Room Too Dead

Should point out that the Tube Trap experience I had was in multiple rooms of different sizes. It’s also possible the actual problem I had was with additional absorbers in the room.

Still, I was mightily unimpressed by all the ASC treatments that show. I don’t remember which show it was but I think Pass was also sponsoring the show, so there were a lot of rooms using Pass electronics that time. That’s another story. :D

Without measurement, and using my poor acoustic memory, one possible explanation was a broad suckout of lower midrange. 

In my own experience, one note bass is mostly a speaker placement issue, but can also be addressed successfully with equalizing down peaks. I know some people are dead set against any kind of equalization, so if that’s out of the question, I think a distributed array of subs to break up the major modes is the only workable solution. Or, a very powerful and extensive array of bass absorbers.

Assuming the bass absorbers are relatively broad band that's what I would have expected as well.  Sadly my impression was, room after room, all the speakers bass sounded the same, as if they were playing the same song.  🤣

Hi @asctim  -

I really only got to hear this at a show in California where ASC was sponsoring the show.  Mamy rooms had tube trabs all over and what I noticed was terrible bass.  No matter the gear or the speakers, every system had 1 note that all the bass drums seemed to hit.  I don't know if anyone else has used the term "one note bass" but that's really a great description. 

Better sounding rooms lacked the tube traps but had more traditional, broad band absorbers liberally used.

I think you may have a complicated issue. It’s not just too dead, it’s got a mid-range suckout. I have heard this in rooms with too many Tube Traps.  It happens when the absorbers perform too well in some bands but not as well in others.

Your problem may be that you aren’t taking out enough of the high end, so the room sounds too bright, and lacking in midrange only by comparison.

You may actually need to add better absorbers in the high end.

Diffusors are a good idea, generally speaking. placed behind and directly tot he sides of speakers they can really enhance imaging. One thing you can do is to try to create a quasi diffused pattern by removing some of the curtains you are using, at random intervals, with more removed towards the back than the front.

If you have any sort of tone control you can test this by reducing the treble to see if you find hte tonal balance more to your liking.

Measurements are good, but IMHO really hard to interpret for this type of issue.