Room Treatments anyone else experience a major improvement with them?

[jp11801]

Well I've owned my Alon Lotus SE speakers for close to a year now and love them. They sounded great in my house in Cali as the room had decent diffusion and not much of an echo. When I loved to PA and set them up in my second story loft they sounded pretty awful. There was a fairly massive echo and no real low bass to speak of.

I have used some auralex treatments in the past and they are ok but in this room they just did not do the trick. So after much searching on the web I checked out GIK as there panels are reasonably well made and very fairly priced based on parts cost and minimal labor costs. At $70 a panel for their 244 panel ( a 2' x 4' and 4" deep) I picked up 8 panels for my 13 x 18 room. After hanging 4 and placing the other 4 ( I probably could have just used 6) the sound has taken a huge leap forward. Images are much more defined micro detail in spades with much better extension on the top and bottom end. I understood how the absorption panels would reduce echo and clean up the mids and highs but I was not prepared for the distinct improvement in bass response in both quantity and quality.

As yo can see still have some work to do in the room like figuring out the TV placement and better placement of the rack as well as removal of the second rack. I am thinking of trying to ceiling mount a panel for first refections there as well as making up some corner ceiling traps but for now I am just enjoying my system and kicking myself for not doing this sooner. Any suggestions regarding placement of panels is appreciated as well.

[aardvark baguette]

My first time through w/ room treatments was my parents basement, where I simply coated the front wall with auralex absorption panels. I believe they were 2' x 2' x 2", but they may have been 4" deep, I cant remember. It was not very sophisticated, but it did soak up that main reflection pretty well. They were hideous though, solid purple. I wish Auralex would make a decent shade of white at normal prices.

My second experience is my new house, I went with Acoustimac absorption panels, followed by Auralex diffusion panels. I think the Acoustimac stuff is similar to your GIK material, its fiberglass with a wood backing and coated with a cloth that allows penetration of sound. I went with 2 bass traps (2' x 4' x 4"), which are on wood risers, and several panels of the same size, that are only 2" deep. I forget how many, I want to say 4...

The Acousticmac cleaned up echo like you mentioned, but the most amazing improvement was when I added the diffusion to my back wall. Its a very small room, and the back wall is only several feet behind the computer desk, so its not surprising I guess. These are 2' x 2' x2" "MetroFusors". It cleaned up echo, and seemed to give everything much more definition across the entire range. After that, I started (but have not finished) installing Auralex mini fusors on the top of the 2 sidewalls. I also placed polyfill in these to catch the sound that penetrates the resin (mainly bass frequencies afaik). My goal was diffusion, but I figured the polyfill could help even out the bass since it tends to collect in corners.

If I stopped now, I'd be happy with the sound, but the diffusion made such an improvement that I want to experiment further. I'm probably going to get several more absorption panels and try mounting them on the ceiling, and some sort of diffusion for the remainder of the ceiling. One thing I'm curious about is mounting techniques for the absorption panels. I'd like to try mounting at an angle to create an air gap behind them, but its tough to do while maintaining a desirable aesthetic.

Room treatments definitely gave me a deeper appreciation for speakers overall, as the room becomes 'energized' in such an exciting way. I was surprised at the sound quality I've gotten with my new subwoofer, since it was the cheapest model in REL's product line. I'm guessing the treatments share in the results quite a bit, even though I've not really properly utilized the largest panels.

[tom_hankins]

Treatments made a major improvment in my room.

I use the Auralex panels on the front wall (almost completely covered), and two of the Michael Green room tune packs throughout the rest of the room. I still think I could do better with a couple of Bass traps for the front corners, sometime in the furture.

Before using the treatments had horrible echo, soundstage never seemed right, and bass was either overpowering or nothing at all, depending where you were standing. I think I put less than $800.00 total, money well spent.

[jvlgato]

Huge difference for me. Can't recall brand names, and I'm on a trip right now. I went the cheapskate route, and still heard a huge difference in imaging and in controlling frequency response anomalies due to room size/ resonance. I have triangles in every corner (very small difference, maybe none), bales of insulating material in the corners behind the speakers (big help in controlling a mid-bass bump), panels on each side wall at the point of first reflection (big difference in cleaning up image), panels on the walls behind the speakers (I can't notice a difference). YMMV depending on your particular room, but I think room control is a very important part of any setup. Certainly as important (probably more important) as the crazy things we do for electricity and such! Just my humble opinion ...

