Room Treatments Discussion

[4-earredwonder]

"I tried it, I don't know how, but it works!" isn't an explanation, and it sure ain't science.

By the same token, "I just spent mega bucks on my new system and they work charms! " isn't science either though it reveals a big honking explanation for the 'charms'.

Such 'assessment' is the very basis of selling snake oil. P.T. Barnum said something famous about it.

How might three wiggly strips of exotic hardwood -- generously referred to as 'activating panels' -- selectively target first reflections and 'generate complimentary reflective energy'? On its face it's an extraordinary claim. Surely this energy or its big effects are measurable?

The white paper is silent on the matter, offering no such evidence.

You and P T Barnum should get a ROOM together in the SNAKE PIT. Nuff Said.

 

[mrcond]

I appreciate all the responses - getting a bunch of different perspectives and experiences is exactly what I was hoping for. Even more important is that I have not heard anyone yet say "stay away from GIK products, they are crap" so that helps. I will say they have been very responsive and helpful with all my questions so far (yes, I understand they are trying to make the sale).

As I continue to research this topic, and as I am focused primarily on targeting the bass frequencies, I plan to go in the direction of bass traps and believe they will deliver measurable results that will positively impact the sound in my room. But I also recognize perfection is not attainable, just improvement in a manner of degrees. The recommendation from GIK is using 2 soffit bass traps (very thick at 17 inches with a range-limiter option so as not to mess with upper frequencies) in the back corners, a full-range monster bass trap panel behind each of my main tower speakers (each panel is 7+ inches thick), and 3 6-inch thick bass trap / diffuser / absorber panels for the back wall. I expect this will all help to tame the decay times on certain bass frequencies, thereby enabling a tighter, punchier sound that still goes deep.

My mids and upper frequencies are less of a problem, no issues with excessive decay times, everything seems crystal clear in those ranges and I am very very happy with the pinpoint imaging and detail my speakers are able to achieve. There are times when it sounds bright on certain material, so I would be ok if the high frequencies get knocked down a few decibels.

 

[mrcond]

In my 40+ year experience in this hobby, there is no other thing you can do for your listening space that will have as universally positive an effect as an effective room acoustic treatment strategy. My big rig has occupied the same dedicated, purpose built room for more than 25 years now. While the nature of the systems (originally stereo only vs an eventual evolution to both stereo and immersive/multi-channel music and cinema) contained therein has certainly evolved, a universal constant has been effective acoustic treatment.

View attachment 102666

Awesome room, I bet it sounds fantastic! It appears that virtually every square inch of wall and ceiling space has some sort of acoustic treatment. That is quite a journey.

 

[mrcond]

You have done everything perfectly. You will be significantly happy with GIK's suggestion.
I did what you did, cost $2998.00 and after taking 1 hour to hang on walls, I turned on rig and was the biggest OH WOW, then any piece of equipment or software prior.
I like my room just the way it is with a little of wood floor showing to create that more live sound.
I used there bass traps at front, absorbers at sides, and diffusers at rear.
I did all the stuff we are supposed to do, with mirror on wall, to find first point of reflection etc.
My side absorbers are larger and I chose there print offerings and did my color matching and Calif look.
GIK suggested a ceiling absorber, but I am afraid to get that as my 4 height speakers are flush mounted and I think the ceiling absorber will block the direct tweeter direction to my seat?
The picture I show is of my room, 12' wide, the TV wall, and length of room 14', picture makes room look real narrow, just the picture.

I think I started my room from scratch, about two years ago, it is documented somewhere here on QQ, I feel like it never ends as we strive for audio nirvana.
I am currently working with Mitch Barnett, creating filtersets that are added to my JRiver software, for 2.1, 5.1 and 4.0 zones, that are all analog outs. He will work with me at a later date for HDMI outs for ATMOS, a little more challenging. I got time, no need to rush.
My biggest thing for me personally to overcome is the tinnitus hearing, really scorching guitars and vocals bother my ears. All these tweeks help with the tinnitus.
One thing that is very cool I think is I can listen to music louder, because my ears aren't ringing off the charts. Historically, except my youth I am not a loud listener, I like the volume easy and mellow, but I know for sure now when pumping up the volume I can handle it better.
When I go to live concerts I wear earplugs.


Good luck I know you will be happy.

