Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater A question for the sub owners in the house...

GIK's Tri-Traps are constructed with plastic nowadays? Whenever I bought my Tri-Traps about three years ago the framing was made from heavy duty cardboard and 1"x 1"s, which worked out good because I trimmed a couple of them to fit on top of an existing pair already in he corners to fill each front wall corner from floor to ceiling. The one thing I don't like however is that there is a slight coloration difference in the black fabric between the two pairs that is somewhat noticeable, good product overall though.

If nothing else I'd at least give the bass traps a try, they certainly made an improvement in our room.

I bought mine about a year and a half ago and the top and bottom plates are plastic (maybe 1/8 to 3/16 of an inch thick). The frame is probably still made the same way. I would still recommend them if you don't feel like a DIY project.

Excuse my ignorance but I've never even heard of bass traps before... What purpose do they serve? Do they absorb some excess, harsh, over powering bass? Or do they somehow bounce bass back into the listening area? I was under the impression that unlike the upper frequencies of the sound spectrum, bass was non-directional.

But if there are companies out there making products that redirect bass, then I suppose I don't quite understand bass as much as I thought I did.

Micah:
You'll hear several opinions on bass traps, as many people have strong feelings about them.

The purpose of the traps is to prevent bass (bassi or basses for the plural) from running around loose in your theater room, where they will eventually breed and make little mids and (what are affectionately called) little tweets. Cute as the little families are, they'll eventually annoy your neighbors, ruin your carpets and drink your beer.

Still, though, I think it's just cruel to trap your bassi in this style of bass trap:


(This photo illustrates just how cruel it is by actually showing a bass bone caught in the trap)


For me, keeping them out of the theater room but in a "humane" way is what's most important. This is the one that I use because it doesn't harm the basses, and I can later release them into the wild:


I don't mean to preach, but my take on it is that they both serve the purpose, one just allows you to sleep a bit more peacefully.

Ah thank you, you've been most helpfull!


So anyway... I'm certainly no expert on this subject, but my confusion arises from the information I gained watching a fascinating program about elephants on 'Animal Planet' on the Discovery Channel. They explained how elephants communicated over hundreds of miles in the wild by using sub-sonic requencies emmited through their trunks. They showed the way the upper range of the sonic wavelengths were limited by things like tree's, rocks, grass, and anything else that might come between you and the subject making the sound. Then they showed how sub-sonic wavelengths actually move right through just about any object that you can find in the jungle (not many bass traps laying around out there I don't guess) and therefore can be heard (or more likely 'felt') from extrodinary distances.

So it seems to me if these frequencies can travel uninterupted over those kinds of increadible distances in the Sahara... Why would I have a problem hearing/feeling the bass in my living room from 15 feet away???

Hi Micah:
Sorry about the humor...I didn't have any useful info to add as I don't have bass traps in my room. I assumed that by the time I posted or very shortly after, others with more experience would have posted some truly helpful info and my post would have simply been one in a crowd!

I'm sure others will be along shortly!

Hi Micah. Pay no attention to that Mark guy. He'a a pain in the afterburner.

You can learn a lot about acoustics in general and bass traps specifically from articles and videos at RealTraps.com. Other companies that manufacture similar products are GIK Acoustics, and ATS Acoustics. You might find more info at their web sites.

No worries, humor is not lost on me. In fact I had quite a chuckle when I re-read my post and realized I'd wrote that elephants talk to eachother across the Sahara... which of course is not a place where many elephants would indeed be communicating. And if they were, they'd probably be asking each other how in the hell to get back to the freakin jungle already! lmao

Mark. Now I understand why you have a room that sucketh. Those basses are breeding in the trap. Ya gotta use trap #1 or you're done fer.

The intent is that they absorb excess, harsh, overpowering bass.

If you were listening in a huge anechoic chamber you would only hear the bass coming from your subwoofer. In a normal room, you get a louder signal at certain frequencies and a quieter signal at other frequencies because of room resonances, which are a function of the room dimensions.

Even in a room with ideal dimensions (there are various recommended ratios for length:width:height) you will still get a bumpier bass response from the resonances than you would in an anechoic chamber. You might think bass peaks aren't so bad, but you end up having to turn the subwoofer down to avoid booming and as a result other frequencies get short-changed. In the very worst case you get Mark's room - there's a reason he is so bitter about anything related to bass.

Bass traps absorb some of the energy. As I understand it, placing them in corners and wall junctions results in absorbing relatively more of the energy from the resonances than from other frequencies (although I'm a bit unclear on how that works), reducing the peaks and giving you a somewhat flatter response. They aren't a magic bullet but they do seem to be a useful tool for dealing with specific room problems, and most rooms seem to benefit from having some.

Mark, I hate having to be the one to point this out, but the dimensions of your trap #2 look to be almost exactly 2:1:1, not unlike a cube in terms of bass response