Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Room treatments - what and where?

>>In particular, he emphasizes the beneficial first reflections and cautions against trying to muffle them.

It's funny, I was midway through typing "yeah, like JohnK says, you gotta do something about those first reflection points (where the sound bounces off the side wall to the listener's ear) when it finally sunk in that you were saying maybe *not* to treat those points.

It does seem that the room is relatively narrow and so the negative impact of the first reflection points would be greater than in a wider room, which might argue for treating them.

There is a side window on the left but not the right; I *think* the drapes on the side window are sufficiently high that they wouldn't affect the sound much, but I would be tempted to keep the corresponding area on the right free in case you decided to hang "dummy" drapes there for symmetry. Then again, I might be more sensitive than most people to uneven reflections from left and right.

Overall the room does seem to have a reasonable amount of absorbent "stuff" already, so adding more is probably not needed with the possible exception of the first reflection points. What it does seem a bit light on is diffusion, ie randomly shaped hard stuff like bookcases or big junky things on the upper walls to "spread the reflections around".

I'm not really sure how much diffusive effect the chairs and occupants will have -- my guess is that you have more than enough in the lower part of the room but something to help diffuse reflections between the upper side walls or back wall might help. This is getting way past my knowledge level though, so take this with a grain of salt.

Nice room, by the way !!