[robm321]

Room treatment is VERY important. I had to become an expert in acoustics when I was trying to get a square room to work. I ended up using a diagonal set up in the end, but in the mean time my obsession caused me to read books, articles, etc.

I'm glad because I know feel like I can tweak a room by ear and know exactly where to place everything. An untreated room with some bad dimensions can take a solid set up and make it almost un-listenable. Room acoustics are THAT important.

[wgb113]

Does a nearfield setup change the game at all? Once our basement is finished and the toys move downstairs I'd like to make a special dedicated listening room in the office. It will be a nearfield setup so I'm curious is acoustic treatments would have as big an impact.

Bill

[jp11801]

How far away from the speakers will you be sitting

[boomana]

I remember that screen. I forgot you were the one who had it.

Oh, and I know nothing about room treatments. I just have rugs and heavy curtains on the windows. You wouldn't know I live in Florida once inside my house.

[Dusty Chalk]

Does a nearfield setup change the game at all? Once our basement is finished and the toys move downstairs I'd like to make a special dedicated listening room in the office. It will be a nearfield setup so I'm curious is acoustic treatments would have as big an impact.

Nope. Part of the benefit of nearfield is that the room makes much less of an impact on the sound. But as jpnumbs said, how close are you sitting, because nearfield is pretty tight. A lot of people say nearfield when they mean midfield.

[deepak]

By the Cardas/Barry Diament definition of near field room treatments will definitely help.

[aardvark baguette]

All my positive comments were in reference to my current room, which is nearfield.

Again, the diffusion made the biggest difference.

[wgb113]

How far away from the speakers will you be sitting

The speakers are @ 4' apart and I'm about 4' from the plane of the speakers.

I would think that treatment (absorption) on the wall behind them would yield the biggest benefit but aardvark's had good results with diffusion.

Bill

[grawk]

that's about the setup I use with my jbl l65s. I do need some sort of diffusion panel behind me.

[Tyll Hertsens]

I've had GREAT results using room treatments.

RPG Studio in a Box in particular.

[aardvark baguette]

I'm dying to try that skyline stuff.

[deepak]

Perhaps this discussion will warrant a new thread and I certainly need to experiment more. But so far I've achieved the best imaging using the Cardas setup guide. I'm sitting 8' away from the speakers (with a setup in a semi equilateral shape) and this is near field by their definition. Moving about a foot back I lose a lot of the precision but the soundstage does get bigger.

Looking at a lot of "reviewer" rooms which may not mean a whole lot most of them sit closer to the speakers. Before doing a bit of research on this subject I was sitting closer to the back of the room (14' from speakers) and the imaging was really non-existant.

[Dusty Chalk]

Maybe I'm being Jacob-indignant with terminology (remember the Vodka Martini!), but I don't consider 8 feet to be nearfield. So my issue is with Cardas not with you.

Think about the old BBC LS3/5a, and how engineers usually had it perched over their mixing boards, so they'd be the depth of a mixing board away from the speakers -- that is nearfield, to me. Arm's reach. If you can fit a coffin between you and the speaker, that's approaching midfield, IMHO.

That said -- so many people piped up in this thread as having successful results with room treatments, even in the nearfield, that I'll shut up now.

[skullguise]

I'll chime in with some nearfield experience too. Material behind the speakers didn't make so much difference, but behind me - a tapestry hung on the wall - did make a difference. I think some high frequencies were bouncing off and back to me. Things smoothed out, and - though I may have imagined it - soundstage snapped into slightly better focus.

I was about 6-7 ft from speakers (midfield?), they were about the same distance apart.3-4 feet each from side walls.

My all-time favorite experience with room treatment, though, was when Michael Greene came to Ensemble in NH. They had some Ariel Acoustics speakers there, the B&W 801-looking models (10T I think). Never sounded as good to me..... Well, they set it up with Rowland elctronics, and Michael came and did his thing. He said he was about 40% of where he'd like to be when we went in a few at a time and listened. HUGE difference! EVERYTHING - tone, space, imaging, detail, bass depth and impact - was improved. I ended up with a Roomtunes Small Pack as I think they were called. Made a noticable differnce when I had more room in my room. Now, it's completely cluttered, and very little sounds good if not nearer-field.

