Acoustic panels for towers with backfiring tweeters?

[Shanman]

I have been meaning to ask this question for some time. I have a nice pair of Snell D7 towers. Each tower has a single soft dome tweeter that is on the upper backside of the enclosure. Are acoustic panels recommended or discouraged specifically for speakers that have back firing tweeters?

 

[Verdinut]

I have been meaning to ask this question for some time. I have a nice pair of Snell D7 towers. Each tower has a single soft dome tweeter that is on the upper backside of the enclosure. Are acoustic panels recommended or discouraged specifically for speakers that have back firing tweeters?

The backfiring tweeters are meant to bounce the high frequencies from your room walls. IMO, adding acoustic panels would defeat their purpose and reduce the whole high frequency performance of your Snell towers.

 

[ryanosaur]

It depends on the interaction with the room and if you like the dipole effect.
I think Room size and placement are key to getting a good experience… large rooms, poor placement may kill off the sound, but gotten right a good dipole can almost create its own soundfield.
If you aren’t happy with it, adding absorption (probably 2” pannels) would be enough to cut that effect. You could try an absorber/diffuser, too.
So hard to predict what may happen though without good room measurements to aid in understanding what you hear.

 

[OHMisback]

So hard to predict what may happen though without good room measurements to aid in understanding what you hear.

That is the best place to start. Then check any correction at the seated position by listening. If you're not using correction mechanically tune the room. I use Helmholtz adjustable traps 120hz and below and passive diffusion on the walls and ceiling for higher frequency issues. That rear driver is pretty close to being acoustically correct it's just not time aligned with the mids, like the forward firing driver should be. Diffusion will work absorption will KILL the sound.

The Helmholtz method doesn't absorb anything it cancels predetermined peaks. A simple PEQ will fill the valleys
Simple cellophane in front of a HF driver or on the front wall will tell a (cheap) quick story.. Tweeters HATE cellophane, your ears might love it in an untreated room though..

Foam wave guides help too. 1-2" tall on either side of the tweeter, you might be surprised.

Fruit for thought anyways..

 

[Shanman]

Hmm, I will have to play. I have zero room treatment panels. Unimpeded sound from speaker to ear(no ottomans, coffee table, etc) and a thick pile round throw rug smack in the center of the floor. I dont have any complaints of my current soundstage and the room is not dead at all like a room that would be wall to wall carpet and drapes. I am a noob to absorption panels, bass traps, etc for sure.

Luckily enough for me the Snell towers have two user adjustable toggles on the back of the towers. One kills the rear tweeter, the other is a boundary switch for times when placing the tower close to a wall I believe. All I know is kicking the rear tweets on after listening to them disabled makes the sound field go from front baffles to what sounds like moving the rear wall back 5 feet. It's cool as hell personally to get such a change in sound field depth at the flick of a switch.
I have seen Maggie owners running absorption panels behind which made no logical sense because that is their jam(sound radiating off front and back of the electrostatic panel), but got me thinking was I supposed to do the same?

 

[ryanosaur]

Hmm, I will have to play. I have zero room treatment panels. Unimpeded sound from speaker to ear(no ottomans, coffee table, etc) and a thick pile round throw rug smack in the center of the floor. I dont have any complaints of my current soundstage and the room is not dead at all like a room that would be wall to wall carpet and drapes. I am a noob to absorption panels, bass traps, etc for sure.

Luckily enough for me the Snell towers have two user adjustable toggles on the back of the towers. One kills the rear tweeter, the other is a boundary switch for times when placing the tower close to a wall I believe. All I know is kicking the rear tweets on after listening to them disabled makes the sound field go from front baffles to what sounds like moving the rear wall back 5 feet. It's cool as hell personally to get such a change in sound field depth at the flick of a switch.
I have seen Maggie owners running absorption panels behind which made no logical sense because that is their jam(sound radiating off front and back of the electrostatic panel), but got me thinking was I supposed to do the same?

You have to keep in mind that there are a bunch of people whose first reaction to building a room is to treat it. No measurement... just throw up panels and traps and risk killing the sound. I've seen a lot of guys tell stories about how they treated everything only to take it all down years later and just do first reflections or back of room diffraction... minimal treatment... and end up enjoying it more.

I'm of the opinion that if your room is furnished somewhat "normally", you have good carpet (or a padded throw rug between you and each Main Speaker) absorbing your floor bounce, you have the "stuff of life" in your room... you are largely good.
If you have slap echo, I would work on solving for that in the room overall. Once that is largely minimized, you may very well not need to do anything else.

 

[Kingslug]

I was thinking about this too as i have Nht 1.2 towers with a back firing driver...these have a switch to turn it off though. Small home theater.

 

[Trell]

I was thinking about this too as i have Nht 1.2 towers with a back firing driver...these have a switch to turn it off though. Small home theater.

Try out what sounds the best to you.

 

[Kingslug]

I have to measure the room..then figure out what treatments are needed...the more i investigate this process..the more my head hurts...

 

[Trell]

You have to keep in mind that there are a bunch of people whose first reaction to building a room is to treat it. No measurement... just throw up panels and traps and risk killing the sound. I've seen a lot of guys tell stories about how they treated everything only to take it all down years later and just do first reflections or back of room diffraction... minimal treatment... and end up enjoying it more.

