Thank you! I really am Peter. Very good and musically sounding.
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6” thick rock wool rwa45 placed over the corner of the room should absorb 50% of 50hz (obviously in an acoustic panel rather than unslightly bare.
Hi mickdale. Why not use a GIK corner TriTrap absorber? Rockwool thermal building isolation doesn’t seem to cut the mustard in acoustic absorption terms. There is multiple YouTube videos available how to make your own absorber, that is if you are not too worried about the aesthetics of it and possibly also the potential effectiveness. GIK make great products, measured to prove expected outcome. ATB Peter
I tried four of them in my room. Made virtually no difference between 40-50hz.
I also tried six RPG Modex plates (cost $$$$) that also didn’t make any difference between 40-50hz. RPG’s response was that the German manufacturer of the plates altered the manufacture rendering the plates useless.
Tried room correction EQ - destroyed the sound.
I gave up and changed from full range to limited range speakers 
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hello Peter
Why not use a GIK corner TriTrap absorber?
I’ve not seen real data for their absorption
Rockwool thermal building isolation doesn’t seem to cut the mustard in acoustic absorption?
Really? Rockwool RWA has a density of about 40kg/m3 which is ideal for bass absorption, especially with an air gap between the panel and rear wall. Where did you hear/read it doesn’t work?
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Did you do the EQ yourself? I highly recommend using a third party service such as Home Audio Fidelity to create convolution filters they can be used in many applications. I found it made everything come together in my system.
Good Evening All,
Can I suggest to those people posing the view that treating a room acoustically negatively impacts on the music?
As I have stated elsewhere it was the demonstration of SOV2 at Cymbiosis through a Klimax DS/3 compared to a ‘normal’ top flight LP12 that really brought home to me that I couldn’t be at all sure what I was listening to.
I need to get past the reaction that SOV2 had removed the bass. On reflection (no pun intended) I realised that it hadn’t removed the bass but it had removed the bass ‘boom’ and clearly he room had been creating the ‘boom’.
Having acquired an Akurate DS/3 I ran tests with SOV1 (wasn’t overly impressed) and then SOV2 which was a considerable improvement. There is still bass with the right record/ FLAC file the issue becomes one of how may records/ FLAC files don’t have it there in the first place!
I followed GIK’s advice and moved my chair so my head was 38% the length of the room from the front wall which improved things still further (this related to nodes i.e. room issues).
Finally the room treatment from GIK is being brought into play. The initial temporary install of the 4 Tri-Traps, 2 x 242 panels and the Bass Absorber were a night and day change. It’s difficult to describe the change but it was nothing but positive and Thomas’ observation from above:-
Treating first reflection points helps a lot : better stereo image, enhances precision and details, and makes the listening experience less fatiguing.
probably accurately describes it.
At the risk of repeating myself ‘ad nauseam’ you have to deal with the room acoustics first and then you ‘know’ you’re listening to the speakers.
Regards
Richard
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I have not read anyone here saying that acoustic treatment have negative impact on sound quality. Quite the contrary.
Personally I just pointed that too much treated room can have negative impact, which is very different.
I believe in acoustic diffusers and bass traps well placed .
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Hi mickdale,
- Allow me to point out, that Im not an educated expert in this field.
- In an earlier post IB pointed out, that an absorber has to show a smooth effect over the frequency range, you want it to work.
3.I have no doubt Rockwool insulation works at certain frequencies, but again it boils down to rate and level (?) , where you want it to work. - Check out Acosticfields.com on YouTube, where DF explains about Rockwool as acoustic absorption material.
- I found Hofa bass traps more efficient in the immediate corners behind the speakers, but do find GIK more aesthetically pleasing on the eye. I have now got 2, one in each corner behind my listening position, as my speakers are frontported at floorlevel.
- It is of course perfectly expected for everyone to make their minds up, whether a product works for them or not.
Hope this helps Peter
He is talking about the safety of mineral fibre, but promotes foam in his videos…
Rockwool type media absorption coefficient below:
Foam definitely doesn’t cut the mustard in comparison but works better at higher frequencies. Shame that it’s lower bass That really affects room
Really? How?
There’s not much airflow that close to the wall and certainly not 70% velocity.
(70% velocity is the minimum that caries at least 50% of the kinetic energy in a sound wave).
I did, it was a very simple low shelf filter to reduce 45hz -6db using Parametric EQ in Roon.
I believe both convolution and PEQ will have the same effect with regard to degradation of digital audio in Roon. The more complex the filter, the more degradation.
If you have a room correction filter impulse response and use it as convolution in Roon it will likely be a lot more complex than a simple low shelf filter and require a lot more processing power.
The graph shows the trap is most effective at around 160Hz. Between 40-50Hz the effect is minimal to say the least. In my room I measured virtually no difference between 40-50Hz with two in each corner behind the speakers.
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I can’t say I have found the filters made for me degrade the sound at all to my ears. When I had a go myself it was gash. But we are all different. You found your path to solve it, I will likely do the same when I can afford to.
