You should consider BACCH4MAC.... their room correction software (ORC) is amazing.... I have an office with windows along both sides and it fixed everything as well as made the speakers completely disappear... most incredible technology I have ever heard Theoretica Applied Physics BACCH4Mac Stereo Purifier Review - The Absolute Sound
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Here is a small trick that can help you in this journey. Stand or sit in the listening position and clap your hands loudly once. Listen for the effect. If you get a jittery echo as the sound fades away that is a problem. It is called "slap echo." Now walk around your room and do the hand clap and listen. Get a sense for how the decay is different at different locations. Your master bath is a good place to hear the extreme situation of a very live space with poor acoustics. Now do that in several other rooms in your house. Listen for the quality of the decay. Does the decay happen quickly or do you hear a slap echo during a longer decay. Take some time and get a sense of the acoustics of your rooms and their properties. For your listening room the quality of the decay is the critical factor you will be managing. You want a clean decay without slap echo that is fairly short. Try hanging some double or triple folded blankets on your windows and the walls in various places. As you add material do the slap test to hear the effect on your room's acoustics. Now you are ready to listen to music. Find out what your system sounds like in a deader (is that a word?) space. I strongly urge you to work on room acoustics before you try EQ, cables, or room correction. You cannot cure poor room acoustics with any of these things. Once you get a good idea of how much sound absorption you need you can work with your significant other to figure out the decorating/absorption compromise. There are a bunch of companies that make this stuff including acoustic curtains and there are many solutions available that can look nice. If this is your main living area you will also gain the benefit from better acoustics in everyday activities such as watching TV and especially, converation with several people in the room. It is easier to understand what people are saying if the echo is controlled. Hope this helps. |
I had a similar issue. My listening room is 16' wide by 33' long. It is an "A" frame with 12:12 pitch and no truss cross members. each end of the "A" frame is all glass. The floors are Oak Hardwood and the ceiling is Cedar planks. We have a large masonry fire place in the middle centered in the 16' width of the room about 2/3 back from the front wall where the speakers sit. Yes, a very reflective room, but a very good listening room. we treated the front windows with horizontal accordion blinds, the floor has a large wool rug and we have some large fabric paintings on walls. I also included a Schiit Loki Max, started with everything neutral and dialed down just a bit of the top end. Room sounds fantastic. I'm currently designing a kitchen addition and new listening room but it will be similar to the current one, simply adding the room to the end of the "A" frame but a bit wider with more non- glass corners for behind the speakers. Try the blinds, they fold away nicely so you can enjoy your views when you want to. |
@panzrwagn has it right.
The acoustics treatment route is the only way out. If it were my space, heavy theater curtain type drapes (so you can completely close all the glass off) would be step one. That will cost a more than the speakers probably. Then progressively more treatment on the floor (rugs) ceiling (cloud/panels), until the reflections are tamed down enough to get a decent balance. After all that, if it still isn't great then correction software like Trinnov (that works on good rooms and speakers to amp them better) would be worth trying out. "Room correction" is a complete misnomer as you cannot correct physical acoustical problems without changing the physical properties of the space. Electronics cannot fix room issues, it can make them less apparent in one or two locations but it will never "correct"/ "fix" them. We work with Trinnov on the pro side and there this type of software is called room optimization-which works on the way the speaker sound and the room sound combine with each other and create a third sound, the sound you hear. Brad |
I feel your pain! My listening room has 2 4x10 floor to ceiling windows, hardwood floors, and a stone wall at one end. It was bright. 1st reflection is the stone wall on one side, then an open doorway on the other side. 1. rugs, blankets over furniture. 2. window treatments, fabric blinds works well, but you get no light (also affects plants) added blackout curtains (they are super heavy, made to absorb sound) also added shear coverings over the entire window. 3. Fabric wall hangings. Have a few canvas pictures up, packed the backs with rock wool. There are 2 just behind each speaker. Along the long walls to my listening position. 4. big plants. Have huge fern, a palm, other plants, they really do make a difference, and warm up the room. 5. Weirdly, my record collection along the wall, helped calm the room down. 6. Added L-Pads to my tweeters. Not sure this is really a thing, as they are replacement tweeters that are +6db louder, kind of needed to be done. I'm very interested in the ZW-damping disk. What are they made from? Are they just Sorbothane disk? Windows absorb resonate and reflect so much sound! |
