$1,000 to spend on room treatment....

Hi, uppermidfi. Overdampening especially for $1000 should not be a concern. There's already most likely plenty of reflection and liveliness off the walls and ceiling. But the first point of reflection should always be the floor.

Any glass frames, lamps, wooden or glass tabletops, and leather furnishings only makes things worse.

I'm not advocating he carpet his walls or anything like that. Simply to remove or cover any potentially reflective furnishings and accessories in the front half of his listening room. Especially on the floor. And with a 7ft high ceiling it may be even more important to do so.

Several years ago, in a similar room size, I replaced some very nice leather furniture with a overly stuffed cloth furniture and was impressed with the audible improvements.

Perhaps the point I really want to get across is that for the 10 years industry insiders fed us the line that 80% of our systems' sonics are the result of room acoustics and we needed these room treatments.

And of course we all bought into that and there are still a few that cling to that myth verbally while many others cling to it in mind and spirit.

When in fact, I think the room's acoustics account for perhaps 20 to 30 percent at most and the speaker placement within the room far exceeds the benefits of addressing room acoustics and room treatments only.

My experience is rather limited, but about 3 years ago I had a reviewer/columnist out to my home evaluating my system. At the end of 3 hours I informed him that we were relocating to another part of the country, he said, "good luck trying to find a listening room like this one." And I agreed.

My new listening rooms' acoustics are horrific in comparison to the old room. And yet after several months of moving the speakers around, I was able to extract even greater sonics from this poor room that the previous room.

Essentially the only thing missing is a couple of the lowest Hertz in the 25-28 Hz range because of the taller ceilings. Everything else simply sounds better.

So while some members of the industry swung the pendelum so far toward the rooms' acoustics, I just want to say hey, maybe what they've been feeding us isn't quite so accurate.

And if that is true, it wouldn't be the first nor the last time industry insiders have done so.

And when I see how much people are spending on room treatments and on new rooms, it's rather surprising. Especially since it is often these very same people who've done nothing toward installing proper line conditioning and proper vibration control both of which in many case may offer far more improvement over the room's acoustics and treatments.

One thing you may notice is that these days there seems to be fewer and fewer people that cling to the "the room (and its acoustics) make up 80% of the sound of your system." claim anymore. That's a good sign.

Anyway, thanks for your comments.

-John

Aside from the 7 ft high ceiling, you have a near ideal room size.

Before spending money on 'room treatments' per se, I would suggest the following:

o That your floor is covered with a thick carpet pad and a thick berber or pile type of carpet.

o Remove any hard reflective surfaces from the room, ie leather furniture, glass tables, picture frames, table and floor standing lamps, etc..

o Consider using overstuffed cloth-covered furniture, ottoman, etc., recessed or small floor-based lighting, draperies, etc..

o And most important is the speaker placement within the room.

Only then would consider proper room treatments. But hopefully at that point your room would no longer be a concern.

-IMO

Beheme, you should not consider this the end but the beginning.

Personally, I'm a little slow at making adjustments in my own system as it took me 9 months to find the 'ideal' speaker location. I've not moved them in almost two years and I'm sure I still don't have the optimum placement.

It takes me a bit longer because my speakers are sitting on Star Sound's Audio Points and my speakers are about 145 lbs. each. And believe it or not, there is a very real and very audible difference every time I move my speakers as it literally take 6 to 8 days for the Audio Points to properly settle back in or break in all over again with their connection to the floor. So with these 3 things, I'm always hesitant to move my speakers or my racking system.

Again, you only have a 7 ft ceiling, hence the greater the opportunity to reflect off the floor, then to the ceiling.

I'd like to suggest the thickest carpet pad underneath the thickest rug/carpet.

Keep moving the speakers around a few inches every few days to find an even more optimal location.

I don't know what speakers you have, but if your open to placement suggestions, I'd like to recommend this as a starting point:

Locate the speakers 5 1/2 ft. from the wall behind them and
2 1/2 ft. from the side walls. (All measurements are from the front/dead center of the woofer driver).

This should give you about 8 ft between the left and right tweeters.

Move your chair so that your ears are no further than 9 1/2 ft from either tweeter. This will give you a slight nearfield listen which usually is ideal anyway.

Toe the speaker in toward the center so that the tweeter axis crosses right in front of your nose.

If your rug leaves bare floor exposed anywhere in the front half of the room, throw some big cushions on the floor in the corners behind the speakers, and throw some cushions, pillows, or comforters/blankets (throw not folded) on the other exposed bare floor spots in the front half of the listening area (from the chair to behind the speakers).

You might even loosely spread out some thicker blankets on the floor to assimulate a thicker pad/carpet between the speakers and listening chair triangle.

Uppermidfi may consider this overdampening and he'd be right. But I'm just trying to offer a suggestion to demonstrate what your room might sound like if you had thick wall-to-wall carpeting and carpet padding.

Who knows, if you try these things and post saying this experiment brought a dramatic improvement, maybe uppermidfi will buy one of my racking systems. :)

One clarification I should make regarding my previous post. When I stated that the room's acoustics and treatments only account for perhaps 20 - 30 at most for a system's sonics, I also made that statement with certain assumptions or givens. Thick carpet padding and wall-to-wall carpeting is one of those givens.

Hope this helps,

-IMO

Well, uppermidfi, I have a suggestion or two but Robert at Star Sound may not appreciate it. :)

Actually, Star Sound is an excellent company with true performance-oriented products. You may have noticed that I use their Audio Points everywhere on my racks. In fact, my racks are essentially designed around the Audio Points.

-IMO

Beheme, that's good news. I would suggest also focusing on the parimeter of the front half of room that is not covered by the thick rug. Decorative pillows can help.

Regarding the bump in the 200-250 Hz region and to further improve the sonics, I would suggest you continue experimenting every few days with speaker placement. Eventually you'll find the best location and/or you'll eventually give up realizing you can't improve much more with regard to speaker location and the speaker's interaction with the room.

Thanks for trying some of my suggestions and despite your room's issues I remain committed that the room's acoustics have far less influence on the sonics than most are willing to admit. But that commitment is obviously qualified with the assumption that a given room has certain basics already addressed such as wall-to-wall carpeting.

-IMO