so bass traps in corners do nothing, it seems we have been fooled. or are being fooled.
Well I've watched a few of their videos and mostly they seem to be no nonsense. what do you think?
Corner Bass Trap Nonsense - www.AcousticFields.com (youtube.com)
Thank you seanheis1 & ozzy62. Everything you see in the room was designed, hand built and installed by me. Crazy amount of work! Well worth it! Total weight of all the material close to 3000lbs. Mass/ weight, proper design and placement all play a role in low frequency management. This allowed me to avoid using corner bass traps - not needed. For other rooms, bass traps might be beneficial, but not mine.
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@seanheis1 The front wall, front wall sides and ceiling above front wall required a lot of low frequency management. To control 125hrz to 250hrz issue, ceiling required proper treatment. |
For the people out there that buy bass traps and don't find much results...I have discovered: 1. The treatments are usually in the wrong places (low velocity areas). 2. The treatments aren't thick enough or heavy enough...foam wedges on amazon are too lightweight even if they are really thick. My panels are wood framed and are around 20 pounds each. 3. Try air gaps...a 3 inch thick panel with a 3 inch air gap is almost as effective as a 6 inch thick panel of same construction. 4. The GIK 244 panels with the range limiter plate (flex range tech) are the best i have found for the size. |
@shalommorgan I have a room with very similar dimensions. What areas did you discover had the highest bass velocity or were the biggest problem areas? For me, the corners behind my speakers were the biggest problem so I filled them both to the ceiling. My biggest problem area is the mid bass above 100hz has a wide dip. It's the ceiling interaction...possibly combining with the floor reflection. If I take a big trap and hoist it over my head (and speakers) during a measurement, it mostly goes away. One day I may do a cloud with an attached scatter plate to deal with the floor and ceiling reflection dips. I keep a door open behind my listening position and that does a surprisingly good job of reducing bass build up.. |
About 20 years ago I bought the Behringer measurement mic and the thing that let you compare the signal to what the mic heard. I made 27 Risch style bass traps and had it all in the basement of my first house. Traps definitely do make a measurable difference but you need a ton of them. I'd say it's practically impossible to fix the bad resonances any basement will have. You can EQ them out, which I did to +-1db. It sounded weird, though. I eventually gave up on heavy EQ. The best thing for bass is to live in a house that is light construction. Plain wood frame, drywall. You still have resonances but a lot of the energy escapes through the walls. Then add some traps and light EQ if you want to. Placement is very important. |
https://trackingangle.com/equipment/asc-tube-traps-for-life here's another take on it |
Dont stop deep when he has an opportunity to make statements about social and economic inequities. Remember this is about Foley not other white collar criminals so his attempt at distraction is lame. Several posts on other sites about Foley taking money and not delivering the product. Suits filed evidently. |
@asctim: Drums is my main instrument. I've personally known only one bassist who went from electric to acoustic upright bass: Todd Phillips, who has worked with a lot of the modern Bluegrass masters. Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, David Grisman, etc. In 1971 he was playing a Fender P Bass in a band he was leaving just as I was entering. He did so to concentrate on learning mandolin, so went up to Marin to study with Grisman. David told Todd there were already a lot of great mandolin players, but a dearth of upright bassists. Todd took his advice, got himself an upright, and has been working steady ever since. The one guy I know of who played (R.I.P.) a non-upright electric fretless bass (an Ampeg) was Rick Danko of The Band. Rick is one of my favorite musicians. And one player who makes his fretted electric bass sound uncannily like an upright is Joey Spampinato of NRBQ. He is another of my favorite players, and is Keith Richard's favorite bassist. When Bill Wyman left The Stones Keith offered him the job, and Joey turned him down! But he did agree to play in the band Richards assembled to back Chuck Berry in the Hail! Hail! Rock'n' Roll documentary on Chuck.
