About to invest in room treatments; GIK, RealTraps, DIY -- what is your experience?

@hilde45   Thank you for your kind words.  I do love having a dedicated room--really gives you a lot of freedom.

The generous side wall panels just allowed me some latitude for future movement of speakers or seat position if desired.  A single 2x4' panel just seemed like not enough.  Also helped tame slap echo I noted.  

The front of the room has mdf columns which of varying width and depth that help to diffuse the sound.  I will probably add a few more DIY diffusers on the front side walls and maybe even the ceiling.  I did backlight the mdf columns with incandescent night light bulbs which created a very cool subdued lighting for when I listen.  It's been a fun project. 

Did you post a pic of your recent set up/room?  Maybe I missed it, but what is your current acoustic impression of the sound/imaging you are achieving and your end goals after treatment?

@corelli I posted a photo but it's old. It's on the long wall. I've moved to the short wall and everything is in measurement Hell. Moving the sub, taking measurements on listening position, speaker position, room modes, etc. I have not done treatments yet because until I have a very firm sense of what my room's actual, physical limitations are, I won't be sure where to plant my flag, so to speak. 

My current impression of my setup is that it's quite good to excellent. But I know it has issues and I want to address them. Just need to be sure what they are. I do not want to buy lots of treatments unnecessarily.

Try my last experiment... Cost: nothing...
Reward: a totally new system....

"Helmholtz-Fibonacci silent organ" A room tuner i devised myself with bricks and plumber pipes in one hour...If you have crafty hands you can make them esthetically beautiful.....

They work with a group of three bricks of three pipes inserted in three holes in each of the 3 bricks; 9 pipes all in all, which have each three set a lenght approximating the golden ratio, then changing the way sound waves react to the normal pressure of the room...

Helmholtz is the father of room correction and the golden ratio optimize the working of the resonators on all frequencies....You must choose the lenght of the first 2 sets not too distant from one another and the last set must be with more distance in lenght compared to the first 2....i located 2 sets laterally to each one of the speakers at some short distance and the bigger set behind my listening position... 😉

Experiment with your room it is fun.....

I sell creativity not products....No cost....

Audio cost nothing if we know what we are doing, and if  we dont know, it cost also nothing  we experiment,  we learn how to do it....

 Dont fall for the upgrading obsession...


Acoustic is the main working dimension of audio system, their electronical design cannot beat a bad room....
In a very good room only very, very bad system sound bad.....

I'm not against the idea of a Helmholtz resonator type of solution, but I'm not yet sure which frequencies are most problematic. I do not have too many peaks, the greater problem is with nulls. 

My Helmholtz-Fibonacci resonators are not ordinary Helmholtz resonators... I use many ordinary one i created myself but this one is more powerful....

The most important factor is the ratio 1.618...between pipes



The series of proportionate lenght between this "silent organ" like set of pipes cleaned most frequencies ....It takes me one hour to make them with some 3 bricks in my basement and unused copper regular plumber pipes of 1 centimeter1/2 diameter....

They act marvellously at one condition: the ratio must be respected to not impair the balance between interacting frequencies...

Only one or 2 inches, too much or too less, on only one pipe, will produce a not well balance sound very audible...Approximate measure around 1 centimeter will do no audible harm tough ...

My idea come from the best Book ever about the mathematics of the golden ratio....Then i coupled the ratio idea with Helmholtz idea....The golden ratio, like pi or the number e pilot the universe at all scale....

https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Harmony-Contemporary-Computer-Everything/dp/981277582X

By the way the key to Greek acoustic and Egyptian acoustic is this ratio...I read a book about that 45 years ago....I remember the price of the book : 125 dollars in 1977.... A very great book i never regret it....In french or in english it is sold today at the same price than 45 years ago, a real bargain today in relation to inflation....😁 It was an analysis of the Karnak temple in 2 volumes in Egypt by Schwaller de Lubicz..." The temple of Man"...

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=schwaller+de+lubicz&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

But these 2 books are 1000 pages each almost and not easy reading.... 😁



«Did you know that branches dance around the trunk in a spiral which is the golden number? For sure my wife also dance always like this around men»-Groucho Marx