Congrats, OP. Good work and you will probably have my experience, which was to slowly try moving things or even taking a few away. I definitely went in the direction of over-damping, and it was a subtle process to get the "air" back into my room. The key, for me, was to realize that diffusion and deflection help reduce unwanted harshness at the listening position but don't subtract important reflections from 12ms - 50ms which add a sense of space or "air" to the room.
I treated my room !
So I finally did it. I’ll share what most here know already. There may be some on the fence. I admit I didn’t do a ton of research. I still can’t interpret REQ as well as I’d like. I bought 72 of the Auralex 12”x12” panels and glued 8 of them on eight plywood panels so I ended up with eight 2’x4’ panels. I hung these at the reflection points and on the back wall. I also added 20 auralex bass traps with 3 corners done and a row across the front ceiling. Good grief I could probably sell my subs now. I have a horn system and the mids tamed down. I used to be able to run my preamp at 35%, and can run it at 50% now with no perceived distortion. I probably spent 1200 bucks. I’m not advertising for Auralex because I’m sure there are many great brands, and many better than what I got but I wish I would have done this 8 years ago when I started building my system. I run an SVS pb16 ultra and a GSG devastator with a 21” driver and I had to turn the SVS to negative 20, and the Behringer 3000dsp that runs the GSG down to 50% and it’s probably still more bass than I need. If your on the fence about room treatment, go for it !!
Showing 2 responses by hilde45
@adrianleewelch You sound like you're really proceeding in a sensitive and attentive way. All I can add is that there are phases where I thought I was "done" and then it took a while to just live with the sound for a while. That's really an important kind of patience that pays off. Once one lives with something for a while, they give themselves a chance to "wear the room" the way one "wears" a pair of shoes. Over time, you'll listen to a variety of music, and it may be that certain music points out to you where there might be a chance to improve things a little. Or not -- you'd get confirmation that you're "done." |