Room treatment success story

One thing is for sure with room treatment, you cannot just ad room treatment the way someone else did because all rooms are different.

Edge22 - congrats on your GIK transaction and its impact on your room. You're well on your way to improving your room/system sound! I would HIGHLY recommend you buy and read Dr Floyd Toole's latest book (http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Acoustics-Psychoacoustics-Loudspeakers/dp/0240520092/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269601512&sr=1-1) before you spend anymore money so that you (1)buy and/or make the right kinds of products, and (2)better understand where to place treatments and why they work the way they do.

A member above recommended the LEDE (live-end, dead-end) style of treating a room -- I'd stay away from that and here's why: The LEDE concept is something that came out of the 1970's from Don/Chip Davis/Syn Aud Con for recording control rooms. It's based on mostly ill-conceived ideas that stem from a misunderstanding of the Haas effect, which describes the level at which a delayed reflection sounds equally loud to the direct sound. The Hass effect has nothing to do with the audibility of a reflection which is 30-40 dB lower in level than the Hass effect. I would not recommend an LEDE room since they sound very strange, they do not achieve what they claim, and to work well you need to add tons of absorption.

Toole's philosophy with acoustical treatment is to diffuse or absorb reflections that do harm at the listening area, and leave alone the ones that do potential good. Everything else can be ignored since they never arrive at the listeners' ears or if they do, they are well below the threshold of harm.

Also mentioned by Schipo above - who's obviously read Toole's book - is that the lateral side wall reflections are beneficial, particularly in stereo, since they can produce greater apparent source width and spaciouness, while the front/rear reflections can decrease these attributes since they come from the same direction as the direct sound, increasing the Interaural Cross Correlation Coefficient (IACC). This is why the back wall is often treated first and also because you're sitting closer to it so the audible affects will he heard more than front wall treatment due to larger atttenuation caused by signal propogation loss and the repeated surface impacts on the sound's way to the front wall. If you want to have more focussed imaging you can always choose to absorb the first side-wall reflections, personal preferences prevail.

Moreover, diffusion and absorption should be wide-band to ensure that you are attenuating the entire spectrum of the reflection rather than simply applying a low pass filter to the reflection, which causes timbral colouration. So you need 3-4 inches of high density fibreglass to work down to 200 Hz and 2-4 ft wide-band diffusers.

Edge22, you may wish to explore the DIY route as an effective yet economical way of pursuing further treatments. For example, I've got 8 GIK Tri-Traps in a single back wall corner making a 7' high rectangle shaped bass trap that's 24" wide by 24" deep with an air space of 6-7" behind it which cost $$$. For the same money I could have built way more traps AND diffusion . . .

If you want to know how to build a Skyline or Hemi-Cylindrical diffuser - both of which are excellent at preventing a 'dead' sounding room - then email me.

Good luck!

Rrog,

i only do such listening when i am tweaking. i am talking (re)position of speakers.
Also, my room was in a paint prog, so i do not just suggest all do exactly the same in their rooms. There are key elements that are pretty common though.
I had great contact with a manufacturer, they told me what i ultimately was to work with first.
I have also leveled with 4 acoustic companies before treating this specific room.
Even though they suggest a bit different, the start off point is similar.
Ofcourse rooms alter - even sonics.
There are audiofreaks changing cables, cdps etc etc to balance the percepted sound. Even though they might be better off looking over the acoustics first. Even a room that seems ok, might benefit from treatment.
Some alter this with cables. That is kind of chasing a ghost with butterfly net.
Just currently, a quite large cable manufacturer suggested i would skip the Gik package, and invest the money in their cables instead. They told me many clients had complained of same things as me, and all was bettered with the good cables they make. That pretty much tells me how screwed up the scene can be.
As i leveled pretty much with Tony Gee (Tg-acoustics) about this, he also confirmed how common this is.
I was in at a local small dealer. They have an extremely treated room (with quite large speakers). When i told them, they have great sound in their small room, and that it sound horrible at my friends home (he bought a system from them), they say it is for demo purpose and not at all needed. They say this, due to the fact many clients bought oversized speakers and and expected this would sound great in their rooms. When my friend set up his system, it sounded really bad. Go figure if he should start altering electronics and cables due to the fact he listened to them.
He could blow off so much money and never start off correct.
There are many storries i have heard that are close to this.
Not all have had opportunity to hear what room treatment and better placements can do.
Those that knows, don't have to care for this. But again, not everbody have had the chance to actually go hear differences (before/after).

I still await my full kit. It's currently being built:)
So i'll have to wait.

Inpieces, I agree with all you wrote. You are on the right track. Keep me posted, I am interested in how it goes.

Hi Rrog and ofcourse the rest of you.

I intended to do an easy compair and not complicate too much. A before and after the tweak.
Mainly keep it down to the most obvious.
Also to see, if it is ok, to use larger speakers in small listening rooms.
I will try to tell of sonics, if it alters or not.
What will change, for better or worse.
How i percept the all in all sound(field) and also, bass, mid and the top.
I only use, the typical start off kit, though, very extended due to the small size of my room.
All in all 7 panels and 8 bass absorbers.

When i had my room painted and requested help.
I explained i wanted pin point focus, heavily reduced flutter echo and fast deep bass with dynamical contrast and impact.
Flutter echo in itself, makes the sound blurr.
If just reducing flutter echo and 1-3 bass nodes (pending on rooms), it is an incredible change.
I hope it turns out well.

Either i start off a new thread named GIK Acoustic treatments (or similar)... or post here.
Expect minimum 10 days as nothing has been shipped.