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Subwoofer on the floor? see here mike |
If you'd followed my advice posted above, you'd see that Dennis has been accused of white collar crime in the realm of room treatment. |
I got here at ASC too late to meet Chris. I’ve only played an electric bass a tiny bit. A few years ago someone gave me one that suffered some kind of rattle with the knobs on the main body. I didn’t have an appropriate amp to work with it, but got it to play and sound decent through my hifi speakers. I in turn gave it away to someone who fixed it. Being used to an acoustic bass, the solid body on the electric struck me as really weird. I haven’t touched an upright bass in over 30 years. From time to time I’ve thought about getting an upright electric. They’re nice and compact. My mother used to drive me to youth symphony practice with the scroll and pegbox of the contrabass sticking out the window. I often wondered what drew me to such a logistically challenging instrument. It’s been so long now since I’ve played with any seriousness it’ll be almost like starting from scratch. Oh yes, the frets vs fretless. The frets were strange to me too, but kind of nice. It’s fun to slide into notes on the fretless, but doing that and also trying to pluck with any volume was tough on the fingers! I got some private lessons for one brief period and the guy teaching me said my tone was slightly off on some notes. That was worrisome to me because I wasn’t sure if I could hear it correctly. Thinking back, I suspect it could have been an issue with the difference between just intonation and even temperament, something I was not at all aware of at that time, and I’m still not sure I understand the full implications of. In any case, if you’re listening to overtones and trying to get the next note tuned relative to those, you will be off in terms of even temperament, more so on some notes than others. I think that’s how it works. What instrument do play? |
@asctim: Hi Tim. I played in a Blues trio with a bassist who had an electric upright bass. It didn’t sound much different than a regular electric bass (the neck was fretless of course), but looked kinda cool. Hey, did you ever play music with Chris (I can’t recall his last name), who used to work at ASC? I knew him when he lived in L.A. The last time I saw him was at the Vegas CES in the late-90’s, where he was supplying a lot of the rooms with Tube Traps. We met in the bar of the hotel to catch up. By the way, in the early-90’s there was an ad in The Recycler (a weekly buy/sell newspaper in SoCal), offering Tube Traps for ten bucks a piece! I called the phone number, and arranged to go to the seller’s house immediately. I got there and found a guy in a empty house, all except for 13 of the Traps, ranging in size from 9" (diameter of course) up to 16". Naturally I bought ’em all. Best deal I ever got in hi-fi!
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In general audio terms sub bass is defined as 20 Hz to 60 Hz. I used to play the the acoustic bass, aka contrabass, aka double bass. Musical instruments never adopted the prefix "sub." 41 Hz is the lowest note. The strings on the bass guitar are tuned the same, so it could be called the contrabass guitar or double bass guitar! They call it guitar because it's played sideways like that. You can get an upright electric bass. I've never played one.
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In my experience, acoustic treatments made a rather significant improvement in my small (12x16 and 13x14) listening rooms. Stacked GIK 244s (w/diffusion plates) in the front corners, two of the same ones on the ceiling, 244 w/o plates on 1st and 2nd reflection points and centered on the front wall. And finally one behind the listening seat. I didn’t put them in one by one and listen to the differences. Everything went in at the same time, except the ceiling, and before vs after was quite dramatic in my room. |
Wow, aren’t you something special? So, a guy who spent some time in the big house for a drug conviction or whatever can’t lead a normal life, run a legitimate business, thereafter? Plenty of white collar crooks in this country (who do way worse) never make it to the big house because they paid a handsome sum to a gang of lawyers. Move on!
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I can’t help but chime in. I’ll steer clear of speaking about Dennis specifically. I have spoken to him on the phone and met him in person at an audio show. I have my opinions but no need to elaborate. It seems we have moved from corner bass traps to bass traps in general. My experience suggests that corner bass traps if designed correctly and implemented when needed can help mitigate low frequency issues (below 250hz). The hard part is knowing what type of bass trap design is right for your room and then implementing it correctly. I’v used, designed and built many different types of bass traps. Membrane and diagrammatic work the best. Using multiple subwoofers set up correctly throughout the room can also provide benefits. I have room measurements to prove it. The thing is, there are so many variables that contribute to low frequency room modes, one strategy alone may not be enough. It’s really hard to design and build a corner bass trap (triangle shaped) that has the mass/ Q factor or membrane structure to effectively manage bass below 250hz. The good news is that Bass issues below 250hz can be controlled or mostly eliminated even in smaller rooms, but it takes a lot of work and understanding. |
Guys, I feel it would be remiss of me not to warn you about Dennis Fooley. Apart from him frequently offering dubious information he has spent time in prison. Best to steer clear. To those who think that bass traps do not belong in corners here is a simple test. Play something with a prominent beat and then walk around your room, you'll find plenty of bass in the corners and this is where you want to place bass traps. Bass builds up in places other than the corners just not as much and you would not want a large bass trap/s sitting in the middle of your room. Corners are easier to accommodate and more effective. Multi-subs properly set up will help tame the peaks and nulls and really improve your sound but benefit from some absorption to reduce long delay in decay. If going to subs to improve your acoustics, which I strongly advise, choose sealed rather than ported and it's essential that they have continuously variable phase.
