RPTV with combination HT and Audio systems?

I used 1" x 1" wood to build a large frame in which I placed 1" duct board by using thick duct tape. This duct board is available at your local contractor supply housein 4' x 10' sheets for about $25. It is foil backed and has 1" of compressed insulation.

You can then cover the frame with your choice of acoustically transparent material. I haven't gotten around to covering mine. It does an amazing job at sound absorption. I don't use it often, but for my most serious listening, I put this in front of the TV. It covers the whole TV (I have a 57" Toshiba widescreen.) It stops alot of early reflections of the sound energy coming off the back and sides of my speakers. It helps to lock in the soundstage. When you are not using it, you can lean it against a wall or take it to the garage, etc.

A comforter over the tv does wonders-- not so much for the tv picture--

I've just been experimenting a bit to see how much of an affect the reflections off my 60" 16:9 Runco RPTV is having on my audio set up. My speakers, Dunlavy Cantatas, are about 10 ft apart and 2 ft in front of the RPTV. All walls and ceiling are treated acoustically with various absorbing, relecting and diffusing panels that are stretch covered with cloth. So I began to wonder how much an affect the acoustic anomolly is having on the audio. I had some firm 1" fiberglass insulation left over from the room construction so I cut it into two panels that I could lean on the RPTV and cover the screen in similar fashsion to Bufus.

Well, the difference in a short listening test is noticable but not enormous. It seemed that the biggest affect was clarity. Vocals were less constrained and solo trumpet seemed ever so clear and not muted. Is this consistent with eliminating early reflections would predict? Maybe it's due to the distance that the speakers are in front of the RPTV so that there are no or few direct reflections ased on the geometry on my set up. I'll experiment a bit more and if I can figure a convenient way to make the panels easy to apply I'll probably use them regularly.

Right now I'm considering building two frames that would be connected with a piano hinge and then bifold up and back to lay flat on top of the RPTV. This would work great if only I could build something that looked good and would mount to the RPTV without screwing it up. Some kind of bracket screwed to the rear of the set seems to be the key.

Coincidentally, I put my absorption board in front of the TV last night for the first time in a while. Once again, I immediately hear improvement. I said above that "it does an amazing job." I said this in reference to the material in general. You can walk up to this insulation board and talk directly into it and it sounds like it is absorbing a great deal of sound. So, the improvement of the board in front of the TV may not be "amazing." For me it is substantial. Anything I can do that brings an audible improvement is "amazing" in my mind and probably insignificant or insane to my family and friends. My speakers are in about the same place as RAPs. I think the board must attenuate early reflections from the rear/sides of the speakers. In my mind, this should serve to better the sound quality in many areas. To me, it brings out low level detail and positions each instrument/vocal more accurately to its prper location on the soundstage. RAP, since you have a very nice absorber/diffuser setup already, you may not get as much improvement as me. Another reason it may benefit me is that my TV screen and leather couch kind of form a pair of reflective parallel surfaces. Of course, this causes slap echo which can really smear the soundstage.

My recent experimentation with different absortion/difussion materials suggests that everthing you do makes a difference, with trade-offs. Sometimes I even think that not having anything in front of the RPTV has its advantages.
The possible hidden benefits of a large object between your speakers is that this creates another intersection to use bass/tube traps etc. I put a couple of 11" tube traps to side rears of my RPTV so I now have 4 traps across the front wall (ie the room corners and the corners created by the RPTV wall intersection). There is no question that this approach has lead to a definite significant improvement across the board.

Erniec