Why? Because acoustical treatments presented are in virtually empty rooms. Unrealistic.
my rooms have furniture and clutter. These rooms don’t really have a need for treatment. It’s snake oil, voodoo science. So why is accoustical panels gonna help? No one can answer this, most have no clue.
As someone always looking to optimize the sound of their system, I had been reading about the virtues of acoustic treatments and the mention of GIK acoustics several times on the 'gon.
A fellow member friend got some treatments from them that were acceptable to his fiancee and he said it improved the sound some. He said he wanted to do more, but wasn't allowed.
I followed suit and spoke with a very nice, honest guy from GIK, sent him pictures of my room and he told me what it would take to optimize the acoustics of the room given the large open, multi purpose, multi listening positions, unique layout with all the openings. I am not having problems, just always looking to improve when it is worth it.
Net net, I was willing to get a few things and he told me that unless I wanted to get a much more significant number of bass traps that would heavily change the look of the room (and my marital status) it wasn't worth it for me to make the couple additions I was planning on.
I appreciated his refreshing honesty, and if you have the commitment, I would recommend using them. I think any room can benefit from them. Whether the improvement is worth it is up to you. They are a proven science, but I think more appropriate for a recording studio, theater, concert hall or dedicated listening room. And especially for stereo stores or special setups at audio trade shows. That's what their web site focuses on. They are pros.
I have never needed acoustical room treatments over 50yrs of audio. All rooms had furnature, drapes, to dissipate sound reflections to acceptable levels. What has helped incredibly is all DIY speakers I have built have infinately variable control over the mid and tweet so room adjustment is simple for room brightness.
I know some smart people who think that this acoustic stuff is nonsense. Much of what we see influences our perceptions. 'I can see the stereo equipment...that I spent all this money on...so yeah, it sounds better...it looks expensive...it must sound good'. But you can't see sound so that's a little tougher.
A lot of people defer their other senses to sight. I see therefore I believe.
Buy a good book on getting good sound out of a room. Try the principles. They will help you hear the room. But you won't change your room until you move. The room makes the most difference. So it makes it tougher to appreciate.
People often hear only subtle improvements because they make changes WITHIN the room. They don't have the option of moving rooms so easily. So that reinforces the feeling that acoustic treatments are silly.
The room is an instrument..and a big player in the sound game. But changing/adding a few minor things and expecting a miracle is futile. But if you can reorient a few critical things, the things that matter most. It would seem like a small miracle occured.
But people really aren't open to putting the rack on the side wall...or having zero equipment between the speakers. That sounds extreme.
I did this for a short while right before I moved. It was the best thing I ever did. Can't do it now in the current smaller house...but man, you guys (some of you) really have no clue...I mean NO CLUE what you're missing. You also have no clue what you're talking about (again some of you).
Try it. Please try something...before you go off 'dropping your knowledge' on us.
Not only ALL rooms need treatment. but audio experience could be 75 % acoustical, 25 % basic good electronic design...
This % is variable, but NEVER in favor of the electronic design like 49% acoustical, 51 % electronic design...
This is pure science....
The sound you listen to come from the room /speakers, NEVER from the speakers alone in a small room especially...
It takes audio magazine market to make us believe that "upgrading" a10,000 dollars amplifier to a 100,000 dollars one, will be the key to audiophile experience.... Helmholtz has known much about sound perception one century ago than consumers magazine now...
Yes, and no. Past a certain point, the nuance any given system may behold can be more achievable with focused attention on surfaces and corners where treatment could be of considerable benefit.
This post should be called “most people don’t use room treatments but they should”. The room is the most important piece of the puzzle on putting together a great sounding room. Book, furniture, etc... are not replacements for a true absorption panel or an actual diffuser. If you have a dedicated room you must treat it correctly to get the best out of your equipment. If you have cheap stuff then it won’t matter much
Believe me, almost all untreated rooms sound terrible.
Right on the spot....
But even if i dont doubt that all HFT are very good, we can do it ourself at no cost with basic acoustic science... I know, i did it myself.... I say that for those who cannot afford to bought them, not to denigrate good engineering....
Having the money i would have probably bought them... But i did not need them now....
