Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Acoustic Panels

Couple of quick comments...

My recollection is that an anechoic chamber is a better place to TEST a speaker than to LISTEN to a speaker. Having said that, I think all you lose is a few dB of sound level since you are basically giving up room reflections.

In that light, if acoustic panels were perfect and absorbed all frequencies equally (heck, I guess optimally would be even better as long as we are talking about magic panels) then adding a bunch of treatments would always help...

... but...

Since the panels tend to absorb over a specific range, adding too many panels gives you lots of absorbance in some frequencies and essentially none in the areas where the panels don't work, eg. frequencies below the cutoff point which is a function of material, thickness, presence of resonant membranes / panels (a la Real Traps) etc...

The result can sound worse than an untreated room, although I believe this is pretty unlikely. I think you are looking for maybe "half absorbent, half gently reflective" ie wood or drywall not ceramic tile. If your room is pretty live then sticking up a couple of panels is likely to help. If it is already pretty absorbant then maybe panels aren't the right addition.