Room treatments

I realise this might have come up before, but perhaps time to open discussion again.
If you were going to treat a "bright" room, as Roy M. called it when he visited here, where would you start? Wall behind the speaks. front wall (facing the speaks), ceiling etc.
It *is* a bright room. Hardwood floors, lotsa glass. Not looking to spend a king's ransom. I realise with the right egg cartons (as some studios still use) you can do the trick, but I'm needing something a little less ugly.
Where to start, and what to get?

Have you voiced the room to see exactly what the problems are? You may end up throwing effort into curing one problem, only to end up with another. I'd seriously suggest getting a copy of Room EQ Wizard and a calibrated mike for that - all you need if you already have a laptop computer. When I did my system, I also needed a mixer for phantom power for the mike, but there's USB versions available now that get around that.

(I also suggest an ADC if you've got an older laptop, as onboard sound tended to suffer severe suckage until recently. The Behringer UCA202 is golden for that and also quite inexpensive.)

Run a few sweeps in REW and it can give you exact frequency curves, and more for your purposes, map the room's response at various areas courtesy of their "waterfall" analysis.

But ... I suppose first step would be to make sure you've got the easy stuff done. One of each pair of parallel surfaces should be "soft". Carpet and hard ceiling, that sort of thing. I went with full length padded fiberglass draperies up front behind the speakers (think room darkening) and carpeting on the floor. That cooled the harsh considerably. Break up the side walls - artwork, bookcases, etc. Once that's done, THEN think about dedicated baffles and traps, but only then, as you may find you're happy with what you got.

PS ... I ever show you my ceiling hot spot treatments? A couple of memory foam throw rugs that were on sale.



With those, I can now listen to Norah Jones without wanting to rip my ears out ... and they're super fun to point to when people walk in ... "Don't forget to wipe your feet!"  ;-}

Skizo,
Thanks for the info.
Far's I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with how the system sounds now. But I'm always looking for tweaks, as are we all. Never messed about with room treatments before (it was Verboten in a previous relationship) but now as a newlywed bachelor I have the opportunity to pee in my own corners. I'll take your advice up with my men, as Michael Caine said.

I’ve often read that early reflections off the near wall should be a prime target for difusion. What is required is a mirror and a wife: sitting in your listening position, have. . . Ok, a volunteer move a mirror along the wall till you see the reflection of the near speaker. Place a difusing product there. Same business on other wall.

I havent done it myself, but thought to get some sound difusing foam from a source Bob identified for us all last year or the year before. Thought I’d make a frame around the foam, then wrap it in some decorative cloth. Maybe tie dyed or batik, or something quasi artistic. Maybe I’ll get one of the kids to make that, so it’s certain to gain spouse approval factor points.

Obtained my panels from here:

http://www.gikacoustics.com/

Consisting of 1 each directly behind each speaker and 2 higher up (w/diffsusor cover), 2 on front wall across from speakers, 1 on ceiling in front of listening position, first reflection point on one side wall, and finally bass trap left corner from system. (L shaped room) Cleaned up a lot of issues.

Possible simple solution is foam tiles. Lots of varieties to choose from and easy install. I used those to tame some hard bounces off an arch behind the listening area.

It is difficult but eliminating parallel surfaces (walls, floor/ceiling) and placing quarter round tube gobos in the corners of the studio or control room was one technique in recording I often observed to get the most natural sound. It's hard to do as these are major structural issues except the gobos can be built DIY.

deepee99 wrote:I realise this might have come up before, but perhaps time to open discussion again.
If you were going to treat a "bright" room, as Roy M. called it when he visited here, where would you start?  Wall behind the speaks. front wall (facing the speaks), ceiling etc.
It *is* a bright room. Hardwood floors, lotsa glass. Not looking to spend a king's ransom. I realise with the right egg cartons (as some studios still use) you can do the trick, but I'm needing something a little less ugly.
Where to start, and what to get?

You should use the cheap egg carton or pyramid foam to catch the early reflections and to tame some mids and highs. The stuff can be found on Amazon for cheap, just don't buy cheap foam corner bass traps they don't absorb low enough. That's why the major dollars will likely be spent in high quality bass traps to catch the really long and low bass waves.

If your ok with foam on the walls, use the mirror method to find all the reflection points from your listening spot to the speakers including the ceilings. Cover all the spots with at lease 2" foam. This will massively help with sound staging and have the most immediate effect.

If your looking for a simpler approach and depending on the exact frequencies you need to bring down you may just need a few bass traps in the corners to not only catch bass but will also greatly help deaden a bright room.

https://www.acoustimac.com/categories-products

I used this company recently and was happy with the results. Arrived on time and look exactly as expected. They sell kits for a little cheaper but honestly if you want to make them your self just get some Ruxol, fabrics and build some plywood frames.