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As another person posted, they mostly treat upper bass, lower mids. Lowest bass registers extremely long wave length, hard to trap. At one point I had 2 21"tube traps stacked in both front corners, single 16" in back corners, These were fairly effective in getting rid of upper, maybe a bit of mid bass resonance that was masking mid range. Mismatch between speakers, amps was cause of much of this resonance. Now that I have effective control of bass with proper amp/speaker interface I no longer have any bass issues, and even with somewhat recent addition of two Rel subs. Not a single bass trap in room, diffusion with just a bit of absorption does it for me. Not having a square room is big help as well. |
I diy’d all diffusion panels (the formula, home depot lumber, saw, glue, nails, stain, no other magic required)...His ACDA panels are quite unique though, I have never heard definition and resolution to the current level in my room until those came in. He has some theories on the ’rate of absorption’ of a panel (which nobody looks into), effect on the ear and i am starting to believe him. Guy spent years dev’ing those.
P..S if a guy has a tiny room and speakers sitting 6 inches from a corner (bad location to begin with)...yeah, a corner trap will do something for sbir if it’s sitting directly behind the woofers.. A Umik cal’d mic is 70 bucks....you’d be surprised how many guys around here don’t have one (facepalm). They’ll do everything 300 hz and under by ear is the claim.. I highly doubt it. |
Bass trap works if you know where to put them.i used to own Martin Logan request. And I saw Gale Sander and Bruce Brissom if Iam right? They put the bass trap near the side of both the SL3 Martin Logan . Yes indeed I works. When I applied my DIY bass traps.To do tweaks you have to have an open mind, listening to other people experience is not as good as doing it yourself. |
I think the point is when all is said and done it takes a lot more than 2-4 corner bass traps to control the bass in a room. Residential and commercial spend a fortune to control bass but I can hear Godzilla stomping through Tokyo while I’m in the next theater watching The Notebook. 😆 Just kidding but not about the bass transfer. It’s like spending $5k on tires to save 1/10th of a mile per gallon. Does it help if done right? Yes, just not enough to justify the cost. New Record Day did some cool bass treatments in his new space that did make a difference but as you can see it takes up a lot of space and it’s not just in the corner. The funny thing is a lot of people treat the corners for the bass before the handle so many other things like first reflection points. |
I spent 4+ years personally building my own dedicated listening room. The room is 13.5’ x 15.5’ x 9’. (I consider this a small room.) The room was originally our separate dining room. I closed it off and stripped down to studs on front and rear wall. All walls and ceiling are acoustically treated. Based on Dennis Foley’s acoustic product design principles, I spent 100s of hours designing and building my own absorption panels/ boxes and diffusers of various types, sizes and weight. It took numerous trials and errors to determine the best way to design and implement acoustic treatment within my room. I watched all of Dennis Foley’s videos as well as read/ watched as many other acoustic treatment related online videos, articles, books and photos, as I possibly could. I’ve learned a lot about room acoustic treatment and design. I’m just a typical audiophile who wants the best sound possible from my room. I agree (somewhat) with Dennis that corner bass traps are not always required. Depending on your specific room size/ shape, speaker placement..etc, sound pressure build-up can be more pronounced in other areas besides the corners. Address those areas first. If the corners end up being the biggest issue, then corner bass traps are likely needed. More often than not, corner bass traps alone don’t entirely fix low frequency issues. I don’t have corner bass traps. My room has a 5/6db variance between 30hz to 14khz - in a small room. I’m very happy. Dennis means well. Whether or not you agree with him, he’s working hard to bring better sound to this hobby that we all care so much about. |
I have GIK corner bass traps. They are very effective in the corners behind my speakers. They didn’t do much in the corners behind my listening position...so I stack two of them in corners behind my speakers. apparently the bass pressure was greatest in the corners behind my speakers...which makes sense due to closer proximity to speakers than corners behind me. i would say they are pretty effective down to 60hz...going off memory they start rolling off at 80hz. They have scatter plates attached as i didn’t want to risk having a dead room. There is also an option to add a range limiter plate, which focuses on absorbing more bass and less mids and highs....which is what you want because due to lengths of wavelengths, there will be a surplus of longer waves (bass) and a shortage of shorter waves (treble). To answer the question of whether or not bass traps are needed I think it's a function of room size (close reflections vs longer reflections). If you have a 20x30 room bass traps are more of a nice to do but will definitely help. If you have a 12X16 room, bass traps are going to have obvious improvements if you buy the right traps and put them in the right places. |