View attachment 102667

Beautiful setup, @marpow. My speakers are also B&Ws, probably a step down from yours (mine are CM10s) but I like them a lot and don't feel the need to upgrade. My room is a little larger than yours (about 13 feet wide by 22 feet long, with the speakers along the short wall and the main listening position (MLP) about 10 feet from the front wall). One sub in the front right corner, the other sub along the left wall about even with the MLP. The setup is not perfectly centered, shifted a bit to the right due to where the big TV needed to be. Here is a pic:

 

[MTB Vince]

Beautiful setup, @marpow. My speakers are also B&Ws, probably a step down from yours (mine are CM10s) but I like them a lot and don't feel the need to upgrade. My room is a little larger than yours (about 13 feet wide by 22 feet long, with the speakers along the short wall and the main listening position (MLP) about 10 feet from the front wall). One sub in the front right corner, the other sub along the left wall about even with the MLP. The setup is not perfectly centered, shifted a bit to the right due to where the big TV needed to be. Here is a pic:

View attachment 102829

What is above your dropped ceiling @mrcond? Depending on how large an airgap there is between the dropped ceiling and the floor above, filling that space with batts of pink fluffy fiberglass or mineral wool could provide significant bass trapping on the cheap.

 

[mkt]

I'm no expert but the frequency response looks pretty nice to me. There don't seem to be any egregious room-mode peaks or nulls that need fixing. Are the right and left measured together? How do they look separately? Is there EQ? (I'm just curious/nosy)

I have had good experiences with GIK. Does that 60 Hz match any of the simulated room frequencies? At one point I figured out that a 53 Hz resonance that I was seeing in the waterfall plot was an old refrigerator in the basement (the inverter?).

 

[mrcond]

What is above your dropped ceiling @mrcond? Depending on how large an airgap there is between the dropped ceiling and the floor above, filling that space with batts of pink fluffy fiberglass or mineral wool could provide significant bass trapping on the cheap.

In the ceiling I have standard batts of pink Owens-Corning fiberglass insulation (R-15 I think), covered by a layer of very heavy Mass-Loaded Vinyl attached to the joists with roofing nails. This was installed to provide additional soundproofing to keep sound from leaking upstairs to the main floor and it works extremely well on mid and high frequencies, but it doesn't stop bass vibrations from being heard upstairs. However, I do believe it is helping to keep the bass resonances in check within the room in some way, as you suggest.

 

[mrcond]

I'm no expert but the frequency response looks pretty nice to me. There don't seem to be any egregious room-mode peaks or nulls that need fixing. Are the right and left measured together? How do they look separately? Is there EQ? (I'm just curious/nosy)

I have had good experiences with GIK. Does that 60 Hz match any of the simulated room frequencies? At one point I figured out that a 53 Hz resonance that I was seeing in the waterfall plot was an old refrigerator in the basement (the inverter?).

Thanks. I am happy with the frequency response, I am really mostly focusing on taming the decay times at certain frequencies. These measurements shown above are all with right and left combined with the 2 subs. There is no EQ being applied. All tone controls are set to the flat positions. I believe my mains are run full range and my subs are set to roll off at 80 Hz. So there is some overlap between the mains and subs between about 40-80Hz or so. One sloping up and one sloping down.

The GIK guy believes the 60Hz anomoly is electrical ground interference between the test rig (the REW UMIK microphone) and the audio rig. It is not audible in normal use.

 

[barfle]

The first “listening room” I eas ever in belonged to an engineer at Altec-Lansing. He treated one wall by putting vertical 2x2 bats on the wall, filling the spaces between with fiberglass, and hanging panelling (a big thing in the early 1970s) on the bats with double-stick foam tape. That “floating” wall prevented a lot of resonances. I did a similar thing on the back wall of the first room I made. I did have a couple of side-wall resonances left, but certainly nothing I could find front-to-back with the tools I had at the time.

 

[IMachine]

At deep frequency issues, bass traps are the way to go. They have to be installed from floor to ceiling (no space). I installed them many years ago and made the biggest progress in sound quality.
I also have 60 % ceiling covered with 10 cm Basotect and some absorbers on walls.
I do also vocal recordings and mixing jobs, so everything is covered.

 

[mrcond]

The first “listening room” I eas ever in belonged to an engineer at Altec-Lansing. He treated one wall by putting vertical 2x2 bats on the wall, filling the spaces between with fiberglass, and hanging panelling (a big thing in the early 1970s) on the bats with double-stick foam tape. That “floating” wall prevented a lot of resonances. I did a similar thing on the back wall of the first room I made. I did have a couple of side-wall resonances left, but certainly nothing I could find front-to-back with the tools I had at the time.

Similar to that, I built my room as a “room within a room”, meaning that each of the walls has an air gap between it and the outside wall, with fiberglass insulation and mass-loaded vinyl throughout for soundproofing purposes. The Sheetrock is all QuietRock, which is sound deadening Sheetrock. I think all of this has helped in keeping resonances in check.

 

[barfle]

At deep frequency issues, bass traps are the way to go. They have to be installed from floor to ceiling (no space). I installed them many years ago and made the biggest progress in sound quality.
I also have 60 % ceiling covered with 10 cm Basotect and some absorbers on walls.
I do also vocal recordings and mixing jobs, so everything is covered.

