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This is going to be an eventual thing for me, after I buy the rest of my gear and prepare to move the home theater into the basement, but I've been skimming through Audioholics.com, and they advertise the acoustical consultation of Rives Audio. Has anyone here actually paid for their services? I would like to make my room the best listening environment possible, and I don't see myself learning enough to make that happen. I'm wondering what you all have done to improve your room's acoustics.

C.V.

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I'm wondering what you all have done to improve your room's acoustics.

Bought some headphones.

Charles, on a serious note, I bought some little triangle thingies that go in the corner. I have a small room, and the corner treatments help to tame some of the bass boominess. Also helps deaden the echo in the room. Noticeable even when I make noise and talk.

Others have looked into room acoustics more than I have, and am sure they will chime in.

If I put a serious home theater in the basement in the future (didn't have budget to finish the basement now) I will definitely call Rives in. I was VERY tempted to bring them in for the initial construction of the house but I was very tight for budget and the schedule was pretty tight, so I didn't think there would be time to work out any significant changes with the builder.

There is a high end audio site where a number of the regulars have used Rives and were very satisfied. It might be one of the audiogon forums, not sure. All I can say is that I have heard lots of good and no bad about them.

Regarding treatments, the dimensions were poor and the bass response very uneven, so my first step was going to be loading the room down with bass traps. Fortunately, I ended up moving to a new house and was able to participate in the design, and the acoustics in the new room are much better.

Do a search here on "superchunk" and you will find a few threads from Randy (sirquack) regarding his recent adventures with room treatments. A number of other people also offered comments about their own experiences.

Sorry I don't have more to offer. I can tell you that some experiments I conducted with a bedroom system -- mostly treating reflections at the sides and behind the listening position -- had an astounding affect on imaging and perceived quality of the sound. I was using pillows and blankets, nothing fancy, but the results really surprised me.

Charles I added a pair of GIK Acoustics Tri-Traps to my room and can tell a difference, whenever I get the opportunity (a break from work) I'll graph the room. I refer to the Rives site quite often and would certainly use their services, our speakers are setup using their recommendations and the current placement is the best they have ever sounded as far as soundstage and imaging. Whenever I get some time away from work this winter I'll dig further into the treatments and may even use the Rives services ... right now I just don't have the time.

Tri-Traps installed in room

My research has shown you can't have enough bass traps.

First Reflection Zone treatments will be my next venture, as soon as I build my rear bass trap columns. Need to make the wife happy and she doesn't want me to do superchunks in the rear. For the ceiling/wall corners on the ceiling I'll most likely use 4" thick OC703 staddeling the corners. 2" 703 for the RFZ.

I would also recommend downloading the FREE Real Traps tones which span from 10hz to 300hz in 1hz increments, those are the graphs I show in my superchunk thread below yours.

I'm experimenting right now with Room EQ Wizzard, which is a free download from Home Theater Shack. I think it is as good as ETF, a purchased product.

another good read for everyone..

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

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I'm wondering what you all have done to improve your room's acoustics.

Bought some headphones.

Yeah!! No "bad rooms" with cans! And now that I have some new clothes with bigger pockets large enough to put a reasonable PCDP into, my "Good Room" follows me everywhere!

In reality I have managed to make my room a little better in the last couple of years, it's still a far cry from our old house, but Gramma won't let me rip out the fireplace.

I don't have a problem with bass, I've got the bass really well integrated; it's the reflections that have me up the wall.

Since the original question was partly "what have you done to improve room acoustics" I think you should at least be mentioning the moose head

There are many recording engineers that would tell you a studio with proper bass traps and treatments is much better for many reasons over headphones.

In honor of my old friend, Emily Litella, I would like to know why you people are talking about trapping bass???

I believe that is illegal in most states, and furthermore, you should leave those poor little fishies alone. They've got enough to contend with, with all those hooks and such.

