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How To Proceed With Room Treatments

   I live in a house that is more than 100 years old. My listening room is approx. 16' x 20' in size. The floor is carpeted. There are furniture pieces. In the days this house was built the walls are of plaster over wooden lath rather than conventional drywall.
  My system (for music only) consists of a pair of stand mounts and two 10" subs. I have experimented with moving the speakers to various locations, moving furniture, and have now found placements that sounds best to me. However, in the quest to improve the sound as much as possible, I am interested in the possibility of adding some type of room treatment. While there are many options such as wall panels, corner bass traps, etc. is there any sort of experiments that can lead to a final room treatment that can optimize results before buying the rather expensive panels for that purpose?
I realize this is a very subjective topic but am curious if any have added some sort of temporary material to their rooms to determine how to proceed with a permanent solution.
jrpnde
mike_in_nc
1,191 posts
 
As to temporary placement:

  • I’ve used milk crates to raise panels, propped against the wall, to see how they do in specific positions.
  • I’ve held blankets above my head to see if ceiling reflections were a problem.
  • I’ve moved bass traps around to see how that works.
And finally, I put a gallery system into the audio room so I could hang all the panels and move them around. Does your old house have picture moldings? They could be used to hold light treatments etc.

What frequency ranges are you trying to work with?

You didn’t ask, but I’ll also note that Guilford of Maine makes thousands of textiles for fabric-covered panels; acoustics vendors will use your specific pattern & color at a slight additional cost. This can improve appearance tremendously over stock colors.

P.S. Another way to proceed is ask GIK or ASC (or both) to make a treatment plan for you, which they will do for a refundable fee. You might not want to follow it exactly, but it will give you some ideas.


erik_squires
16,805 posts
 
I strongly recommend you talk to GIK acoustics. They are pros and can help you get to done fast.

However, yes. Try blankets and pillows. :) Try them on the walls, on the floor, especially between and behind your speakers, on a coffee table, etc.

This will help you try things out relatively cheaply.
nekoaudio's avatar
nekoaudio
489 posts
 
@jrpnde I think it depends a lot on what you're trying to accomplish, and your first goal should probably be to figure out what kind of a room you want to have. That will tell you the types of acoustic treatments you should go, where to place them, and how much.

You can save money by doing the DIY route.
lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,785 posts
 
@jrpnde,

I would reach out to GIK and speak to James Lindenschmidt. I have recently worked with him and he made the whole process painless.

Personally, I think their basic panels are quite inexpensive and worth every penny. If you factor in the invaluable advise, it makes complete sense to buy from them. My room is 15” D x 30” W and the whole room treatment cost was under $1500.

To see how they look, you are welcome to check out my system.
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