Unfortunately, my room lets in a fair amount of sound from the outside because there are places where the sheetrock is only 6" from the roofing, and some of that has ventilation space. I can hear cars and airplanes and occasionally the neighbor's dog. It's never as bad as the HVAC noise I had in my basement room in our previous house, though. I dealt with that fairly well, although I do have a stuffy corner that I need to figure out better than just a fan.

 

[MidiMagic]

I swear by the 2 pairs of Shaki Holograms I just inserted into my new system. Even after having the room professionally EQed by a Meridian rep, I experimented with placement and wallah ...MUCH BETTER SOUND hands down!

https://6moons.com/audioreviews/shakti/hallograph.html

I purchased them at a great price when they were first introduced and Music Direct used to carry them but don't know if they're available anymore.

I also use ROOM TUNES in conjunction with the holograms.

https://www.shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

"Wallah????

The word is "voila". It is French and is pronounced "vwa-la"

Magicians use it a lot. It means "see it".

 

[mandrix]

I have zero room treatment save a cloth covering over some shelving high up on the wall. But the room is full, including a Queen bed. The bass response is great and blends in seamlessly. I give the room and Dirac Live credit for that. Only speaker sitting on the floor is the single sub, for whatever that's worth.

 

[timothyemerson]

Alas, I gots large glass areas and nada acoustic treatment, Peking Man-styles:



I'd like to one day build a dead room but it'd need to go in a new house.

 

[Strilo]

I would like to do some sound treatments in my home theater area. It's a loft so it's an odd set of surfaces. The back has a pony wall in front of the stairwell downstairs, plus the back wall behind that. That's actually where my rear surrounds will go when I get them. The left wall is normal, as is the front left corner, where the sub is. The right side of the room is the upstairs hallway, so there's not really any right corners, front or back.

I'd definitely like to do corner bass trap in the left corner, behind the sub and left speaker. I cannot do a huge 24 inch wide thing, it would need to be much smaller in scale. We are talking about some sort of wood panel treatment behind the TV and console, which might absorb a bit, but we also want to maybe do some sound panels on the back back wall where the rear surrounds would be. I'm also thinking those top trim corner bass traps in the 3 tri corners we have in the space.

Any idea how I would go about doing a smaller scale bass trap for the corner? I am thinking like floor to ceiling (8ft), but maybe like 10 inches across, at the most. Would smaller like 6-10 inches make an impact?

 

[jimfisheye]

Bass traps were/are required for my main room. I wouldn't be able to dial the system in for listening, let alone mixing otherwise. You can't very well hear your expensive speaker performance if you have low mid and bass frequencies caterwauling around the room! Making standing waves and all sorts of crap.

Just a little bit of sanity goes a long way! A foam cushion couch is a poor man's bass trap of sorts. Then a few load bearing wall hangings. Put away the graphs and meters and just make it make sense. And being free of 'correction' processing is absolutely the ultimate goal if possible! Run some frequency sweeps and fuss around a little.

I built new bass traps when I went from 5.1 to 7.1.4. 9' tall floor to ceiling now in the front corners. (Room has angles in the rear.) Owens Corning 703. Triangle corner pieces 2' across the front and 1' deep in the middle. Burlap covering.

Aside, does anyone else think it's hilarious that a soundbar would literally be shut down in a well treated room? (Can't ricochet those surround channels off the walls and ceiling if they're treated!)

Yeah, avoid the 'snake oil' products with the big price tags that are more decorative than anything else and could make things even worse as mentioned! Owens Corning 703 and burlap, man. Just under $200 for my two 9 footers.

 

[MTB Vince]

I would like to do some sound treatments in my home theater area. It's a loft so it's an odd set of surfaces. The back has a pony wall in front of the stairwell downstairs, plus the back wall behind that. That's actually where my rear surrounds will go when I get them. The left wall is normal, as is the front left corner, where the sub is. The right side of the room is the upstairs hallway, so there's not really any right corners, front or back.

I'd definitely like to do corner bass trap in the left corner, behind the sub and left speaker. I cannot do a huge 24 inch wide thing, it would need to be much smaller in scale. We are talking about some sort of wood panel treatment behind the TV and console, which might absorb a bit, but we also want to maybe do some sound panels on the back back wall where the rear surrounds would be. I'm also thinking those top trim corner bass traps in the 3 tri corners we have in the space.

Any idea how I would go about doing a smaller scale bass trap for the corner? I am thinking like floor to ceiling (8ft), but maybe like 10 inches across, at the most. Would smaller like 6-10 inches make an impact?

Hey @Strilo. ,

Could you please provide some pics of your room so we can better visualize what you are dealing with and how the system is oriented vs the room surfaces? That would make it easier to provide you with some useful advice.

 

[mrcond]

My assortment of acoustic treatment panels from GIK Acoustics has finally arrived and I hope to install them over the weekend. I’ll share before and after measurements when I get a chance.