Last I heard, you all occupy a single listening position.. you are not some omnipresent being who float around in space.. listening from every inch of the room. Standing waves occur between 2 parallel walls. Hence, look at the wall spots straight in front of you, behind you, to either side and above you. Dennis Foley's mention of full wall coverage of ACDA, etc could come in handy with multiple listening positions (hometheater, for example). It has some other benefits as well, but, will consume significant real estate in smaller rooms. ACDA is huge and can give you a hernia if you try to move it around too much. Very few panels out there will do anything under a 100 Hz. His ACDA will get much lower. But, the correct thing to do is to "cancel out" modes in the subwoofer range with strategic placement of subs, phase correction, etc. Use the panels for ranges above the sub crossover. For SBIR, you can use panels right behind the speaker woofers or pull the speakers out enough so the SBIR frequencies get pushed into the subwoofer range. Unless you are an omnipresent being with telescopic ears listening in every corner, your corner traps don't mean much. Stop looking at what some flat earth audiophile did as gospel and get a measurement mic. Thereafter, download a free measurement software known as REW. God bless. |
Those were not intended for and were never promoted to be bass traps
and I’m not promoting these nor commenting on their effectiveness, and you may well be correct, but comments like below with nothing to back them up are basically worthless conjecture
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Bass traps . . . Bass traps . . . We don't need no stinkin' Bass traps . . . We got good ole fashon' fishin'pole and worms from the garden . . . I put em in and didn't hear no difference so just went fishin' fer new music I like, left the dang things in the corners, what am I gonna do with em iffen I take em out anyway, try en sell em on A'gon? Too much trouble an I don't like trouble,, no sir . . . |
The bass traps in corners are typically more like upper bass / lower midrange traps. That's an important and problematic range in a lot of rooms, and a reasonable amount of traps in the corners can definitely improve the clarity in that range, which can add perceived definition to lower bass and sub-bass, since the overtones are easier to hear than the fundamentals down there, and our ability to perceive start and stop times is much more accurate above 100 Hz than down lower. A lot of people think of under 60 Hz as bass, but that's more like sub-bass, and that's very impractical to control with added acoustic absorbers. |
In my case it's "1/4/ space speaker placement in the corner between the back wall and side wall. This enhances diffusion and combines with the direct sound from my speakers and garbles up the direct pure sound of the speaker and the room. The corner's are treated with 1" pyramid type foam panels. This dramatically improved the sound of the room cutting down multi reflections from the 1/4 space coupling corner. My speakers are older vintage Electro Voice Sentry III studio monitors. Two per side one stacked on top of the other. The top one is upside down with the horns matting together. Big Difference with the corner treatment. For those of you with 1/2 space coupling it may not be necessary to treat the rear wall.
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@mulveling Yes indeed, first reflection points (if nothing more) are key. And reflecting on it, Thank you for your many informative posts. |
Bass frequencies, once generated, are extremely hard to manage - for turntable feedback, too. Like the video says - it takes a LOT of acoustic material to make a difference. So the tiny little gray or blue "triangle" corner traps (popular a while ago) always made me chuckle. The more substantial corner traps like GIK - yeah they can move the needle "a bit", if you pile them up in 4 corners. The most significant acoustic change we can make in our systems is optimizations to speaker positioning, listening position, and matching the speaker appropriately to a room. Subwoofer setup too, if you have those. Treating 1st reflection points (for midrange and HF, not bass) is useful, obviously - this can make a significant difference for relatively little material. I’ve always focused more on the gear, because that’s made the more satisfying and interesting differences to me. When I bring a component over to a buddy’s system (or vice versa), the sonic signature of the component is instantly recognizable and consistent, even in a completely different room & system. And those tiny little "acoustic resonators" (often sold at very high price) are unlikely to do anything but placebo. |
