How to diagnose the need for room treatment?

I am in India. It looks like it is not possible to get fiberglass panels over here. Is it possible to use EGG TRAYS which are made of THICK paper to back and the side walls. Thickness of the egg tray could range from 1/10 in to 1/4 of an inch.

EGG TRAY is 1ft by 1ft in dimension has corrugations such that it can fit eggs. It am not sure it works as a absorber or diffuser.

Let me know your opinion.

Paper egg trays are, fundamentally, useless.

Kal

Sandhya,

Thanks for bringing up this thread of mine again. A year and a half has gone by and I've done a fair amount of further reading and experimentation and things have improved, and I'm still working on improving things further. This might be the second most interesting aspect to being an oddiophile (ja!), following the enjoyment of music itself, of course.

I'm surprised you cant't find fiberglass panels in India. Where are you looking for them, may I ask? I say this because I'm in Argentina and I can find them at construction supply stores. Both the panel and the fiberglass wool are used as insulation for construction and industrial applications.

Horacio

Horacio,
Congrats on last nights win by argentina into q/f.

Last since I posted, after further reading I came to know that this is the same thing which is used for A/C Insulation. We do find it over here.

I have more questions.

1. What is the amount of insulation we need to do. 1 in or 2 inch. How do we determine.

2. I suppose we need to make wooden frames, fit the fiberglass wool and then what do we need to cover it with. Fabric is the only choice.

3. How much of % of walls do we need to cover it with. Is there a possibility that the room would become not lively or dead.

You say you are experimenting. How are you doing it.

Can you let me know few examples.

Thanks
Sandhya

Sandhya,

Thanks for the compliments. It's a big deal in this part of the World!

To me it has been worthwhile learning about this. The two books I have are Alton Everest's master Handbook of Acoustics and Floyd Toole's Sound Reproduction. Both very good and they complement each other nicely.
I've been reading a lot over the internet too. Examples: Real Traps website, as well as the other websites mentioned obove on this thread.

As far as your question about fiberglass thickness and how much and placement. It depends!!
Treating some of the first reflection points is important, and for that you can use 2" fibeglass panels of 50 kg/m3 placed against the wall.
For bass absorption you'll be better off with a fair amount of space between the panel and the wall, at least 4" space, and a 4"-thick panel.
Check out Audio Asylum for Jon Risch's panel recepies. same for bass tube traps.
For covering the fiberglass I use polyester batting (cheap insulator used for mild-cold weather jackets).

My way of experimenting has been listening and taking measurements with a Radio Shack SPL meter when changing speaker and listening positions, building 2 large bass tube traps, building 2 3"-thick panels for front wall first reflection points, and building two 4"-thick self-standing panels, and adding a thick wool carpet on the floor first reflection points. I'm now building a larger panel for a specific place where I suspect it will be very beneficial.

This takes time and effort, though, and is oftentimes frustrating. So be aware of it before going in. It pays off, though!!

Sorry for the long post.

Horacio