Room Treatments

hi, i filled the tubes in the corner behind the speakers with the pink stuff and the other two i am moving around to experiment with are empty. the bass in my room isn,t boomy any more and i have good details and soundstage. they were 10 dollars each so a cheap way to go. the ones i have are 10 inch diameter and 4 ft long. i am contemplating buying a few more to extend the ones i have to the ceiling. i have not built stands yet so the are on some bricks to keep them open at the bottom as well as the top. i did see a pic here once of a guy who had a virtual forest of these things in his room. over a 100 of em? in various sizes and treatments. he claimed they worked great. ha

So a bit more about the blanket thing over the TV might be in order as some are missing the issue I think. You are going to get reflections off it as the sound from the speakers projects out hits a surface and bounces back. Then it will hit the glass and come out into the room again. Putting a fabric over the glass is the easiest and least expensive way of dealing with it.

Any glass you have in the room will be an issue regardless of where it is. It tends to be highly reflective and it rings a bit like a bell. I have glass on a gas fireplace in the room and two glass doors to the room. The glass doors are two sheets of glass with three sheets of clear plastic film (one on either side and one between) and they have drop-down honeycomb shades for the most absorption.

I don't do anything with the fireplace however, I think I should as it's behind the speakers and off to one side...

Anyway, by simply throwing a blanket over the screen things should improve. I think...

I found that absorption gives you clarity and diffusion give you realism. Take a look at my system. The room treatments are the most important part. I've added RPG Modfractals between the speakers and more bass trapping in the corners above the mondo traps. I'll update my site shortly.

I used Rives for the plans,RealTraps for corner bass trapping and RPG Diffusor treatments.

hi bigby, are those lights on your ceiling or sound treatments? very nice looking and just wondered about what improvements they made.

Kclone,
Nice system and expensive too! You really are only listening to a fraction of its capabilities because the room is the other 50% of what you're listening too, whether you realize or like it or not . . .

My room is the same dimensions as yours so for what it's worth look at my System pics to get an idea of what I've put where.

I would highly recommend you read Dr Floyd Toole's latest book as it's excellent at applying the physics and pyschoacoustics to stereo and surround sound / HT. Armed with some education you will be in a better position to critically evaluate manufacturer's products and other people's advise, mine included.

How much liberty do you have at hanging and adding room treatments or is there a significant other than will banish you from the bedroom at the first sight of treatments?

Not all reflections are created equally and the ones coming from the back and front walls are worst so I'd start there. Diffusion behind you adds listener envelopment and depending on your distance from the listening chair to the back wall will determine if 1D or 2D diffusion can be used and the max cell/well depth that it will diffuse down to. Also diffuse the side walls at and behind the listening position for further listening envelopment. The front & back walls should have bass absorption at the 25%, 50% and 75% points across the wall width at least. For mid/high frequencies for the front wall you can try absorption or diffusion for personal preferences.

Side walls will need some kind of treatment to deal with the slap/flutter echos and you can opt to experiment with absorption or diffusion to find what type of sound you like best. You can also use reflection which is what I'm in the process of redoing my room with using long boards hung horizontally but with the bottom angled upwards so that sounds hitting it are reflected upwards towards the ceiling where I have RPG Skyline diffusion to further attenuate the reflections.

As you can see there is much to this - throw in measurments of RT30/60, Frequcy Response Vs SPL levels, and others, then mix in personal preferences and you have thousands of permutations . . . I've learned a heck of a lot via studying and communicating with Dr Sean Olive, Prof Trevor Cox and experimentation within my own room moving diffusion and absorption here there and everywhere and measuring before/after effects.

Good luck.