I agree 100% with calloway. I thought I had a "good room". I have the SR Wide angle HFTs, HFTs on my loudspeakers, and the SR Black Box. I have a dedicated (15’ x 22’) room with 9’ ceilings but it has an open back wall to the kitchen and eating area. I sit 8.5’ from my speakers. When I installed two Stillpoints Apertures near the side wall reflection points, I couldn’t believe the improvement. Adding two additional Stillpoints Apertures on the front wall was equally effective. I’ve had friends over that have heard my system before the changes and they can confirm all of this. Believe me, almost all untreated rooms sound terrible.
Read Helmholtz before writing stupidity without explanation in audio thread....It is no more advanced science now it is simple experiment for children....What is you age?
The good news if you are young, writing your graffitis on the walls of audio thread, are you could always learn something in the future....The bad news if you are old is: it is too late, go on with your graffitis.... You perhaps will be lucky and some will call that "art" or "thinking".... Not me....
The organ uses its set of pipes and there are tuning tubes and pipes for the chapels
The important words are "tuning tubes and pipes for the chapels"
It is why i called my Helmholtz-Fibonacci room tuner a "silent organ"...
More powerful than most electronic upgrade.... Acoustic is key audiophile asset, not electronic design.... Any good electronic design will sound good in a controlled room... The differences between pieces of gear will exist even in this room but will be way less impactful than acoustical change...
My second maxin in audio is now:
ONE straw kill or ressuscitate a room....
The first maxim was:
Dont upgrade before embedding everything right
Deep salutations and thanks for the observation....
Always wanted to be on a build team of a HUGE pipe organ, I’ve seen 3 of the BIG ones. I was a kid and saw the first two overseas.
The organ uses its set of pipes and there are tuning tubes and pipes for the chapels room tuning. Same principal. Perfect solution actually..
Some of the tubes are pretty long 5 stories, start in the basement (bellow room) and finish off at 64 feet. 10,000 tubes, of course there are only two at 64 feet in the world.. US and I think Down under. AU?
mahgister your Helmholtz devices, you are using them for bass EQ primarily? or ALL frequencies,
Helmholtz devices rightfully understood and designed works on ALL frequencies...
Yes we can use them for bass tightening purpose, but teaching that this is their main purpose like in some acoustical marketting advice is erroneous...They are a room tuner not only a potential bass device....
My Helmholtz tubes and pipes, distributed in series, i chose set of three with a ratio 1,6 between each three pipes with a straw of variable lenght determined by listenings experiments work on ALL frequencies scale directly or indirectly... i called that a " silent organ"....Someone more crafty than me like you are could make them beautiful by the way.... I use ordinary straw but someone could use anything less cheap and more esthetic...I use old plumber copper pipes or PVC tubes with a sheet of plastic for cover....It is homemade to say the least...But nevermind it work powerfully.... My goal was not esthetical anyway but Hi- Fi experience for the poor... 😁😊
I have 18 tubes and pipes with tube one 8 feet high.... My main set is 2 sets of three....Cutting only 1/2 inch or adding 1/2 inch from 6 straws will change the sound of your room MORE than changing an amplifier or on par with changing bad speakers set for a good one or the opposite...I guess someone could do a good job with 3 set of three the longer tube around 8 feet and the shorter one of the nine pipes for example around 6 inch with the ratio 1,6 between them ....
Only one straw can destruct the room acoustic or transform it like the tightening of a string on a violin....
Acoustic is an empirical science and art because nothing could replace ears.... This summer i will use a mic. to optimize the speakers/room response tough... But advising peeople to use equalization to replace room acoustic is pure ignorance....Equalization work only for a precise test frequency in relation with a very precise spot it is a complementary tool not the main tool for tuning the room to MY ears and his particular structural properties... Nobody want to listen to a "perfect" sound but to the sound which will be pleasing for his ears specific abilities ....I apologize for my digression from your question.... I have many defects and i speak too much.... 😊
My best to you and best wishes for your health.....
I have a small listening space that also doubles as a computer work station. The room is quite "lively" with no soft furnishings. I lived with it that way for years before deciding that something had to be done. Found that several large glass-covered pictures were mucking up the sound, so I removed them. I then experimented with sound absorption using beach towels taped to the walls. Once I determined what was needed, acoustical panels were ordered and installed. Best money I ever spent for sound improvement.
