Acoustic treatment question: do you agree with Dennis Foley that $46k to $65k is required?
In a video from 1/29/2021 (yesterday) Dennis Foley, Acoustic Fields warns people about acoustic treatment budgets. He asserts in this video that treatment will likely require (summing up the transcript):
Low end treatment: $5-10k
Middle-high frequency: $1-1.5k
Diffusion: Walls $10-15k, Ceiling: $30, 40, 50k
https://youtu.be/6YnBn1maTTM?t=160
Ostensibly, this is done in the spirit of educating people who think they can do treatment for less than this.
People here have warned about some of his advice. Is this more troubling information or is he on target?
For those here who have treated their rooms to their own satisfaction, what do you think of his numbers?
| Post removed |
One can only imagine what mahgister could do with $65k worth of embeddings. Who knows, that might be enough to make even him give up and upgrade a component or two?Knowing what i had learned , which is little that all there is to know for sure in acoustic, but learning what i had leaned i will never use 65k bucks for embeddings controls... For upgrade ,believe it or not, i could do it in few years, my wife will approve, why not? My system is by far not the "best" there is...Then why not upgrade? But my ratio S.Q. /price is so owerwhelming, i am AFRAID to buy anything, even if they are a better piece of gear ... Like i said to really upgrade will cost me 15 k bucks....Not less.... You may ask why not upgrading then ? Because when you had a MINIMAL very good acoustic audiophile experience already, you dont feel the urge to buy NEW product for the sake of a NEW sound... My sound is NATURAL to my ears it is enough.... Are you able to hear and listen to the 3-d micro- dynamic envelope of each piano note like if each note was a real 3-d object living in space in the middle of your room with his own color and physionomy? are you able to "see" this note? I can.... Upgrade to what? More fatiguing details? For what? I listen music, i dont investigate studio recording with a sonic microscope and dont want to do so.... And reviewing different gear has no appeal to me... I think if you give me 15 k bucks to upgrade i will cheat your gift purpose and buy a motorcycle for my old age.... 😊 When young the money i had put beside my pillow to buy a motorcycle was finally used for my stereo system and for books... I never own alas! a motorcycle... Books and music are way more important for me....Now more than ever.... But now my system is enough to my satisfaction, trust me, i will then betray your gift of money to buy secretly a motorcycle instead of upgrading.... Audiophile experience is embeddings controls implementation not upgrade of gear.... But you already know that....... For the cost it may vary, for me it was peanuts... Acoustic science dont mind about the price, a piece of junk can be used.....Only matter his acoustic properties.... |
At an audio show, a manufacturer, I believe it was GIK, had a very impressive demonstration of room treatment. They booked two identical hotel rooms, and treated one room with their products, and had the other room untreated. They set up identical systems in the two rooms. One could listen to something in one room then hear the same selection in the other room. The treated room was NOT stuffed with treatment panels like I've seen in some audiophile system, so the room looked like something someone could realistically install in a home. I liked what I heard, but of course, it was not just the products but also the expertise of the people doing the setup, that made the difference. |
It’s required for Dennis Foley, obviously - sure ain’t required for ME! I don’t go nuts with this kind of stuff....I dont know for the price, i make it myself at low cost, but Dennis Foley is damn right about the HUGE improvement acoustic give that no UPGRADE will ever replace.... You cannot say i need NEW speakers but not so much acoustic treatment and controls... Most of the times we need acoustic work more than new speakers.... Save if they are bad, very bad one or not the right one for the room... If you dont go "nuts" for acoustic you will never listen to what your audio system can do.... |
The point of this is not that this or that treatment works, but that it is nearly impossible to make any sort of generalized recommendation--proper treatment involves careful listening and application of products or practices after trying them out.Very wisely said.... Thanks... All industrial recipe may improve a room, but optimizing a room is not and never a result of a general recipe...I speal here of an usual and normal room use for music.... Anybody with money can redesign the acrchiecture of a room ONLY for music.... The cost then will be very high and possibly higher than the audio system itself.... My advices are for "poor" auddiophiles, about normal room used for music and treated and acoustically controlled at LOW COST.... It is possible.... No room has the same proportion, geometry, and topology and the same acoustic content ...These 4 factors make it impossible, especially if i add a fifith one, the specific speakers demands, to mechanize the acoustic work... EARS is the tool and the main one here.... No general recipe so costly it is will succeed in optimization, only a variable improvement at best.... We must use in a dedicated room not only passive material treatment, but also active mechanical Helmholtz controls to do so .... The room must be treated for the sound circulation waves, but also especially controlled for some specific demand and specific lack from the speakers specific "colored" band emmission.... I use a grid of Helmholtz resonators and diffusers precisely located to "sculp" the room pressure zones FOR the speakers sonic physionomy TO MY SPECIFIC EARS... |
