Room Acoustics overkill or worse?

I made 10 4" thick 2'x4' absorbers for the wall behind my speakers some time ago. They were constructed using open wood frame covered in a black fabric to keep a solid shape. I had also hung some Large PVC pipes from the ceiling in front of them to act as a pseudo room-lens diffuser. I thought it worked great at the time too. I certainly took a lot of effort (sounds butt ugly I know, but it was all hidden - see my virtual system).

Then last year I hired TM Labs to acoustically analyze my room before going even further with more treatments elsewhere (Best money I ever spent in audio BTW). It turns out I was already over-damped for 2-channel. On the HT side of things I wasn't too bad though. Since 2-channel is my priority, I removed five of the 4" absorbers and replaced four of them with diffusers. I also had to add diffusers to the wall behind me as per the TML recommendation in order to retest and pass certification.

This is a long way of offering to you that it really depends on your room and your set-up. To over-simplify, if you need 10 square feet of absorption, having that 10 square feet all in one place isn't going to work as well. WAF is a hard one to overcome. Mine said flat-out NO when I brought up 1" acoustic panels for around the room (doubles as a family recreation room). Then I made a small sample panel and she let me go-ahead. They turned out very nice looking with matching fabric. I think she was impressed...I know I was.

Regarding the fabric covering – anything you can easily breathe through should work OK. For my 1” panels I used some nice fabric I picked up at a local fabric store that matched the wall color. The fabric was the most expensive part of the panels BTW. For my rear diffusers I ended up just going straight to Guilford of Maine material.

If you wish, email me and perhaps I still have my construction pics around somewhere. It was a couple dead computers ago, so no guarantee.

Good luck,

Dave

Unless you have dipoles or panels I would suggest you do the wall behind your listening position more than the wall behind the speakers. Doing all corners with superchunks will probably have the biggest impact....3" thickness is barely enough to do anything in the bass.

Absorption is what you are doing. Sonics will degrade if you cover with silk. So, a better bet would be to cover with speaker grille cloth. Check Parts Express for their black, 70 inch wide stuff. Inexpensive and very effective. Also, have you considered moulded form rollers that you could also cover the wall. The roundness creates better absorption. Here is a link.
http://www.performbetter.com/detail.aspx_Q_ID_E_4918_A_CategoryID_E_235
Tweak, tweak and more tweak.

I wouldn't recommend over damping the room. It all depends on the room. Today most acoustical engineers and audio setup people prefer combinations of diffusors and absorbers.

An over damped room robs a system of vital presence and energy, so go slowly.

Maybe, maybe not. I looked for your Virtual System and you have nothing posted; therefore, we have no idea if you're using dipoles, rear ported, front ported, omnis or whatever. Also, we have no idea of the room size and reflectiveness of the remaining walls.

Generally, assuming the room is otherwise relatively lively, this will not be a problem. I take it your wife wants to cover the wall with silk fabric. Normally that's done over a light batting and would not be a problem. If you start adding thick absorbing material behind the silk, then you'll really deaden the room a lot.

Of course, you should look into LEDE technology. That's live-end-dead-end. This is used in some studios and demonstration room. The speakers are at the dead end of the room. It takes a powerful bass speaker to overcome the lost bass reinforcement. If you've got low ceilings and a narrow long room and need to place the speakers on a short wall, then this can be a good solution.

Anyway, generally, so long as you don't get carried away with absorbing material behind the silk, you'll be ok and that'll be a very nice listening room. Yes, you may need to move your speakers back a little closer to the wall, but that's no big deal. Any significant room changes will demand re-setting of the speakers.

Dave