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Re: Stupid Room Tricks
bridgman #407410 09/24/14 12:08 PM
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Bridgman, you said: "that's why the general recommendation is absorption on the back wall and diffusion on the front."

i was surprised at reading this; i always did the diffusion on the back wall and the absorption on the front one.
in fact, i use both absorption AND diffusion on the front wall, but only diffusion on the back wall.

sitting at the MLP, balance between direct and reflected sound is very good, but if i move my head forward, then the sound balance is more towards direct sound and less reflected sound.
when i move back some 1-2 ft. then it's as if i was sitting in the middle of the concert hall, instead of the front, with good amounts of reflected sound.
the effect is very similar to what happens when you move from a front seat to one in the middle of the concert hall.

hope this helps. :-)

Re: Stupid Room Tricks
bridgman #407412 09/24/14 01:51 PM
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You really need some curtains there. That would solve a lot of problems, I'd think. I use blackout curtains with a sheer on the room side so it won't be so plain, but it's for a small theater setup, so may not work for you, but they do seem to be sound absorbent.

Re: Stupid Room Tricks
bridgman #407415 09/24/14 04:10 PM
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I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, but what about doing it like this:
first, do the front wall for well balanced sound, using mirrors to indicate where and how much absorbers/diffusers you will have to install. In my room, i treated the whole front wall.
second, you should need to have much stronger absorption/diffusion on the right side, where your windows are, to compensate for the relative lack of reflections on the left side. for this you use mirrors again, and you install a wider surface of treatment than needed.
third, use bookshelves or whatever to diffuse reflections from the back and backside.

in all of this, the main listening position should be well considered; too far back and the acoustics will be too reverberant,
and too far forward will diminish the reverberant sound field and give you too much direct sound.
one must choose the best compromise in placement.

i tend to like better hearing the original acoustic ambiance than too much room reflections which tend to subdue the natural ambiance and sound more artificial.
if a room does not have enough absorbers/diffusers, high level sounds will be overbearing and distorted and it will be impossible to listen to music (and movies) at reference level.
i have realized in the long run that any music or movie that is not listened to at reference level will seem distorted compared to the right (live) level where the sound will be wholly natural and much more detailed than at any other volume, even by .5 dB more or less.

when one is near the optimum sound level, small changes are heard as changes in tonality of the instruments, while large changes sound like adjustments in volume.

Last edited by J. B.; 09/24/14 04:14 PM.
Re: Stupid Room Tricks
J. B. #407421 09/25/14 12:07 AM
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Originally Posted By: J. B.
Bridgman, you said: "that's why the general recommendation is absorption on the back wall and diffusion on the front."

i was surprised at reading this; i always did the diffusion on the back wall and the absorption on the front one.
in fact, i use both absorption AND diffusion on the front wall, but only diffusion on the back wall.

Whoops, you're right. I have definitely seen recommendations for dead back wall and live front wall, but I did have at least one of the "standard practices" (Live End / Dead End) backwards. Apparently the idea with LE/DE is to have the speakers in the dead end so the first room effects you hear are recorded reflections from the studio, and only later do you hear reflections from the listening room.

Good catch, thanks.

Right now I don't have much of a back wall (the living room, dining room, kitchen and loft are all basically one big area if you ignore the floor between the loft and the kitchen/dining area) and my front wall is a big window, so I'm kinda hoping I won't need a lot of treatments on either, other than curtains over the window on the front wall.


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Re: Stupid Room Tricks
bridgman #407450 09/25/14 06:50 PM
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Thanks for the feedback on the soundstage depth question. It seems you are taking more of a studio/HT approach to your treatment situation. Be careful with thinking purely LE/DE. Seems like you are being pretty experimental and staging your process. No doubt you will get exactly what you want in the end.

