Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions What is the ideal acoustical environment?

Would it be a mixture of hard and soft surfaces, or just soft surfaces? What other factors are involved? I realize the size and shape of the room are important, but are there any other practical considerations, since I'm building a room to be my Man Cave?

Dan

every high-end home thater set ups i have seen , all have soft sound absorbing material on the floor and walls. i suppose its so you dont get any sounds 'bouncing' around, and becoming misdirectional. ?

i dont have any direct advice on what to use in your HT room, but i would think soft materials is the way to go.

bigjohn

A mix, believe it or not.

Having NO reflective surfaces sounds very odd.

Bren R.

well, there ya go!!

i would take bren's advice on this kind of stuff, way before i would take my own.. he kinda has the advantage being that he does this FOR A LIVING!!!!

bigjohn

I've never been in an absolutely dead environment acoustically, but I've been in close (recording studios) and it's an odd feeling... like there's a "gate" on your hearing... the notes slam shut.

In the other extreme - an empty concrete concert bowl sounds awful as well - need to pack it full of all those sound-absorbing bodies.

Bren R.

The recording studio is relatively dead, not because that's what sounds best, but so that the sound can be controlled. If you were to record in a reverberant room, the reverberation could not be controlled. What you got recorded would be it. But by recording the artist with a minimum of room effect, the mixer can add just the right amount of effects, whatever they may be, to achieve what is desired.

Just saw, in another thread, that jh20477 is a soundmixer. Hopefully he'll chime in here.

The college I did some course work in had an anechoic chamber.

As Bren said, it is a very odd transition from normal everyday room, to listening to simple sounds within this environment.

Part of the reason an "dead" or relatively anechoic room is strange is that it confuses the brain. Your brain is used to being able to get a TON of information from the sounds it hears: the distance of the source, the relative size of the room, the direction of the sound. Most of that information comes from reflected sound.

Yes, I am well aware of the science and reasons for this.

But that still does not prepare your senses for the experience. The sterile nature can become a bit interesting to experiment with. In my case we were designing circuits that needed to produce certain outputs and be tested for this output, and several charateristics - such as "ringing".

I have been in many tuned rooms, and had designed and built a good listening room in a previous house I owned. It looked much better than that of the lab room referenced in another thread.

I didn't mean to sound like I was lecturing. That post was meant for everyone, but I had to reply to somebody.

No offense taken, none intended.

dmw,

Lots of good advice from Bren, Ajax and all, but a mix of both reflective and absorbent surfaces is ideal. Axiom speakers are designed with consistent frequency responses both on and off-axis such that early and later lateral reflections from side walls will add to the sense of spaciousness. That has been confirmed by many tests at the NRC in Canada.

So normal domestic furnishings--upholstered furniture, area rugs, some bare walls broken up by bookshelves, etc. You don't want the room excessively "live" or "dead".

Regards,

>>So normal domestic furnishings...

You understand why he is asking, right ? This is a man decorating his own space. It's not gonna BE normal domestic unless someone gives him very specific instructions... "Honey, this is a rug. It keeps your bare feet from leaving marks on the hardwood floor"

And NORMAL furnishings also doesn't mean a pyramid of beer bottles and walls lined in animal skins.

Bren R.

Hey, what's wrong with beer bottles and animal skins? beer bottles are glass -- reflective -- and animal skins are absoptive

I thought that was exactly what we were looking for -- a mixture of reflection and absorption. :-)

Lexxen,

Beer bottles and animal skins. Good mix, reflective and absorbent. I'll pass the decor hints on to a friend who writes for the Design section of the L.A. Times magazine. Might start a trend.

Regards,

From what I've read elsewhere on the subject, the front and side walls should be hard surfaces (the sides being as symmetrical as possible, i.e. bookshelves etc) and the back wall should be damped or softened.

I think I really need to do somthing with my back wall, things get harsh in here at higher volumes. Might just find me a bear skin rug to hang on the wall.

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I'll pass the decor hints on to a friend who writes for the Design section of the L.A. Times magazine. Might start a trend.

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Make sure I get credit, now!

Bren R.

If anyone needs a supply of animal skins my father happens to own an abattior so I can get you all the untanned pig, sheep, goat, buffalo, cow and sometimes emu hides you want (packed in salt, of course) -- for al thsoe DIYers that like to tan their own hides...

;-)

Lexxen, I read your post several times and I must tell you I am a shambles. There is SOOOOO much that lends itself to replies that I am a wreck as the permutations riddle my body!!! . My brain governor brought everything back under control as it mulled over the question - "What DOES one do with an Emu hide?"

My wife and I had a horrific furniture trauma when a neighbor's dog attacked and decimated our treasured naugahide couch years ago. We would have dealt with it better, but then we found out it could not be replaced as the nauga has become extinct. I do keep my last remaining shark skin suit under protection.

Well, Ray, as you may have already guessed, there really is NOTHING that you can do with an Emu hide. really, an Emu is a large chicken with a very strange snake-like head that likes to bite you. That said, it's "hide" is mostly made up of large feathers that are good for almost nothing. The parts of its body not covered with feathers (feet) are covered with a sort-of-leather that may make a nice pair of boots but is probably too tough to make a couch out of (and besides, it would take a LOT of Emu's). By the way, an Emu is smaller than an ostrich and has a smaller "plumage" of tailfeathers in the back. Plus their heads are really freaky what with the snake-like-ness and their like to try and bite you.

That said, mostly you throw an Emu hide in the garbage.

and don't ask me why I capatalized Emu every time I wrote it, it's that whole LSOB (lazy sob) thing that people have been discussing in other posts...I am actually in the middle of writing a paper for an English class so I like to get away from proper spelling, punctuation, etc...)

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What DOES one do with an Emu hide

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its the poor mans ostrich skin leather!! for real...

emu skin is very popular in texas for making all sorts of leather goods. boots, purses, wallets, check book holders, portfolios, brief cases, and even pocket protectors. the emu leather is very similar to ostrich, which is very expensive. but both are very durable. i have an ostrich skin wallet that my wife bought for me 7 years ago, and it still looks great. a little frayed on the edges, but still in great condition.

looks like this

they get much darker after use, mine is almost black.

bigjohn

The emu story is actually kind of a sad story (at least in Saskatchewan) quite a few people got into the livestock end of Emus because, apparently, there are many great uses for an Emu, including its "oil" and its leather. (what its oil can be used for I do not know, supposedly cleaners or deoderizers can be made from it) The actual meat is quite lean but tastes rather like copper. Anyways, there were several Emu farmers but no-one invested in any systems to actually make anything out of the Emus and so they were mostly slaughterd and made into jerky... I know this because my father's shop is one of the few in Sask. that is federally inspected and will actually book slaughters for this type of thing. (And, if you want to sell any meat that is processed in Saskatchewan in any other provinces it must be federally inspected while being slaughtered to prevent the spread of disease, etc...) He also does a lot of bufallo for people who sell that kind of meat in farmers markets and the like...

Man, this has to be the strangest thread hijacking I've ever seen, nevermind taken part in :-)

So, would a slaughterhouse be an ideal acoustical environment?

Well, I can't say that I've tested this out, or that I've seen very many slaughterhouses, but I would say no.

Simply put, the floor is bare concrete, the walls are covered with tin (for ease of cleaning) and the celing is about 20 feet high (not to mention that the slaughter room is rather squareish) and it almost always VERY loud in there (I'd say that Alan's 90-95dB very loud in his discussion of amp power is about right at times).
On the plus side, he does have 3 phase 220v power, and it IS right next door to the transformer station...