@Thomas
Sadly returned from our holidays and finally sat down with a cuppa to watch the video you posted.
Broadly I found it very informative and thank you for bringing it to my, and others attention.
Can I also compliment you, and your partner, for your living/listening room and the attention to detail you have paid…very nice.
My interest in room treatment, after some 30yrs or so of purchasing hifi, only came last year after adding the ND555 to my system and after a very patient 6 months of allowing things to settle down considered it was under performing.
During those 30yrs we have moved house 3 times and my system has had many changes and not, until now, has the subject of room treatment interested me.I am not suggesting that my listening environments have never required it, just that I’d never considered it.
In all honesty, I probably should say I have,but mentally dismissed it.
My love of music, and by way of that my interest in hifi, started with my father being a brass bandsman. My brother and I from an early age learnt to play and became members of a competitive brassband attending many contests and playing in sometimes unusual venues.
When rehearsing a new piece I would often buy a recording of it.
However not being a principle player my attention was always to the inner parts of the piece I would want to listen, as best as my hifi would allow, to the ensemble parts.
The first band I played in regularly rehearsed in a village hall,but as competition day neared the conductor would like to rehearse in another much smaller room which allowed him to better hear the ensemble work.
On the day of the contest it might be a venue we had performed in before or it might be somewhere new,very often it was, with totally different acoustics.
From an early age I always liked the village hall, the sound echoed and had the excitement together with a big sound, but when it came to competition pieces it was down to business and the smaller room gave a better acoustic allowing better scrutiny of the ensemble playing.
On the day it was the performance that was being judged not the venues acoustic.
Those experiences probably played a part in me dismissing it, also back in the day I don’t recall hifi magazines devoting much space to it.
Did companies such as GIK Acoustics exist for the home market?
I think I understand both @Thomas and @frenchrooster point of view, and imho feel both are equally valid,after all, my journey is at best going to be a compromise.I want the best I can achieve of both and I feel that’s going to be a balancing act, though now I appreciate a little more of what I’m up against and what’s available to assist me tune my listening room to my taste.
One other instance that highlighted this to me was a YouTube video that had a person hitting a snare drum with various stages of room treatment, with the final stage being fully treated. Unfortunately I failed the test and preferred the slightly less dampened room, but might I add I played it to my partner and she did too.
At the weekend we travel to a concert at Vicar St. Dublin, room treatment will be the last thing on my mind🤔or maybe not now, just hope we’ve got seats in the sweet spot😉
Which opens up another aspect of the op’s thread.
Do we listen at home with different criteria other than just the emotional excitement and enjoyment of the live event?
Hopefully this topic will stay open, it’s a subject that shouldn’t be overlooked, especially from music lovers just starting out on their HiFi journeys.
Who knows how it would have played a part in my previous purchases?
Home room treatment companys still have some way to go before enthusiasts consider it as important as the mains supply or equipment racks.
I don’t visit many dealers these days but feel quite confident that it is more likely to find an accessory being a cable, mains block, or equipment rack rather than an absorber or diffuser.
Apologies to all for my ramblings and thanks again Thomas for raising the subject, hopefully the debate will continue in good harmony.
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The PEQ didn’t sound too bad, never tried convolution but some say it’s the way to go. At the back of my mind also was the thought I was no longer sending bit perfect data to my DAC.
btw One of my favourite albums in your avatar. Do you listen to the old Spacemen 3 stuff? I used to enjoy listening to this on an old tape recorder/radio
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One of my favourite albums is Playing with Fire, followed by Ladies & Gentlemen. I still remember seeing the video to revolution on Snub TV on BBC2. I bought the album based purely on a 5 star review in Sounds the music paper I loved back then. Had not heard them up to that point. I bought it and the put it on one of the hifi systems at the electrical retailer I was working for at the time. Blew me away, the rest of the shop and customers I don’t think felt the same way. :). Then got the back catalogue and followed both Sonic and Spaceman since.
Convolution in my opinion is fantastic. I was not prepared to how much it changed for the better. It takes a while to adjust as it can be a big change but you then start to notice things you have not heard before and my foot was tapping way more. It also becomes more transparent but without loosing my speakers voice. You can try it for free to. You only pay if you decide to go with it and he will tweak until your happy with it afterwards.
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If I still had my ATC SCM40 (great speakers, just too much bass for my room) I would have given the convolution a go in Roon. Don’t need anything on the Harbeth 30.1, they’re a good fit for room.
Isn’t it strange how music transports you back in time? Listening to Spacemen 3 takes me right back to our old council house in 1989/1990 when I was just 17 or 18. I remember walking to get the bus to go into town dressed like and thinking I was Sonic Boom.
Apologies to the op for the diversion.
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It sure does, it’s one of the draws for me. Key moments in my life are generally linked to music in some way. I’ve worn out my original vinyl of Playing with Fire had to get it on CD, it’s not the same at all. Try finding them digitally anywhere is also really hard.
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