How do you know what room treatments to use?
This is one of those things where once you’ve done it, seen and heard, its easy - but until then it takes forever to explain. Owens Corning 703 acoustic panel is sold in a lot of hardware stores. A couple of the 1" thick sheets 2x3ft will be dirt cheap. This is almost exactly whats inside expensive GIK, they wrap in nice fabric with a frame and add a couple zeroes to the price. Try the raw sheets in different locations in your room. Side walls at first reflection and ceiling corners are great places to try. With full sheets the effect will be obvious, and probably too much, which is why you experiment. Its very light weight, can be held temporarily with pins, just great stuff. Your experiments with the raw sheets might look something like this. https://www.theanalogdept.com/c_miller.htm Then when you figure it out you can cut them the size you want and cover with fabric and be done. It might look something like this. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 Or you might find your problem is something else. Or you might decide to go with GIK. Either way you will learn a lot and have a whole lot better idea what is going on than to just buy GIK on pure faith. You should also strongly consider Synergistic Research HFT. These go way beyond any conventional panel type treatments and will get you 3D clarity no amount of acoustic panels can touch. |
Mike, I think most of the companies that sell room treatments will tell you that accurate diagnostics of acoustical problems is highly dependent upon measurement. In the absence of measurement, about all they can do is sell you a treatment package and make suggestions about placement. Sometimes that is enough to fix the issue. How lucky do you feel? Downloading the free REW software and learning to use it, if you haven't already done so, will greatly facilitate getting your room problems mitigated. There is a learning curve, but not one that is insurmountable. Each situation is somewhat different. Do you perceive the problems to be more high frequency issues or low frequency? High frequency problems are usually not hard to fix. Slap echo is common in rooms that have uncarpeted floors and plaster or drywall ceilings, and the lower the ceiling, the worse the problem. Adding area rugs can be an attractive solution or at least partial mitigation for that problem. Also, parallel side walls that are untreated can be offenders. There are companies including GIK that offer artwork backed by fiberglass absorption. Again, this can be an attractive solution for slap echo. Slap echo and/or a frequency response that is elevated in the high frequencies can make you want to turn the music down in a hurry. In my own room, I'm still working on the high frequency problems. Things sound pretty decent until average dB levels get up above 83 or so, then I start wanting to turn things down for a more relaxed and natural sound. My room isn't carpeted, I have 8' drywall ceilings, and I have relatively little absorbent furniture. I also have a lot of low frequency absorption intended to mitigate some pretty serious low frequency ringing. By the time I got the low frequencies straightened out, my overall frequency response was tilted up in the high frequencies. Another important question-- How much latitude do you have in placement of speakers and main listening position? Those are the most important levers you have for dealing with low frequency problems. You can do far more with placement modifications than you will ever accomplish with treatment. Low frequency issues are hard to treat. This is especially true if you are not in a dedicated audio room. Low frequency absorbers aren't, to my knowledge, available in designs that look at home in a typical living room. I chose to go with DSP in my living room in order to ensure domestic tranquility. But personally, I wouldn't want to introduce DSP into a high end system. |
mglik, you can not tell without measuring. Some of us from experience can get a decent idea by listening but still measuring is the best. Now, since you are planning on getting a new preamp you might look at three units. DEQX, Anthem STR and Trinnov Amethyst. All three measure the environment one speaker at a time and will show you response curves. All three will calculate filters to make your frequency response flat then you can superimpose any equalization you like. All three have digital bass management so you can add subwoofers any time you want and integrate then in the best way possible. All three have four channels of very high quality DAC so you do not need an out board DAC. The Trinnov has a phono amp built in. You will still need some room treatment but much less and you won't be guessing. Nobody will be trying to sell you as much stuff as they can shove into your room and you will wind up with much better sound, imaging and bass. I personally like the Trinnov best but it is by far the most expensive. It is a toss up between the DEQX and the Anthem unit. If you are a plug and play guy and do not want to put any effort into this initially these three are not for you. If you love playing with your system these are a lot of fun and way more effective than any other tweak you can buy. You won't need any:) If you decide to go this way and need assistance feel free to ask. |