Generally, a deep front to back soundstage is desired for 2ch setups. The speakers tend to "dissapear" more I find. I have also found that absorbtion directly behind the listening position pushed vocals back to the speaker plane from forward as well. This might help you if you prefer all elements on the speaker plane only. smile

I have found slatted blinds do a good job of breaking up glass reflections if curtains arent your thing. You can play with the tilt. A somewhat "variable" high frequency diffuser. Definitely better than glass in any case. smile

Re: Stupid Room Tricks
AAAA #407451 09/25/14 09:02 PM
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Originally Posted By: Serenity_Now
Thanks for the feedback on the soundstage depth question. It seems you are taking more of a studio/HT approach to your treatment situation. Be careful with thinking purely LE/DE. Seems like you are being pretty experimental and staging your process. No doubt you will get exactly what you want in the end.

I didn't actually plan to do anything with treatments other than covering the first reflection points, getting some absorption on the right to help compensate for the off-center positioning, and getting some bass trapping in place.

Originally Posted By: Serenity_Now
Generally, a deep front to back soundstage is desired for 2ch setups. The speakers tend to "dissapear" more I find. I have also found that absorbtion directly behind the listening position pushed vocals back to the speaker plane from forward as well.

Agree on wanting the deep soundstage. Makes sense that would help the speakers to disappear, hadn't thought about "why it happens" before.

Interesting point about absorption behind the listener compressing the soundstage. I have often put a small amount of absorption on the back wall since without it I had no imaging at all, but sounds like it's easy to go too far with it as well.

At the moment I don't have any front or back wall treatments other than that one panel in the front window that I added because of a harsh/bright sound off to the left. I don't really have a back wall, just lots of open space.

Originally Posted By: Serenity_Now
I have found slatted blinds do a good job of breaking up glass reflections if curtains arent your thing. You can play with the tilt. A somewhat "variable" high frequency diffuser. Definitely better than glass in any case. smile

Slatted blinds sound like a good thing to try next. I definitely don't like curtains and am getting the impression that too much absorption on the front wall is not good anyways. What I really need is the old broken set of slatted blinds I threw away a lot of years back, where the cords had rotted out and each blind was at a different angle smile

Last edited by bridgman; 09/25/14 09:03 PM.

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Re: Stupid Room Tricks
bridgman #407453 09/25/14 09:51 PM
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Have you turned the set up with its back to the open space?
I gave advice to spin a room 180 degrees once, and after a few days followed my own advice to see what it would do in my own room. It made a nice difference, note worthy for sure.
I'd add when tweaking my current 7.1 set up I'll often turn my back to the mains, lean against the back of the love seat and am always surprised at how similar the sound reflecting of the back wall can be to the direct sound (7.1 again). I thought I'd mention this just in case you might have a reservation to trying because you listen in/from the larger space behind as well. You might solve all the issues in one fail swoop...or not.
Just a thought.

Last edited by brwsaw; 09/25/14 09:52 PM.


Re: Stupid Room Tricks
bridgman #407455 09/25/14 10:46 PM
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The original setup had the speakers against what is now the right wall. That didn't work for a couple of reasons -- evil first reflection off the back part of the cathedral ceiling, and really weird bass response (see page 1 for details).

The current setup has the back to the open space - dining room then kitchen directly behind (separated from living room by masonry heater), with loft above and behind.


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Re: Stupid Room Tricks
bridgman #407465 09/26/14 06:52 PM
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If the last picture is the most current it would be the opposite of my last post. The front wall (currently behind the speakers) would become the back wall, behind your seat.
I can't say it would be worth the effort but I can confirm the idea has worked.
Its all good, just trying to offer an alternative pount of view.



Re: Stupid Room Tricks
bridgman #407466 09/26/14 10:39 PM
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Ahh, when you said "with its back to the open space" I was thinking "my back" not "the back of the speakers". Nope, haven't tried that but will think about it, thanks !!

First problem would be finding a way to get into the listening area, but I might be able to put the electronics against what is now the right wall so that the space between the speakers can be used as a walk-way (and a trip-over-the-speaker-wires-way).

Last edited by bridgman; 09/26/14 10:43 PM.

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