I'm of the opinion that if your room is furnished somewhat "normally", you have good carpet (or a padded throw rug between you and each Main Speaker) absorbing your floor bounce, you have the "stuff of life" in your room... you are largely good.
If you have slap echo, I would work on solving for that in the room overall. Once that is largely minimized, you may very well not need to do anything else.

Gluing thin foam on the walls probably gives you a non-satisfactory result. My acoustic panels have wood attached on the front to avoid deadening the room, not thin with the back wall having a large air gap, and panels are covering a large surface area. Thin foam panels are worse than useless.

In small rooms bass is a major problem to solve.

 

[Trell]

I have to measure the room..then figure out what treatments are needed...the more i investigate this process..the more my head hurts...

You need to cover a large part of your walls with thick (and/or air gapped) panels. My front and back wall is covered more than 50%. The side walls are unavailable, and the roof as well, says my wife.

You can have a look at my signature how it looks in my living room, go to the end of the thread.

 

[Kingslug]

Im going to set up room eq wizard and see what's going on...low ceiling is a real killer..and nearly square room..but its all i have to work with.

 

[Trell]

Im going to set up room eq wizard and see what's going on...low ceiling is a real killer..and nearly square room..but its all i have to work with.

Square rooms sucks. Try asymmetrical placements in the room along with multiple subwoofers.

Edit: Asymmetrical is not your position with respect to speakers but speakers/you placement in the room. Left/right angle of your speakers to your listening position should (generally) respected. There is also height to consider (both you an speakers/subwoofers) so lot of experimenting for you, I'm afraid!

Measurements can significantly, and I really mean, significantly reduce the time on your experimenting.

 

[Kingslug]

At least its nice and cool down there....

 

[witchdoctor]

I have been meaning to ask this question for some time. I have a nice pair of Snell D7 towers. Each tower has a single soft dome tweeter that is on the upper backside of the enclosure. Are acoustic panels recommended or discouraged specifically for speakers that have back firing tweeters?

Most vendors will answer questions about room setup when you are shopping for treatments. The first thing I would add is bass traps for the corners. I would check Sonitus and Auralex and just e-mail them your questions.
Check this out:

Auralex Room Analysis Plus Review

The Auralex Room Analysis Plus gives you the ability to not only get recommendations about treating your room, but a report based on ACTUAL MEASUREMENTS! And it doesn't cost thousands of dollars.

www.audioholics.com

 

[ski2xblack]

How much wiggle room do you have with speaker placement? The reason I ask is because the distance to the wall behind the speaker may be more critical than the acoustic properties of that wall ( if treated). Too little distance nullifies the sense of increased ambience that greater distances can produce. In my experience with speakers with rear facing drivers (bipoles and OB dipoles), they did their best spatial trickery when at least 3' from the back wall.

 

[Shanman]

Most vendors will answer questions about room setup when you are shopping for treatments. The first thing I would add is bass traps for the corners. I would check Sonitus and Auralex and just e-mail them your questions.
Check this out:

Auralex Room Analysis Plus Review

The Auralex Room Analysis Plus gives you the ability to not only get recommendations about treating your room, but a report based on ACTUAL MEASUREMENTS! And it doesn't cost thousands of dollars.

www.audioholics.com

Thanks for the info. I actually have Outlaw X12's in each corner of the front wall. I did this to maintain the proper width between the towers- for my room, I am sitting 9 feet from the speakers that are also exactly 9 feet apart.
I might have enough room to try moving the subs to the inside of each tower.
Things get confusing to me because people generally recommend not corner loading subs in a room because of too much room gain/boundary reinforcement. Taking the subs out of the corners (which currently souds great to my ears) would seem to open up the corners of the room for issues then needing bass traps for those empty corners. Anyway, another rabbit hole for a different subject.

 

[witchdoctor]

As for the subs I have one in the front left corner of the room and one in the right rear corner of the room. I find I get great results when they face the wall. My bass traps are placed above the sub.

 

[Shanman]

How much wiggle room do you have with speaker placement? The reason I ask is because the distance to the wall behind the speaker may be more critical than the acoustic properties of that wall ( if treated). Too little distance nullifies the sense of increased ambience that greater distances can produce. In my experience with speakers with rear facing drivers (bipoles and OB dipoles), they did their best spatial trickery when at least 3' from the back wall.

The best I could compromise with my 12’x12’ room size was getting the Snell towers a foot off the front wall. They are rear ported, so I knew not to shove them right up to the wall of course. More would certainly be better, I know. The couch I sit on the other side of the room about 9.5 feet away is also backed up to the wall which I know is an audio no no as well, but again space constraints force compromise. If in a perfect world I could get the towers 3 feet off the front wall, and the couch a couple feet off the back wall. If I did this, I would be sitting about 5 feet away from a pair of very capable full range towers. Way too cramped, and it would kill the useable functionality of the room itself I feel.

 

[witchdoctor]

My front speakers go down to 32hz and are ported and I also had to compromise. I experimented with just one 12" x 12" foam acoustic tile behind each speaker and it helped a lot. I will try and post a pic later.