I hear ya. I am lucky to get "approval" for the 2" panels. No way the wife would go for 4" on the side walls.

As for my front wall, I have already treated it, including the corners. I had to search through this thread, but I found a picture.



Here is the link to that part of this thread:

Treating the Front Wall

Also, looking at the 2" vs. the 4" for FRP (First Reflection Points for the others that aren't familiar with the term) knowing that the primary goal is the higher frequencies as a "must" and then the lower frequencies "if possible," you get the following performance as taken from Bob Gold's Absorption Coefficients
(for those that don't know, a score of "1.00" is considered total absorption at the frequency. Anything above a 1.00 is not important really, and things like 0.17 means 17% absorption)

OC703 2"
125Hz : 0.17
250Hz : 0.86
500Hz : 1.14
1000Hz: 1.07
2000Hz: 1.02
4000Hz: 0.98
NRC : 1.00

OC703 4"
125Hz : 0.84
250Hz : 1.24
500Hz : 1.24
1000Hz: 1.08
2000Hz: 1.00
4000Hz: 0.97
NRC : 1.15

So the 2" panel actually performs better at the higher frequencies technically, but in real world are pretty darn close. The 4" bumps up the 250Hz a little, and really ups the 125Hz, but again, those aren't "as critical" when having to make some level of compromise to appease the wife.

As for the room becoming too dead, that is a possibility if I put the 4" panel on the back wall, but I need a little bass absorption and I can't do rear bass traps since the rear corners contain my equipment rack in one corner and media storage on the other corner. I guess that is some level of diffusion, but not helping in the LFE area.

If things become too dead, I can always add craft paper to the face of some of the panels and reflect more high frequencies (decrease the numbers from 250Hz up to 4000Hz) and actually boost the 125Hz bass absorption. I've heard of people doing that first before covering with fabric and getting results similar to using OC703 FRK vs. the regular OC703 like I have.

No matter what I do, I am going to build my frames first and make the panels WITHOUT the fabric cover. I will hang them and see how they sound. Too dead, then I get the graft paper out. Get them the way that I want them and then cover them.

Now if my room was just another foot wider, then I would do just four 4" panels on the sides and *maybe* the one in the back still. But I am fighting what seems like a little "narrow" when walking between the seats and the walls already, plus with 2 rows of seats, the first reflection points were ridiculous.

Here are pieces of take that I used to mark them on just one wall. I marked the FRP for the front left, right, and center for most of the seats before I just stopped and decided to focus on some key seats only. More compromises...



And no, that panel on the floor is not an acoustical panel. It is an AT panel that goes below my screen. I needed to put it somewhere (along with the screen) while I was getting the FRPs. And no again, my family hated the "racing stripe" idea of one long panel from front to back that covers all of the FRPs (sort of like if that WAS an acoustical panel and I just put it on the wall).

Maybe for v5.0 of the theater.... LOL


Farewell - June 4, 2020