That is indeed my room. I have been happy with the GIK products and the improvements they provide me. Just be careful that if you make changes to speakers or speaker placements you need to adjust them. I learned that a bit late after I changed my speakers. The new speakers sounded good. But after getting the panels in the correct spots "opened" up the soundscape. The speakers no longer seem to cast the music. All music seems to come from around and behind them. I think I have the panels in the correct spot now :-)
He is speaking with 'all the confidence of ignorance'..if you have ever heard a good room ..evaluated and treated by a professional room guru he would change his mind in a heartbeat.Of course room treatments help...if, they are properly positioned and the rest of the room is, likewise, addressed..
Jim Smith in his excellent book "Get Better Sound" talks about the room, and how spending lots of money on your hi-fi without treating the room (and setting up the speakers properly too), at least on a basic level, means you’ll never hear the full potential of your system. A modest system in a well set up room will often sound better than a more expensive system in a room that is untreated, especially if the room has inherent problems ( dimensions, ceiling height/shape, large/many windows, too live or too dead a floor etc).
Right on the spot and my amazing experience after 2 years of listening experiments...
The truth is most people has never take the journey themselves and they are completely unconscious of the poweful impact of acoustic in 2 way:
Passive balanced materials treatment....
Active controls of the zone pressure of the room....The room can be activated, it is not only a set of passive walls waiting for the waves to be absorbed, reflected or diffused...The room is like a set of strings in a very tight compressive mechanism, a violin for example; because the waves cross the room 80 times a second in my room for example.... Zone pressure play a great part if we use them to balance the natural frequencies response of our room to compensate and balance well with our specific speakers...Helmholtz science...
No gear can beat the room at ANY price....EVEN in near listening in a small room....Unbeknownst to most....
This is my experience.... Those who contradict have never experience by themselves how cutting few inches from a straw can improve or destroy a room... I did...
The more important asset of an audio system is not the gear it is a dedicated room.....Most people upgrade gear trying to compensate for a bad room without even knowing it...They called their choices "tastes".... But in music only exist natural timbre perception first OR last, not taste first AND last....
It’s snake oil, voodoo science. So why is accoustical panels gonna help?
It is not voodoo science at all... But we must read a little about acoustic science, comic book will not help here.... But the problem is that company sells costly ready made esthetical easy solutions... But it is not so simple , buying costly materials is not the solution at least nor for me.... And each room has specific problem because of his geometry, topology and content, which no company can take the time to solve in details at low cost...I made all my materials treatment with useless and discarded materials and i never bought anything costly at all.... It takes time and listening experiments tough... But it worked...
@jumia -- I think you misunderstand the general direction of this thread.
The subject of room acoustics is well understood by those who have studied it extensively. However, it is not an issue where an amateur can do a five minute Google search and have any assurance that they've come up with the correct answer for their particular situation.
There are lots of things like this in life. You want your airline pilot, doctor, structural engineer, and so on, to have specialized knowledge and training for their job. It is certainly easy enough to look up info about all of those subjects on the internet, but that hardly means that the person who does that is ready to fly a plane, operate on a person, calculate load bearing specifications, or do the many other things that people spend years training for.
Acoustics, and all those other things, still may be mysterious to you, but that doesn't mean that others out there don't have a good handle on things.
But, that's the nice thing about this hobby. You can experiment to your heart's content with no concerns about the plane crashing, the patient dying or the building collapsing. Who know, you may even end up improving the way your stereo sounds for you!
but seems that diffusers have great value, ie. They scatter and add clarity to sound waves, and make room seem bigger. It’s mystical, no one knows why but this seems good. A panel will do better than a bookcase, so I buy diffuser.
I think it matters a lot. In 2017, I reluctantly moved one piece of furniture and it made a big difference. I would say 100% difference. The system sounded twice as good. Moving my LP rack to the first reflection point on the left speaker was like finding the autofocus on a camera lens. And I simply rearranged the stuff that was already there.
That change alone made me chase optimum room configuration for 4 months. I didn't use specialized products. This is how powerful a room can be.
I just never thought it could make that much difference all these 30 or so years...I would move the speakers around a bit and adjust a few things and if it sounded good, I thought that it was set. Didn't think to try a little harder.
Hello, Bottom line it does not matter. We all spent serious money on our systems yet The chances of even 1% being the same is rare. All that matters is our own ears and the preference of sound that we prefer or are reaching towards. I have heard inexpensive systems that sound great and really expensive systems that do not. I am an advocate of some room treatments. That is because it sounds great to me and several other people.
