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Accidental improvement in performance...cheap

I had family and friends over this weekend, my dad has a nice system and two members came down for a couple days. We had more people than rooms and one friend stayed in my listening room on an air bed (Queen size) the kind that comes with a electric pump and folds into a gym bag, $40.00 at Walmart.....anyway, during the day he rested it against back wall behind speakers. We went down for some serious listening and he asked if he should move it, thinking it would be easy to just leave it there we fired things up (I figured if it made the sound bad we would move it) now this Air Bed has dimples that look like where the springs would be and it has a sort of suede finish and I am probably going to be laughed at but the system never sounded so good, less smear and HF glare, maybe ot also asted as a sort of bass treatment too, so I wonder if folks would maybe try this if they have an air bed and report what you hear.........I think it made a nice improvement (or we just simply had a great time and my mood made everything sound great) Cheers
chadnliz
tobias
1,534 posts
 
IMHO what you tried was really a "quick and dirty" bass trap. I had something similar happen when I put a big bag of pink fiberglass (in the unopened bag) in the corner nearest my rack. Esthetically horrible but acoustically nice. So now I think you have an idea of how a bass trap (and maybe some diffusion) could improve your listening room.
aball
2,018 posts
 
That is great! I love stories like this. A friend of mine has a nice older system with some Energy Conoisseur C8 speakers. We were listening to it one day and there were some rather obivous bass modes rearing their heads up. Laying on the floor were a pair of poufs and we thought of putting them in the corners behind the speakers. The difference was clear - pun intended! We were surprised at how much difference they made.

Arthur
dan_ed
2,451 posts
 
In addition to a possible bass trap as Tobias mentioned, also consider that you treated the first reflection point on the floor. Maybe you should try and hang one of those air mattresses from the ceiling as well. :-)
undertow
1,033 posts
 
Makes perfect sense, which #1 the sueded surface helps knock down the reflections behind your head, and the Air in such a contained capacity is the best bass damper you can find, Air cavity. Or a big fuzzy couch will do this with less of an obstruction :-) Room acoustics are everywhere, it is really more simple, just finding the right furniture and location is the hard part!
electroid
283 posts
 
I use two twin bed matresses at the first reflecting point of my speakers. (one in front of each on the opposing wall) Huge difference. My wife is so understanding.

ET
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