Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Room Acoustics

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.


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