Down here in Iowaaaaa when farm ponds get over populated, we like to trap them bass and move them to better locations.

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Since the original question was partly "what have you done to improve room acoustics" I think you should at least be mentioning the moose head

Ah...the moose head! Yeah, the Wife put the stop to that when I wanted to mount the head down at the fireplace opening level where it would do a better job reflecting the sounds between the speakers and our ears, rather than up above the mantle. I was really out-voted though when I asked if she would upholster the antlers with an additional layer of sound absorbant antler-colored felt.

Yeah; she drew the line.

I have actually added a few absorbant items strategectly located around the room that helps some, plus did some final locating and dialing-in of the speakers, but if I really want to have a serious listening session, I still have to move my chair to the sweet spot a bit foreward and somewhat to my right. So it's not only the reflections, but the general inescapable layout of the room.

....at least I don't have to drag out the big pillows or place chairs on the couch to the side anymore!

I miss my old house!!! I could tell the color of the dresses on the back-up singers!

But yeah, a great room would be better than headphones, but the headphones are more obtainable, and give me a highly portable way to approximate my Axioms in the stereo mode!

And I did pick cans with my Axioms' sound as the goal! And they match quite well!!

I still wonder about the moose head though.
Rich.

You should get that moose head tested in a certified lab, I bet it would absorb down to 50hz or more.

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You should get that moose head tested in a certified lab, I bet it would absorb down to 50hz or more.

Yup, bet it would; but would it absorb the plates and other dinnerware the Wife would throw at me!!

I am going to hijack this thread slightly...

The room that I am currently building has a door to the left of the screen.

uhhh. Let's say the screen is facing South, the door to the left of the screen is facing East. Make sense?

Between the door frame and the screen wall, there is about 3 inches or so. Instead of buying 2 bass traps, Would it be a plausable replacement if I bought 2 flat pannels and stuck them against the screen wall in each corner? (1 by the door and 1 on the other corner)

I could technically get 1 bass trap for the right hand corner, but being so I can't get on on the left hand side becuase of the door, it would look quite weird.

Do you guys think this is a viable option?

-Robb.

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I could technically get 1 bass trap for the right hand corner, but being so I can't get on on the left hand side becuase of the door, it would look quite weird.

Do you guys think this is a viable option?

-Robb.

Rob---

I would just go with the one trap in the corner. Putting the traps on the screen wall would not do much good as bass has a tendency to "gather" in the corners. Also, you want to position your accoustic panels so that they are the areas where sound reflects. I think there is very little sound reflection off to the sides of your screen.

As for the "look" - I would not worry about that. Most of us who do bass traping are more concerned about the effect rather than aesthetics. Besides, once you turn the lights off, you won't even notice your traps anyway. Get three traps and place the other two in your back corners - you will notice a difference.

Just to clarify,

The panels would go in against the corners with the flat side being agaist the screen wall and the 3 inches of the side of the panel being against the corner.

I have alot of cloth furniture at the back of the room, I am also using QS8's right at the back of the room and I don't want to hinder their performance. I may or may not utilize traps at the back of the room. The only option would be to put 1 trap in each back corner underneith the wall mounted QS8's.

-Hutz

bass traps should be at least 4" thick, if your using something like owens corning rigid fiberglass 703 or similar product. Bass traps, normally built to be 2ft x 4ft in size should straddle the corners, this would include corners where walls/ceilings meet, but most people start with the main 4 corners of a room. FRZ (first reflection point) treatments normally are 2" thick, and as Royce stated should be placed in the reflection locations on the side walls and ceiling locations for your mains and center speakers. I had my son walk around the room with a small mirror while i was sitting in the primary listening location. Wherever you see the reflection of the tweeter is where a panel should be placed, centered vertically on the wall. In theory, you can't have enough bass traps, but you need to be reasonable.

An alternative to straddling bass traps in corners, is to use superchunks, they absorb much lower.

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=144818&an=0&page=0#Post144818