Tube traps

Where did you find the DIY projects?

Here's a link for DIY tube traps:
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/a.htm

Here's the link to his main page:
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/

the Jon Risch site is very good for these. However, you do need to make a bunch of them. When room modes are excited a few placed in the corners will not make a very big difference. I often hear people tell me--these traps don't work. Well, they do, but room modes are compounded by the surface area of wall(s) and thus need a large portion of the wall covered to relieve the pressure that is causing the problem.

For problematic rooms like mine ( highly reverberant) commercial tube traps work extremely well. I doubt that any other treatment would work as well. The traps need to go from floor to ceiling, and all of the corners and first reflection points need to be treated. Also, any extended reflective surfaces.
Its not a sightly solution, but highly effective.
One problem with many tube traps in a room is that they will eventually tip the frequency balance, typically leaning out the midrange.

I just completed a full range trap/system. My ideas came from the designer of RealTraps.com. Actually, search for bass trap on the web and you will find the first site Ethan Winer used before he started realtraps.

I made 3 different traps. Two low bass traps, two midbass traps and 2 mid/high traps. mine started with his ideas but I made them a little different. No way would my wife let me hang them on the walls. I made free standing boxes about 4 feet tall. My base boxes unlike Ethan's have insulation for the faces so that I could place them around the room to get mid/highs. Therefore, all of my boxes are good for mid high as well.

My system is not optimal since I am not treating all walls. BUT, the improvement is amazing. I have JmLab mini-utopias with VTL tube gear. I just moved into a new house and to my horror the new living room made my system sound like a boom-box. REALLY muddy. Now the bottom end is so much tighter. Second I am using the strictly mid/high boxes on the front and rear walls. The soundstage is great-while the speakers just fade away. I made them look like art-well a little like art anyway.

My placement is as follows. One low and one mid bass trap behind the speakers and in the corner. That is one side a low the other a mid. Then a box next to the speaker along the walls to kill specular reflections. One gets a low the other a mid. Last, The back wall gets a larger, 4'by 4' mid/high and another I place one between the speakers. My rear wall is about ten feet back so that one is not too dramatic of a difference. The one between the speakers really pulls the stereo image out. Since my panels are free standing I move this one around since my speakers are on either side of a fireplace.

Sorry, this was rather long but this type of works very well even if you cannot cover all the walls. The physics theory is sound and in pracitice it can make a huge difference.

Stephen