Super Chunk bass traps are pretty easy and yield huge results.

http://www.ayoung.ca/basstraps.php

Diffusers can be used in a variety of ways but directly behind the listening point would have the largest effect.

My living room has windows on one side and is open to the next room on the opposite side. The window glass causes asymmetric reflections back into the room, resulting in off-balance effects and frequency imbalance. I placed shutters over the windows in my living room as window coverings. By moving the 3" wide slats so that sound striking them is reflected downward to the carpeted floor and not back into the room, they are more effective at correcting the imbalances than draperies that were there before, and they have a high Wife Approval Factor, besides.

I keep big Maggies (MGIIIa). I find that as a matter of a few degrees of toe-in or out, or a matter of a few inches from a wall or corner will make huge differences. Before installing permanently disfiguring items such as foam, or otherwise non-useful 'absorption tubes' or similar, spend some time with speaker placement. Do also note that back in the day, AR, Advent and a few other advocates of the "Boston Sound" strongly suggested asymmetric speaker placement on the long wall of a room for best sound-staging. But for the Maggies, that has always been the final resting place for conventional speakers in my systems. Seems to work as well. Point being, spend more time playing with the speakers, and less time with received wisdom on placing them.

I heartily endorse DP's solution, by the way. SO-friendly solutions are always best.

I have a dedicated room...long but not wide, hence I cannot use the long wall for my 803's and had to compensate.
First,you don't need buckets of cash to acoustic-ize your room. Ridding yourself of the ugly might be a bigger challenge.
Speaker placement is imperative! However IMHO I do not think proper speaker placement alone will eliminate a bright room. I use eggcrate foam behind my speakers and I use styrofoam diffusers on the ceiling in front of the speakers for about 5' feet. My room is well insulated with mineral fiber and the walls are 7" thick so I used a minimum of treatment that was very economical.
Not having any idea of what you are dealing with...if your room IS BRIGHT I would start with drapes or perhaps some THICK carpeting hung on your walls. This might sound ridiculous and or crazy but I have been in such a room and it worked well and was pleasing to the eye. You can find ends of colorful carpet in a store for pennies on the dollar and have them bound.
It would add decorative sound absorption to your room.
THEN I would work on speaker placement. Doing the speakers first MIGHT be time wasted after your acoustics are in the room and you may have to replace your speakers.

bluemeanies wrote:I have a dedicated room...long but not wide, hence I cannot use the long wall for my 803's and had to compensate.
First,you don't need buckets of cash to acoustic-ize your room. Ridding yourself of the ugly might be a bigger challenge.
Speaker placement is imperative! However IMHO I do not think proper speaker placement alone will eliminate a bright room. I use eggcrate foam behind my speakers and I use styrofoam diffusers on the ceiling in front of the speakers for about 5' feet. My room is well insulated with mineral fiber and the walls are 7" thick so I used a minimum of treatment that was very economical.
Not having any idea of what you are dealing with...if your room IS BRIGHT I would start with drapes or perhaps some THICK carpeting hung on your walls. This might sound ridiculous and or crazy but I have been in such a room and it worked well and was pleasing to the eye. You can find ends of colorful carpet in a store for pennies on the dollar and have them bound.
It would add decorative sound absorption to your room.
THEN I would work on speaker placement. Doing the speakers first MIGHT be time wasted after your acoustics are in the room and you may have to replace your speakers.

I gave myself a few days before replying. First because the above contains so much common sense. which generally isn't.

But, my only significant quibble is with the last line.

Speakers of differing natures will *always* require differing placements if optimization of the interaction between the speakers and the room is the goal.
What is an ideal acoustic treatment for one type of speaker will generally not be ideal for another.
A few very simple examples:

Bright speakers with weak bass may want to be much closer to a corner than similarly bright speakers with decent bass.
Dullish speakers with good bass may want to be away from corners and well above the floor to give the mid/treble sections their best shot.
Horn-based speakers will want to be closer together than conventional cone speakers, much closer than dome speakers and even closer than planar speakers. Exceptions being corner-loaded devices such as Klipschorns.
And, some speakers really do not want to be symmetrically placed if a reasonable soundstage is desired, or one without requiring significant outboard enhancements.

Cutting to the chase, if one's listening conditions require thwarting the nature of the speakers chosen (kinda like putting a tiger in a 10' x 10' cage), then I agree that heroic measures may be required. But that still leaves that tiger in that cage.