toddverrone
Geoff- I will say that I’d try little bowls if there was a believable explanation for how they work and what they do.. I’m not a total reductionist, so I don’t shoot things down if they aren’t ideas in the mainstream, but my mind does need something to go on, so I can figure out how to implement. Though I suppose it would be pointless since I can’t imagine decorating my house with copper bowls.. My lovely wife let’s me do what I want with the music room, but she wants input on the rest of the house.
The tiny little bowls are acoustic resonators and work much like small Helmholtz resonators by dissipating energy when placed in locations of very high sound pressure, such as on the wall at first reflection point or in a room corner. Anywhere there is a SPL peak much higher than the average SPL in the room. As I’ve mentioned on this thread at least twice the best way to determine locations in the room for the tiny little bowls is by using a SPL meter and a test tone. I find a test tone of 315 Hz to work fine but other frequencies will work too. You can also use Franck Tchang’s diagram which will be fine but not as accurate as my method.
The tiny little bowls also dissipate RFI/EMI. This is because not only is the diameter of the tiny bowl equal to an acoustic wavelength but also equal to an electromagnetic wave length, I.e., RF wavelength. Thus the tiny little bowls are two, TWO tweaks in one! That’s why I hear an improvement in the sound on my headphones - not because of the acoustic resonator function but because of the RFI/EMI dissipation function. Since there is no diagram for where the RFI/EMI peaks are in the room you have to either make a reasonable guess or obtain an EMI/RFI meter. I have so far chosen to place my tiny little bowls in upper and lower corners, one per surface, figuring that all waves behave similarly so will bunch up in room corners.
If you have a speaker system the improvement to the sound will be due to BOTH functions. The reason the sound improves when the tiny little bowls are placed in rooms beyond the listening room, kitchen bathroom, bedrooms, etc. is because RF doesn’t attenuate over distances involved in the house so that reducing RFI/EMI in other rooms reduces RFI/EMI in the listening room and in the house wiring. Whereas acoustic interference from other rooms would be very secondary. But if a room is directly adjoining the listening room then acoustic interference might be expected. I use bowls of several diameters to spread out the operating bandwidth. Better safe than sorry.
Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