My converted bedroom (10x9x8) sounded like cr*p. It was just awful. I called GIK and sent them pictures of my room. They made several suggestions which I incorporated into the room. It was transformative. My room, despite its dimensions, now sounds very, very good thanks to GIK. I recommend them highly, not only for their good advice, but for their excellent quality and affordable products. |
My room treatment with passive materials is homemade and not ideal but work well... I use only my ears to create it...(total cost under 50 bucks) But my active device controls of the room acoustics, is totally astounding and cost little more but anyway peanuts.... In acoustic there is 2 complementary ways: the room treatment with passive materials, and the active controls with resonators and schumann generators grid all connected....(S.G. for 10 bucks and i own 10 in my grid). You can use a computer to calculate the best nodes in the room where to put the materials, but you must use your ears to synchronise the active controls device grid.... It is easy tough.... Except for some totally acoustically engineered room (very costly), active device controls of the room is the way to go for most of us.... Nobody will believe that but i say it anyway and if you want to know read my thread.... No one it seems know about this and nobody use these active device controls that free the sound from the room obstructive topology or furnitures and erase the speakers from the sound projected 3-d presence..... My last control device cost me 15 dollars and it is the more powerful....If i say what it is, some will call me nuts.... Then if someone is curious it is in my last posts.. All aspect of sound are modified by active controls : dynamic, imaging, soundstage tonal accuracy, higher frequencies extension, bass extension etc.... Ok my duty is done.... A last word, the acoustical embedding of an audio system is more powerful for S. Q. than most upgrades, speakers included, and it is the more powerful of the 3 embeddings controls.... Nobody can listen to his speakers, we listen the room, because our ears are in the room not in the speakers enclosure and the sound waves we listen to is a complex integration of the direct waves and the reflected one .... The active device control work on this complex wave by resonance modification and amplification of the direct wave and synchronization between the direct and reflected one... This is my explanation and not science.... I know little but i am creative and i know how to listen....Anyway my results are amazing and cost peanuts.... Someone not knowing that about acoustic dont know really his own audio system .... i know mine..... :) |
I started with GIK full range absorbers at my first reflection points and that helped tremendously. I then added quadratic diffusers to my rear wall and to my left and right. I temporarily have some diffusers in my mid wall corners for the bass until I get more absorbers. I also want absorbers for my front wall and front corners. My virtual system has pictures of the room. |
Someone not knowing that about acoustic dont know really his own audio system .... My point exactly. Unfortunately involves a lot of hard work. Much easier to buy something, push a button, pay for a readout, trust authority (who really these days can still trust authority???!?!? and yet they do!). Not realizing that as hard as it is to understand room acoustics its even more work to understand microphones and measurements. There was a whole long thread recently where the difficulty and complexity of measuring something as seemingly simple as output level is way harder than anyone thinks. Yet they turn around and think they can push a button and a readout will tell them how to treat their whole room. Oh well. At least a few of us get it. |
People think that having ears is enough.... But we must learn how to use the ears and listen... And we listen with the brain’s Intrinsic Fourier analyser.... It is way more important to learn how to use this internal computer than an external one... For that we must put ourself in a dynamic situation where listening to all that is coming is like decoding the tracks of preys... And any audio system is embed and hidden, like a prey embed and hidden in the forest, in an invisible electrical forest of noise, of vibrations, and a forest of audible waves.... Most people dont go for the prey they prefer to buy a piece of costly meat killed ( read designed and ready made) for their easy consumerism... No need to track anything and no need to learn to listen.... They call the forest a city and decree that they are no unwanted noise there, no unwanted vibrations, and no need to prepare anything, because what they buy is ready to use out of the box in their house..... There is no forest and there is no prey....There is no journey either.... :) |