I am certainly not suggesting that treatment is important and helpful. I am merely cautioning against the "more the merrier" approach or any kind of formulaic approach to treatment. It is really a quite painstaking procedure that is quite hard to do because of the natural bias (hopefulness) toward thinking that any given addition is improving matters. I don't know of any really good procedure except careful trial and error. A friend added some modest treatment to a small listening room (corner traps and diffusers, and absorption at the first reflection point). An industry expert that has heard thousands of different rooms around the country is a friend of his that came over to help out with the room. We were told to close our eyes while the expert performed some alterations which we then commented upon. To our surprise, the sound improved when the first reflection point absorbers were removed. I had thought that this was a basic thing that almost always helps, but, he said that while it usually helps, this is not always the case. The next surprise was when he leaned against the side wall to damp some resonance--again that turned out to hurt the sound (certainly not my expectation). The best thing for improving the sound turned out to be opening a closet door at the back of the room which acted as a sort of bass trap. The point of this is not that this or that treatment works, but that it is nearly impossible to make any sort of generalized recommendation--proper treatment involves careful listening and application of products or practices after trying them out. |
It is a matter of doing things right. I know of a system where the dealer removed much more than $50k in treatments from a client’s room to get it to sound right (there was a whole room on the side that stored the massive quantity of tube traps, etc). I heard a dealer room that had been specially designed and treated by "experts" that sounded terrible (this was during the live-end, dead-end era of treatment). Among the better rooms I’ve been in have been rooms with very minimal treatment (mostly decorative wall hangings, book cases, etc). In sum, among serious setups, I’ve heard more rooms that sounded dead from overtreatment than I’ve heard rooms that were undertreated.The first part of your post make perfect sense... Because anybody who treat a room must use his EARS, be him an acoustician or not, to know when to stop and to know what material device to put and where to put it... Any room must be tuned by our ears or the acoustician ears, not with only an equation, or an electronical equalizer.... The human EARS ca perceive GLOBALLY whow the room sound....Nothing else can.....Id the acoustician dont use his ears correctly it is too bad.... 😁😊 And yes it is important to put speakers at the right spot in the room and very precisely so... BUT it will never replace by itself the almost always necessary passive treatment, the right balance between diffision/absorbtion/ and reflection... Especially in an acoustically complex content , geometrically, and topologically in a complex small irregular or small square room... Most people also ignored the necessity for an optimalization of the relation between the room and the specific speakers with an active mechanical acousticl control by Helmotz method...With it you can create various different new pressure zones in the room and greatly modify the way the sounds is perceived at will.... By far it is MUCH more important to get the placement of the speakers right. This is actually much trickier that most people think, and one can experiment for a really long time before the right placement of speaker, listening chair and furnishings is accomplished. But, when it is finally achieved, the results are usually better than one gets by stuffing the room with absorbing panels, diffusers, etc. |
@larryi you are correct. Start with an untreated room and set up the speakers properly. I have used several different methods, but the one that has worked best for me is the Wilson Audio set up guide using your actual voice to determine the preferred location of your speakers. The mathematical guides are ok for a starting point but they don’t consider the other variables such as existing furnishings in a room. Add room treatments slowly such as bass traps and first reflection point absorption. It’s easy to overdue the room and I prefer diffusion myself. |