Back in design school, I was in line in the shop to return some tools. A friend of mine walks up and asks the guy in front of me if he should sand just one of the pieces of wood for a project. The guy responds by saying 'just sand them all'. Then they both pause as a light flickers in their nerdy eyes before they burst out in laughter.
My name is Sandamal. It's a perfect phonetical pronunciation of my name. And once again, as it has so many times, my name has betrayed me.
Truth, but only if you want to justify your room multipurpose optimisation. However, if you have dedicated room for critical listening, the room where you want to dissolve in your music without distracting factors, you’ll need treatment.
Oh, dekay.....*sigh* 'Fanny packs' (aka 'butt bags') are So 20th Cen....
Spouse remembered a wool vest I wore decades ago (until the dry cleaner shrunk it to fit a 3 yr. old).....and got me this recently... https://www.scottevest.com/shop/mens-vests/mens-fleece-vest/fireside-fleece-vest-men.shtml Comfy, but I'm prone to 'frisking' myself trying to find whatever I'm trying to find...and you'll note it has the Least pockets of their products....
My 'listening space' is a little better than you've illustrated (no search parties required as yet), but is cluttered enough that I'm looking forward to the day it becomes obsolete due to a relocation. But, since I run DEQ, it sounds good to my drain bamage....for now. *S*
Thinking 'outside the box' first requires one to accept the existence of 'the box'... I've tended to lean into a 'mobius loop' sort of reality, myself...*G*
I set up my room using acoustical principals but without using specialized products. I don't have any glazed pictures in the room. The art on my walls are wood carvings and tapestries. It's relatively balanced. I've done this so many timesI feel I'm getting a 6th sense about getting good sound out of a room. What I've noticed is that old homes with thicker, stiffer walls do much better than the thin drywall in newer homes. Older, concrete-based acoustic ceilings are gold. Is it the best case scenario? No. But it works well enough to fool me. Now, I've had better rooms to deal with but I do also enjoy looking at the room I listen in as well. It's part of the equation for me.
Most treatment, to me, looks ill. And, let's be honest, the sound/signal does not care if it's a specialized product or not. I imagine even the best treated rooms using the latest tech aren't a perfect exploitation of their potential.
I don't have acoustical treatments because my setup is not in a dedicated room, unfortunately. I recognized the need when I did one of those sound tests that went from 1000hz to 0. On the way down, I could hear at the low end where my components provide strong bass and little bass and also where the room resonates (as did things in the room, which I removed).
It is not pointless. Many people have their systems in living rooms and cannot do their best in terms of making it the best acoustical place. Erik doesn’t play analog and listens to Luxman integrated. Not very high standards. In fact...alright, I said enough.
Millercarbon- What does “As soon as we move from the hypothetical home of the scoundrel to the particular home of the individual then acoustic treatment can suddenly matter a lot.”
On what planet do you exist? Why was it important to include the word “scoundrel”? Are you trying to come off as some kind of “Audio Sage”
I have recently purchased 2 GIK Bass Traps; the difference in sound is amazing.
You can make it more or less acceptable but if you want the best sound you got to treat the room, though I call it to tune the room. Sounds more correctly, less mechanical. Room as a musical instrument.
When you furnish your room, when you put curtains on the windows and decide on cloth furniture instead of leather, when you put up shelves and install rugs or carpet, you are acoustically treating your room whether you know it or not, whether you think you are or not. As has been said over and over, everything matters. If most rooms don’t need acoustic treatments it’s because most rooms (correctly or incorrectly) already are.
I placed pillows behind my speakers, at first reflection points, and scattered a few more around in my small home theater room. My soundstage is more present and dynamic, and the center of the soundstage is well represented despite a 52” lcd.
The challenge now is coming up with a more permanent solution. I’m talking to GIK.
I’m not sure I accurately described the difference before vs after, but I find myself listening to more music. I’m thankful for some of you keeping the treatment discussion alive.
It took me two years to find a house with a good room and if you find one of those acoustical treatment is not needed at all and when you put uneven items in the room it just keeps getting better.
There are two types of audiophiles ... those who have never tried acoustic treatments and 'think' their system sounds great. And those who have treated their rooms and 'know' their system sounds better than before.
I never noticed the "window shelves" or the ceiling for that matter.
We lost track of a "cable guy" a few months ago (starting to smell funny in here) and come to think of it I have not seen my wife and one of our cats for a few days now.
I use a fanny pack pack for the remotes (like real men do).
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