still contemplating is the same as shown above with wool + Woodupp panels covering it. Looks very nice in my opinion.
The left wall will be either be 6 frames covered with fabric with personal photos on it or one large print. I think this looks much better than most GIK acoustic panels or the Vicoustic solutions.
The ceiling solution is indeed a more intrusive solution. Perhaps choosing them circular with indirect lighting could give a nice visual effect. This is the solution I’m most doubting.
Thanks for the advice.
However both the acoustician and myself found the spot against the wall to sound best. The old spot where is had my sofa further to the front (as seen in post 2011) was a bass null zone and if I would place the sofa in between the current position and the position on the photo of post 2011 I would have not enough space to walk to the adjacent room.
If I treat the wall behind the speakers with 15cm absorption then I kind of got the corners covered or am I seeing that wrong?
What do you not like about a “false wall” behind the speakers? When the acoustician placed a few panels he brought with him for testing purposes behind the speakers the sound improved with each panel.
My bass response is not too bad actually and only present when it comes to very low frequencies and bad recordings.
Tomorrow my microphone arrives so then I can do more testing myself. I’ll post results here to give more insights.
The distance is 375 cm to both speakers. Not exactly an equal triangle but that’s not possible within practical reason.
The distance between the speakers is about 240 cm
My comments above were borne from trying to resolve my own problematic room, and were only a suggestion – by no means advice in the strictest sense of the word.
As you’ve had an acoustician review the space, then that’s the direction to go, as other changes are severely limited as you outline.
Exactly the black bulkhead running across the top above the woodupp Panelling is intended as a soffit trap and is a little over 30 cm in cross-section of Rockwool faced with the wood up felt panels which are the same as the panels to which the wood strips are fitted. This also permits the installation of some lighting. There is no room to make it any bigger to tackle the deepest bass and personally I like the aesthetic.
The chair on the right of the photo is relatively lightweight and I vaguely thought this could work on the first reflection point a wee bit. More problematic could be a leather sofa out of shot on the left. I might move things around and see if that materially affects the readings in particular whether it impedes the route to the bass traps.
In the photo the speakers are on iso acoustic feet. But I have removed these, and there is a noticeable improvement in the tautness of the sound. Under sprung feet, the speakers necessarily will wobble if pushed so maybe that’s a vibration issue. They are very solid on spikes on coins to save the floor.
Sorry for popping in to an ongoing thread which is too long for my ultimately lazy brain to take in all at once, but I do want to mention that, after spending much of the last year or more listening almost exclusively through headphones (primarily: McIntosh MHA-200 amp, Audeze LCD-3 with Custom Cans UK xlr cable), upon returning to the full rig, I became acutely aware of the room’s HUGE contribution the sound you hear from your speakers (near field listening excluded, of course). This is not a plug and play endeavor, and the hifi hobby isn’t about simply slapping down your credit card for newer, prettier boxes. Rather, IMHO, it is all about careful set up and devoted attention to detail, the whole idea being to maximize your system’s potential, all within the constraints imposed by YOUR ROOM. It’s about balance, and almost by definition, balance can be very precarious.
Most rooms treated acoustically just look like rooms optimized for one purpose: listening to music. I don‘t like the look of most of these rooms. It is Your room so my personal taste obviously doesn’t matter. Anyway looking forward to Your treatment and wish You best of luck that it sounds good and meets Your taste.
For some listening to music is an absolute passion and room treatment will only enhance that experience. For most room treatment it involves panels which can be removed ultimately. It isn’t as if the fabric of the building is irreversibly being altered. Even a false wall can be removed.
We only live once. Let’s get the best from our music .What’s the harm of a few panels on the walls?
You can get away with quite a bit of absorbsion using printed thick bass panels - looks like expensive art prints if done right. My wife likes them, she just get annoyed by the other 10 panels and the 2 x 2 GIK turbo tube traps stacked lol :P. I’ve also found that other furniture like carved African table can be used. Put a black cloth sack inside filled with acoustic absorption and you have a trap no one notices. You can make quite a bit of difference without being too intrusive. I agree to do it properly does create a little conflict, if your not luck enough to have a dedicated space.
Is there such a thing as an acceptable sub bass/bass decay time (say 20-250hz)?
If so, what is the maximum tolerance and is it frequency dependent?
For some reason 350 milliseconds was what I was thinking of but could be complete codswallop as I can’t find a source to verify.
ATB Peter