[Tyll Hertsens]

Near field is within a meter or less ... about ... sort of.

[Salt Peanuts]

That's good to know about Michael Greene stuff, as I was considering his products at one point when I used to have a listening room. Maybe one day, if I ever get my listening room back and/or if we finish our basement.

[grawk]

I used the cardas guide for midfield with my speakers, and got magic...

[wgb113]

I've got a Michael Greene room pack in storage from my old dedicated theater room. I'll have to get them out and see. I like the GIK products too.

Has anyone measured the differences at the listening position to get a before and after snapshot of what they actually did? When I go through with this I plan on using the treatments in conjunction with a Behringer DEQ2496 plus mic.

Bill

[deepak]

I've got a Michael Greene room pack in storage from my old dedicated theater room. I'll have to get them out and see. I like the GIK products too.

Has anyone measured the differences at the listening position to get a before and after snapshot of what they actually did? When I go through with this I plan on using the treatments in conjunction with a Behringer DEQ2496 plus mic.

Bill

I haven't done any measurements yet, but plan to get more serious about it when I get some better speakers.

luvdunhill recommended me a great book for this stuff, but it's fairly deep with regard to the math (Testing Loudspeakers)

[bhjazz]

I tried three or four different room setup concepts. They got me to maybe 50% of where I am now. The real problem was they were all different so comparing one against another was mostly impossible. Then I got serious.

I bough Jim Smith's book Get Better Sound. His setup beat the others quite handily and I finally got to a point where I could really do some fine tuning. For the cost of the book, this was money very well spent. And never mind that room setup are just a chapter or two in the book. There are a hundred or more others there, too. In the end, I was stil only at 60% of where I am now. I probably could have lived happily with this setup because it worked really well. But I didn't know what was ahead. So I got serious. Again.

Something wasn't totally locking in. In my room, vocals could drift, horn sections were congested, bass was...where was the bass, exactly? I called ASC, the Tube Trap people. Michael Smith (no relation) spent oodles of time with me. I sent measurements (height and width, as well as audio measurements at the listening seat), he gave me ideas.

I'll add in here that the service from ASC was outstanding. This guy wanted to talk shop and acoustics and rooms and music. It was a blast.

I ended up getting a "full workup" as they call it, which included an exact speaker setup plus a plot of where the main Tube Traps would go. My optimal room would need 7 traps and a small assortment of wall difusors. I couldn't get them all at once, so I opted for the "attack wall", the most important traps: the three that sit behind the speakers on the front wall, left, center, right.

While waiting for these to arrive, I set up my speakers per the ASC diagram, then spent another evening rotating them and fine tuning the center image. The speakers ended up further out from the front wall and toed in towards my listening set, but not pointing directly at it. Yeah, things were getting pretty good now.

Once the trap trio showed up, well, game over. Vocals locked, bass was clean and finally there, and the horn sections (and everything else) was uncongested, relaxed, and finally musical. I can get farther into the music than ever, now. The sound stage width is well outside the speaker panels, and on good recordings, pretty deep as well. Vocals are more immediate without being in my face. Yeah, all the good stuff. You know what I mean. Having the traps evacuate all that extra noise out seems to be the key.

I'll post a room photo when I get a chance, and the before/after room measurements I made with Room EQ Wizard, which is a pretty good piece of software for taking measurements...and it's free as well.

The ASC Tube Traps were the key. For me, this was the real deal. Speaker setup was a big part of the whole package, but the room response is something you just can't get around without room treatment. It all sounds fanboyish. Until you hear it.

[MASantos]

Here's the site of a Portuguese(actually the guy's Brazilian) audio engineer that has some great work in room acoustic treatment. Click on the names to see some pics.

Some nice custom home theater rooms and overall nice solutions. Shame there are no descriptions of the work done.

This one is really nice: AUDIO DESIGNER , a 500000€ 7.1 surround listening room. It later evolved to become a working station for 7.1 mastering. There's an article about it however it's written in portuguese. The pics are worth it though!