Room Treatment Help


I just moved to the DFW area and drew the short straw for the wife assigned small 10 x 12 x 9’ soon to become, dedicated listening room. It’s in dire need of treatment as there’s a weird resonance, echo sound when clapping your hands. I’ve tried LRS + and open baffle speakers (Spatial Audio Lab)  with a nice tube pre and both tube and ss amps. I’m just not happy with the room acoustics. I know I need help and realize small rooms are inherently tough to get good sound. My question is, where in the world do I start? GIK, Primacoustic, Acoustic Fields (Dennis Foley- this guy makes sense) etc? There are tons of YouTube vids out there, I’ve probably watched most of them but the topic is as confusing as trying to come up with end game components for an audiophile. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and experiences as they are highly appreciated! 

keeferdog

Showing 3 responses by pindac

Generally for Absorption a Rockwool with a Compression of 35Kg per m3 is ample to tame reflections.

A simple framing and a cheap fabric covering on both faces as the initial design will create plenty to start to manage the energies present that are influencing how the End Sound is perceived.

Symmetry is usually important, so Two Panels - Four Panels - Six Panels will be the requirement if more Panels are introduced.

I like a Floor to Ceiling Panel when used in the Room Corner, set up to triangulate the corner as the Panel being offset from the Wall absorbs reflected energy bounced back. This is not achievable when a Door is in Room Corner. A 'L' Shape Panel is required, the Door will need a Panel attached to the Room Side Face of the Door and above the Door and the perpendicular wall will need a Panel placed.

The Width of all Panels used at Room Corners as a Triangulation need not excess 900mm. The Door Panel width should be mimicked by the Panel used on the Perp' Wall. 

A Wall Panel need not be more than the Height of a standard widow in a Room, expected to be approx' 4ft -1200mm as the largest dimension. The Wall Panel width can be 1ft - 300mm made with a little more robust framing as it will be hung of the wall not in direct contact, as in the Corner a space between panel and wall has benefits for capturing bounce back energy.

A Window can have a Acoustic Material used for the Curtain. A Curtain Rail can have a simple design for a secondary rail suspended from it, which can be used to hang a One Panel or a Few Absorption Panels on.

Reflective energy that benefits from dispersion can be picked up on, when the placing of absorption panels is showing benefits, that show the experimentation has been worthwhile.   

I have a dispersion on the Wall behind Speakers and behind the Listener, laces on the Walls Centre, both at a 50/50 Split of Width and Height.

On the Side Walls I have split the two used absorption Panels with a spacing of 1ft - 300mm and used a dispersion panel of the same width to infill the Space.

A Dispersion or Absorption Panel can also be suspended from the ceiling if energies are not being fully captured.

The Flooring is one of the easiest to treat. A soft furnishing can be placed if there is a hard surface finish in use.  If a Carpet is used, this can already be quite an effective at absorption, maybe too effective?

There is no reason to spend much more than a $150ish as the preliminaries to create absorption, there is a lot to be achieved with this outlay.

The costs will increase if the Panels are wanted to be kept, then the Panels will need a improved bracing to produce an increased rigidity to the framing. When aesthetics are to become the next stages of consideration, where there may be much more attractive Acoustic Fabrics being selected to cover the trial panels, these Fabrics can cost close to $30 per yard/2.      

For the multitude of individuals with an interest in Audio, All decisions made come with a element of unknowing, hence trialling is the most valuable approach, as the experiencing is everything to assist with making a fair evaluation.

No one has to be pay to acquire experience, making time is the key to the door.

Spending is easy and for many the simplistic method adopted to avoid acquiring new experiences, especially ones that can prove to be valuable and indelible.

" Act in haste repent at leisure " is the way to part with ones coffers and make another more satisfied with their side of the arrangement.

The OP is well informed of how they can learn more about what is occurring in their listening space, be it there own endeavours or pay to get given a data produced by a visiting service that might mean very little to them.