Nicely done!!
I agree - most people are better off treating their rooms and keeping their existing loudspeakers. Most folks assume that their loudspeakers are not compatible with their room and keep searching for a better one. I found that if we tame the bass which occurs near the front half of the room (besides the 4 corners of the room), then that adds a lot of clarity to the overall staging. I have not yet updated my system page with the latest sound panel config. Will do it soon.
Room Acoustics, minimal treatment and measurements
Afternoon all. Thought this might be helpful to some with wondering if room treatments can help with your 2-channel, and how to help visualize and measure what you may not fully grasp hearing wise. I am just using a Mac Laptop and cheapo microphone, and REW, and 6 insulation panels.
This is my Step Fathers system, and pretty much empty LARGE basement listening space. There is a LOT of echo-reverb-ringing that (to my ears) over excites mid to upper frequencies, like being in a busy store/restaurant. With music, this can in ways help make a recording sound like it's in a larger studio/hall/space, but it also mashes a lot together and can over-color the music. This results in lost focus and change in ACTUAL recorded acoustics: so an intimately microphoned musician will sound like an empty room, where an empty room sounds like an empty gymnasium. This, also over-washes a bit of the mid-range and higher bass-losing it's tone and timbre. Major thanks to @erik_squires who has been gracious to help with this process with dead-on advice.
FULL BASEMENT MEASUREMENTS:
34'long x 22'wide x 10'high
LISTENING AREA MEASUREMENTS:
15'long x 22'wide x10'high
Empty room, no treatments and RT60 plot. Listening seat is *in the middle of the whole basement space, under an 18" boxed beam.*
"Treated" room, with RT60 plot. Notice the overall mid-upper frequency taming from 700ms of "ring/decay", to 500ms. Even with this, if you snap your fingers, you still hear a flutter echo. This is from the whole other half of the basement room behind me, mostly.
Crude room response measurement:
Sketch and measurements of where things are in the listening room:
I hope this is helpful and gives you some things to try out that don't cause major disruptions to your system, until you really determine if and where your issues are and then you can buy and mount things. My next step is to see where ON the walls I can place absorbing panels, and how many might be needed for a nominal improvement. My thinking is the bigger issues are the ceiling, front wall, and then 'filling' the space behind the seat just to eat up ambient stray ringing.
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Thanks @milpai , well said. I think a LOT of peoples systems would sound significantly better with some objective proper room frequency treatment: night and day, earth shattering, dramatic, game changer, deeper blacker backgrounds, wider and deeper sound stage, dead quiet noise floor, massively increased details, etc. :D |
Nice! I’ve learned you can’t really optimize your sound without first measuring the room acoustics. I’ve used Room EQ Wizard with a Mike similarly to first understand then correct my room acoustics (I’ve got 4 measured and corrected with 2 lesser ones to go, one is outdoors and screened, just for fun). Also thumbs up for Room treatments of any kind done right. |
OP: First, you are going to be very glad of the treatment, but now that I see the measurements and the specs, I think your woofers are not working at all. You may be missing the straps that connect the woofer to the 7" drivers. Based on specs, the 7" are crossed at 120 Hz, which is exactly what we are seeing here. Play loud music and go touch the woofers.
Erik |
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