It is a matter of doing things right. I know of a system where the dealer removed much more than $50k in treatments from a client's room to get it to sound right (there was a whole room on the side that stored the massive quantity of tube traps, etc). I heard a dealer room that had been specially designed and treated by "experts" that sounded terrible (this was during the live-end, dead-end era of treatment). Among the better rooms I've been in have been rooms with very minimal treatment (mostly decorative wall hangings, book cases, etc). In sum, among serious setups, I've heard more rooms that sounded dead from overtreatment than I've heard rooms that were undertreated. By far, it is MUCH more important to get the placement of the speakers right. This is actually much trickier that most people think, and one can experiment for a really long time before the right placement of speaker, listening chair and furnishings is accomplished. But, when it is finally achieved, the results are usually better than one gets by stuffing the room with absorbing panels, diffusers, etc. |
But it is not necessary to invest money at all to reap the benefits of acoustic science at least some % of this science improving laws and put them at work with homemade materials and devices using your own ears for sure.... I think this is exactly right, and given what I have made myself and have gotten used or via GIK, I think Foley is really bilking people. |
Do you really think people are going to spend that kind of money on room treatments when they balk at spending 10K on a whole system?:) Some people really do spend this amount of money.... Why? Essentially if you own the best amplifier already, the best speakers, the best turntable and Dac that money can afford, you already know something about the POWER of acoustic science, if not you had enougth money to be ready to discover it..... But when you know how to do it, or learn how to do it, to some "relative extent" like i learned without being in no way an acoustician, you know how POWERFUL acoustic is.... Then if your are rich, you are ready to pay for something which is no less quality improvement than your high quality costly gear.... That is my experience... But it is not necessary to invest money at all to reap the benefits of acoustic science at least some % of this science improving laws and put them at work with homemade materials and devices using your own ears for sure.... |
| Post removed |
| Post removed |
I just installed some 5 ACDA 10 and 8 ACDA 12 modules in my small room, about 2000 cubic ft. They were all custom made. Had to wait 9 months with all the shutdowns in California, but they did arrive. The low end, below 100hz, is dramatically controlled now with minimal room boom. I do not have room readings, all I have is my ears. I have been a sound guy for large churches for 20 years. I had a ENT tell me I have "bat ears." I hear higher and lower than most humans. The mids and highs are clear and dynamic now in my room. Room is not dead or over absorbed. I have GIK Acoustic 244 of different sizes to control the 100hz+ frequencies. Total acoustic treatment cost $7,500, and in my mind worth every penny. Room is 50/50 HT 7.2.4 Dolby Atmos and stereo music. On a side note my wife of 22 years calls the room "The Mistress." |
I wouldn't waste five minutes on Foley's follies. Period. Just move on from him. Just establish your budget, use REW and a good USB mic, begin with very low and low frequency mitigation, then first reflection treatments, starting with side walls and rear wall. Determine which products you can afford to purchase or that you can DIY, based on proven design effectiveness. Finally, determine what compromises you will have to make in terms of budget - what you can live with or be satisfied with. |
Lemonhaze. I measured the room response with a small omnimic and cell phone. I was fortunate enough to build, change, add, subtract, listening and listening again as I worked through the build process. This gave me the ability to hear what worked and what didn’t. My ears guided me. (I’m now diving deep into room measurement tools/ software.) and yes it measures great down to 30hz. A small room needs about 800-900lbs of activated carbon to provide meaningful results. I paid $165 per 50lb bag of coconut shell activated carbon. Just as a reference. I agree that not everyone will spend the amount of time building out their own room, as I did. From a few acoustic panels to a world class music room, the important thing is we enjoy our time relaxing and listening to great music. Every room is different and will likely require a unique solution. |
Did a little search on "fake plants." Some really funny replies and results, but not much in the way of confirmation they can help much. https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/fake-plants-behind-speakers-a-good-idea |
@
