Room Treatment

I worked for a company that did commercial acoustical treatment. Panels are sound absorption material that mount against a wall (i.e. one surface covered). Baffles are suspended and all sides ave active in sound absorption. Diffuser are to spread in the listening environment.

@lalitk 

I have every square inch of my walls covered with 5” of rock wool, and every square inch of my ceiling covered with 14” of rock wool. The floors mostly covered either Moroccan cotton rugs  

I have a very dead, semi-anechoic room. It works perfectly. You can hear the difference when you walk in, before any music is played. 

So I am wondering what you mean by overdoing it? 

So I am wondering what you mean by overdoing it? 

@unreceivedogma signs a room is overtreated...the room feels emotionally uncomfortable as our brains expect reflections...you start removing absorption and find improvement...the room feels overly warm due to a scarcity of high frequency wavelengths...the room sounds smaller than it actually is.    

An over dampened, deadend, etc room results in a test chamber is not generally an optimal listening environment. The best results are with a combination of treatments that allow life into the music so it  sounds more natural to the space it was recorded in.

Thus, there might not be a perfect way to do this as music is recorded in quite a wide range of places, studios, live venues outdoors, concert halls, etc.

If you take the time to study the subject then use the minimal amount of bass traps, diffusers and absorbers to get to the place where it sounds the best to you for your tastes in the variety of music you listen to then that is perfect, for you.

Rick

@unreceivedogma

Yes, it is possible to over-treat a room. Over-treatment typically refers to,

- Excessive absorption of mid and high frequencies while leaving the low end untreated. This creates an unnatural, muffled sound with no liveliness or air.

- Lack of appropriate diffusion, which can make the room feel claustrophobic and sterile by removing natural spatial cues.

However, in a semi-anechoic room like yours, the goal is to minimize reflections almost entirely, creating an ultra-clean, controlled soundstage. In such rooms, the “liveliness” and spaciousness should come from the recording itself, not from the room reflections. If you’re thrilled with the sound of your system, you’ve probably nailed it.