Well I have today added to an order for some Fraim bits and pieces and SL DIN/XLR. To be fair I have slowed the process down because of developing thoughts on the move to brawn/brains arrangement.
My thinking being that I don’t want an iterative development of the Fraim arrangement, as a rebuild is a royal PITA. So I am going for the best brawn/brains stacks that gives air around each black box.
Sounds a great plan……it will transform your listening experience👍
Actually it might make it better as the bass is allot more controlled and tighter…this is what I have found with source improvements…
Good point.
Yes apparently counterintuitive however every room is unique. Naturally you will install the 500 and see what happens and adjust accordingly.
Did you actually measure the room mode with something like REW or was it simply by listening?
Not measured, just plugged the room dimensions into a model, but I can hear it on certain tracks.
I was really pleased how easy the umik-1 and REW are to use. Well worth it, if only to give you something absolute to compare changes in speaker position to and room adjustments as you make them. There’s the mark one ear too obviously, but seeing actual measurements was really interesting and gives context to your own impressions, or vice versa
Yeah I bought a UMIK-1…I will measure my room again…soon
I have just bought a umik-1 and am looking forward to a play. I want to get a better measure of a potentially troublesome room mode before (and after) my 500DR arrives.
I assume most folk use the umik-1 with the (free) REW software?
Great idea. I was thinking of doing the same. Will be very interested in your findings. I have held off because I’m not very “ computer savvy “ and also heard interpretation of results may be challenging.
I am not great with computers either, but reading the set up instructions and judging by others’ experiences on here it sounds relatively painless. I also read there are some guidelines on the miniDSP/REW websites for interpreting the measurement graphs produced, and how to address issues identified.
Sounds like fun.
I managed to get it to work…thanks to youtube…and Roon forum.
I second that, a review by some of the savvy contributors would be great. These active bass traps are very interesting.
They are very very expensive…
Just an observation - on another thread the limitations of measurements on sound has been discussed with some strongly held variations of opinion. There doesn’t seem to be the same strength of conviction about measurement when it comes to room acoustics…
Hi Peter,
PSI’s (another Swiss brand 
) products are really interesting, both the speakers and the active bass traps.
The AVAA C20 might be the ultimate solution for small to medium rooms like ours.
The sad truth is that below 100Hz there is very little we can do with broadband traps like the ones we use. Even the 4 membrane based traps I have aren’t efficient. To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed with GIK’s membrane-based traps.
The next iteration of my listening room will be quite something. As you may have noticed, my listening spot is located in a 38 m2 open plane.
I’m planning to cut it in two. The wall itself won’t really be a wall. It’ll be a stack of porous bass traps. The whole listening area will be surrounded with bass traps, floor to ceiling. It’ll be a huge amount of absorbing material. All that absorbing material (OC 703 or Rockwool) will be fitted in a frame. It’ll be ~30 cm deep, and it’ll absorb a lot!
Unfortunately, I’m well aware that even such an enormous amount of absorbing material won’t do much for frequencies under ~80-90Hz.
For frequencies under 100Hz I’ll probably use Artvonion products. I’ll ask them to custom make a few diaphragmatic bass traps capable of hitting frequencies around ~30 Hz, and therefore all their harmonics.
The Artvonion Eiger Sub Trap Corner are eye-watering expensive (1300 euros each), and I’ll probably need 6 to achieve what I want. So the PSI AVAA C20 might also be an option, not that expensive compared to the Artvonion alternatives.
The room will have a very short RT60, meaning it’ll be on the “dead” side. But I like it that way and, surprisingly, so does my wife. I’m used to having very few room reflections above 250 Hz. It provides a very clean and detailed stereo image (if the record has it) and doesn’t generate listening fatigue.
When I was in Zurich for the Soulution electronics, I found my dealer’s showroom to be rather tiring. It’s a huge showroom, but it has no treatment at all. Surprisingly I could actually “hear” the distortion due to the flat concrete ceiling. (If you google for SoundLoft Zürich, you’ll find the website and a few pictures).
I suppose that I got used to “reflections free” upper-mids and highs; for me, there is no way back, just like adding a second 555PS to the ND555.
Now you understand why I’m not willing to spend 30k on a rack 
It simply doesn’t make sense, for the moment. In the meantime, I’ll dedicate the cash to a new listening room (with the flattest possible frequency response).
But first things first, the electronics 
They are very expensive but the panels used by the other contributors are not cheap, require fitting and not all of us will be allowed that kind of things in the house. What seems interesting too is that if you move your kit, you can simply move the active bass trap, moving a set of panels can be a big job and might require different panels.
Yeah valid points…
I also am very interested in them. I have read a review of one electronic trap, I don’t recall which one (there are at least a couple out there), which solidified my impression they are good.
Hi Thomas, having read your post with great interest, it strikes me that the AVAA being produced in Switzerland, surely you’d be able to try a couple maybe through your dealer??
Good luck with your Soulution venture and out of curiosity, how are you finding that brand’s bass delivery compared to Naim? Best Peter