shalommorgan, Very impressive, looks smart and purposeful. Did you measure the room performance as you were adding treatment? @ pureaudio, wow, I am appalled at the good money you spent and without the reward. I sympathise. Re: Denis Fooley, what can I say? @ hilde45, I did offer a gentle warning about the above gentleman. It is really not necessary to pay that much to transform your room's performance. DIY goes a long way in keeping costs down. My 2 bass traps cost me about $220 Just these 2 made a huge difference but measurement shows that I need at least 1 more. @bpoletti. your dust collecting ficus trees unfortunately can not in any way address low frequency problems. Fact: Lambda = velocity divided by frequency, so a 40Hz wave is 343/40 = 8.58m, over 28ft. long. At 20Hz it is double that length! In the photo below is the start of a bass trap, built from cheap construction timber, plywood and rockwool, the closest equivalent to OC703 I could find. https://imgur.com/Lwx8NTR |
For those contemplating building their own, here is the source for the activated carbon: Carbon Activated Corporation 2250 S. Central Avenue, Compton, CA 90220 Tel: 310-885-4555 x229 l Mobile: 1-424-379-6709 Use the pelletized carbon - 1.5 mm pellet |
Bull schlockey. He's selling treatments at unnecessarily high expense. If there is a need for room treatment (pretty much EVERY room).... Get a bunch of 5-foot artificial ficus trees. ~ $40 each from At Home (home furnishing store). Fabulous diffusers. Carefully spread the leaves and bend the branches so that they roughly parallel to the floor or maybe pointed up a little - like a REAL tree. Place about 2/3 of them behind the speakers, slightly out from the wall behind the speakers and between the speakers. Use two, one on each side, to take care of mid- and high-frequency wall bounce. Put a few along but not against the back wall. For less than $600, the room is full of attractive diffusers. And they won't drop their leaves in the autumn. I'm using abut 15 5-foot artificial ficus trees.in my listening room with quite excellent results. Others have reported similar results. |
Brownsfan1, Yes it is possible to purchase the carbon and possibly the plans from Dennis, but not sure if he still sells his build plans. I carefully combed through each one of his videos trying to reverse engineer everything he designed. I've figured out how to build every product he sells, putting my own design into some of them. As far as buying the carbon, I buy coconut activated carbon from another online distributor. Here is the thing, activated carbon is an wonder product. For 500hz and down, it can dramatically improve your listen experience. |
@schlammorgan What an incredible room and you must be quite handy. Great job. I do not have those skills and I'm also not aiming for these Olympian peaks, so I suppose there are various tiers of accomplishment at which Foley's products and labor are more or less appropriate. My OP was really thinking about how his video was pitched at the kind of room some others have accomplished for much less, not a room like yours. |
I thought I would jump in on this conversation about Acoustic Fields product cost. I spent the last four years converting my dinning room into an exceptional world class dedicated listening room. I started my journey watching and reading as much of Dennis' online material as I could. I purchased 14 bags of his activated carbon and got started. I ended up building in my garage just about every product he sells. I went as far as to building my own in-wall/ front and rear wall diaphragmatic activated carbon bass absorption, Early on Dennis coached me through some of the design work, but I ended up having to figure it out for myself; I couldn't afford his products or consultation. It takes a lot of time and material costs to build his products, especially if using nice wood trim. I've experimented with many acoustic products from the GIK and others. I can say without a doubt, Acoustic Field's low frequency absorption is hands down, the best! Worth the cost. For mid and high frequency absorption, there are many inexpensive products out there that do a great job. Again, the cost of building heavy carbon panels, ACDA absorbers as well as Acoustic Field's QRD wood diffusers can run anywhere between $300 - $1500 just in material, not including labor and other business costs. I don't necessarily agree with all advice provided by Acoustic Fields, but there is a lot of good stuff to be learned from Dennis. I estimate I've spent close to $17k on converting and building out my dinning room. If I had paid Acoustic Fields to design and build my room, it could have easily cost $45 -$60k. The only way I was able to accomplish this was do it myself. I get it, it's tough to spend big money on acoustic treatment, but sometimes, it may require taking a big step to get the room sounding as good as it possibly can. My room is very small 15x13x9, but it sounds amazing down to 30Hz. See my Agon virtual system https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8747 |
audition_audio makes a great point here. If you are talking 100K, you could build a pretty good room with optimal materials and dimensions. That said, I'm not as sold on the non parallel surfaces concept as I used to be. Non parallel surfaces will not eliminate modes, it will make the modes less predictable. The existing models (that I know of) won't work on non parallel surfaces, which makes the room an expensive experiment. I'd take a room that is roughly 23 x 16 x11 on a concrete slab with medium weight carpeting and go from there. Use of a distributed bass array and judicious use of the right kind of treatments in the right locations and you would have a really good room pretty quickly. |
The question is what would you pay if you made as many of these treatments yourself as is possible. Without question most enthusiasts dont spend what they should on their room. For this amount of money I would take my room down to studs and rebuild from this point on with double dry wall, nonparallel surfaces, etc. What is critical is that you do YOUR homework and not listen to a single expert especially one that sells treatments. |
One of the things I like to think about is that room acoustics spend doesn't necessarily scale like other parts of gear. $6k of room treatment in a modest, average living room is really nice. That may be all you can spend due to room aesthetic considerations. Once you have that, you can scale up your electronics and speakers as much as you want to, your room acoustic treatments will remain. |
The problem with cost analysis comparisons from the various vendors is that the absolute cost is not very meaningful, within reason. What one needs to focus on is the cost effectiveness of the various products. That is not a simple matter of Sabins/dollar. The traps don't sound the same. I have a variety of products in my room. I've got RealTraps Mondo traps, GIK soffit traps, Mega traps, 6 alphas, Tritraps, and a variety of the GIK 242 and 244 type traps. Most of these traps are range limited in order to address LF ringing. I get the best sound with my RealTraps (limp membrane type) mounted on the front walls, soffit traps in the front corners, Real Traps Mondo in the right rear corner, a GiK Tritrap in the left rear corner, and GIK 6 alphas on the rear wall. The LF traps are not interchangeable in terms of sound. I am a die hard advocate of using REW to make room treatment decisions, but I can't tease a rationale out of the measurement data to explain why a given low frequency trap sounds better than another in a given location. I made the decision to defer permanent installation of traps until I was finished. So I can still switch out locations on most of my traps even now. Most of us are not inclined to run A/B comparisons of different trap types in our own rooms. The only reason why I did this is because I added my traps in 3 different phases and ended up with a bunch of different stuff. Let me be clear- There is a reason why I haven't bought any of Foley's products, and it is not because of their cost in absolute terms. I don't know how much carbon are in his traps, but the activated carbon he uses runs from about $80-$200 per kilogram. His traps aren't going to be nearly as easy to build as a GIK Monster trap. I might suggest the price of his traps is reasonable based on what I think it would take to make them. The key question is "Are they competitive on a cost/perfomance basis. He doesn't make that argument, but rather makes an argument that you will die instantly from beta particles shooting out of the fiberglass. Sorry, I ain't buying that snake oil. I think the best approach for someone starting fresh in an untreated room is to take a somewhat theoretical approach. Limp membrane traps have an inherent advantage for use in high pressure zones such as front walls and corners. RealTraps, in my estimation, is the best source of limp membrane traps. Backwalls, depending upon distance from the listening position, can benefit from a mixture of traditional absorption and diffusion. I think this is why I had such good luck with GIK 6 alphas in that position. I think that what works best for sidewall first reflection points is heavily dependent on the width of the room. I would be reluctant to generalize on that. I prefer to leave side walls forward of the first reflection points untreated, and use traditional fiberglass absorption behind the first reflection points. I didn't have a clue what I was doing when I started. Somehow, by a mixture of hard work, aptitude for physical sciences, and dumb blind luck I took a room that was miserable and transformed it to one that was quite good. I've got about 7K in the project including a Swarm sub system but not counting replacing my flooring at a cost of 3.5 K, which in my room, was absolutely necessary. Spending 10K in anything like a normal room should be more than enough. The hard part is learning enough so you can be smart about what you do. |
Even among the more common vendors, there's a pretty big disparity in cost. About double what the next one down charges I think. I haven't looked in a long time, but if memory serves:
Of them, after hearing a hotel room full of ASC products I cannot recommend them at all. GIK is more affordable and has some really effective products for bass mode controls. ASC is also very nice and quite affordable. |
