How to judge effectiveness of acoustic treatment with spending?

[Bloodstriker]

I really want to acoustically treat my HT/TV room. The only problem is that I don't want to drop a bunch of money and not be completely satisfied with the results. I know there will be a difference, but will it be large enough for me to warrant the costs?

Is there any way for me to guage how acoustics currently effets my room?

I'm thinking along the lines of getting all the pillows, blankets, comforters, bed sheets, cushions, etc and throwing them along the floor and duct taping them to the walls to see if I hear a difference.

Any sugguestions before I destroy all my linen?

 

[jaxvon]

Do some searching on the forums regarding Acoustics. I guarantee you will find lots of threads by people talking about the 'after' of their treated rooms.

I can personally tell you that it will make a huge difference. The two biggest aspects of sound in your system are 1. Speakers and 2. Room. Your electronics' effects, provided they are functioning correctly and within their limits, are minimal. If you want a truly awesome system, the final step is to use electronic correction to clean up the anomalies left. A high powered digital EQ system would be very effective, as would a convolution-based system like the offerings from TaCT. Be aware, properly treating your room does require some measurement. You can get great results with simple tools like a good SPL meter mounted on a tripod. You can get superb results with a good measurement mic and a computer, but this is much more involved and expensive.

 

[loxllxol]

Subscribed. Also, would lots of lush furniture help out at all?

 

[ParadigmDawg]

Did you ever read the thread below on my treatments?
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39835

I really want to acoustically treat my HT/TV room. The only problem is that I don't want to drop a bunch of money and not be completely satisfied with the results. I know there will be a difference, but will it be large enough for me to warrant the costs?

Is there any way for me to guage how acoustics currently effets my room?

I'm thinking along the lines of getting all the pillows, blankets, comforters, bed sheets, cushions, etc and throwing them along the floor and duct taping them to the walls to see if I hear a difference.

Any sugguestions before I destroy all my linen?

 

[jaxvon]

Subscribed. Also, would lots of lush furniture help out at all?

Yes, thought depending on the covering it could be reflective of high frequencies. It will be a decent mid-bass absorber. If you can afford good furniture, you can afford excellent acoustic devices. Good treatment will allow you to get the most out of your speakers, no matter what they are. GIK and Ready Acoustics are two companies among many that offer inexpensive and high quality stuff.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

I ended up going with the GIK Elites in the end. The Piano Gloss black is hard to beat.

GIK and Ready Acoustics are two companies among many that offer inexpensive and high quality stuff.

 

[bpape]

I'll make the same suggestion I do to a lot of customers who ask the same question. Start small. Let a professional assist you in selecting a beginning treatment regimine which will treat some of the main issues in the space and evaluate for yourself. You can always add more later. You don't need to spend four figures to get a nice improvement in the sound of the space.

Just realize that the equipment, room, and treatments all function together as a system. Addressing 1 or 2 things will make a difference if done properly - but not as much as addressing the majority of the room's issues.

Quite honestly, the first thing to do is to spend a weekend getting things set up optimally. Play with speaker, sub, and seating position. That's free except for your time. You can use Room EQ Wizard which is free to download to see how you're doing and where your issues are. This gets you the best you can with what you have to work with and tells you a lot about what in the room is causing issues.

I can't tell you how many return customers we and other acoutics companies get. Once people hear what even a couple of properly placed, properly selected panels can do to change things, they realize it's usually one of the most cost effective upgrades you'll make to your sound. It's just something that's very difficult to describe to someone until they experiene it for themselves.

Bryan

 

[Bloodstriker]

Thanks for the info guys.

I believe you guys when you say it will make a huge difference. The main question is - am I willing to pay for it based on the level of improvement that I perceive.

I'm still finding that I'm lacking oomph from my speakers, even with the new SVS. Some people have suggested that the drivers are too small, but when I re-demoed these at the store with a much smaller sub, it sounded like there was much more punch. I'm guessing it has to do with room accoustics, as I have a serious 20+ dB null in the 60Hz region and 90 - 100Hz as well.

The thing is - I'm looking to add more "oomph" to the system, not just smooth out frequency response.

So if I find that after I tape all my blankets and pillows and stuff all over the place I hear that I have more "oomph", I will proceed to do room treatments regardless of whether or not the null was fixed.

If I find that it didn't help with adding the "oomph," I'll chart out the response and see if the pillows help smooth things out. If the graph is significantly smoother, and it didn't help with the oomph, I will likely not do room treatments.

Hmm.. I hope that makes sense.

I know there's echo in the room currently, but my biggest concern are ranked in the following:

1. Adding more "oomph" to system. Looking for "Big" sound.
2. Closing off hallway that leads to rest of house so I don't loose sound pressure.
3. Adding room treatments
4. Getting the last 2 speakers for 7.1

So Greg, does the mineral boards helped alot? When you say it helped focus the bass, do you mean that the bass got louder and tighter? or just tighter?

It's really hard for me to explain what I'm looking for. Maybe I just need bigger drivers for the mids.. who knows.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

The treatments just really cleaned up the music. Tighter bass, less harsh highs and a better sound stage and image.

I doubt that pillows and blankets will do much besides add more places for the highs to reflect. Go spend 35 bucks on some mineral board and put them in the correct spots.

 

[Davemcc]

Nulls at 60Hz and 100Hz are going to destroy any Ooomph you might have. Broadband absorption to prevent the reflective wave may help to soften these nulls. No amount of pillows you could have around the house will absorb these frequencies.

But you do have professionals right here. Avail yourself of their knowledge and experience.

 

[Bloodstriker]

Sorry, "broadband absorption?"

So the best move is to buy some mineral board to see what happens?

Could the nulls be a result of the opening in the room leading to the hallway?

 

[Davemcc]

Broadband absorption - absorbing a wide range of frequencies vs. the limited high frequency absorbtion that might be achieved by thin curtains, carpet...or pillows.

Low frequencies need a fairly thick, dense material to absorb their energy.

The cause of the nulls are most likely related to room shape, measuring equipment location or speaker placement. This is where the professionals come in. They can model your room for frequency response and determine why the nulls are created and suggest solutions to control them. You could start with some simple panels behind the speakers like Greg's, but with that Ultra13 you should also be looking at some type of bass trap. I tried these simple panels and bass traps and I'm absolutely sold on their benefits.

 

[Bloodstriker]

Ah, thanks Dave.

I guess one thing I should try is to put the sub at my seating position and do the crawling test. I'll have to figure out how I'm gonna move that sucker though.. it's too heavy for me to move by myself.

Sigh, it's sucks not having any friends that share this hobby!!! But thank goodness for this forum and all you awesome audioholics!

 

[bpape]

A 20db null at 60 and then again at 90-100 can certainly suck the oomph out of a system. Do you know what is causing these nulls? Is it an issue between mains and sub? Is it seating location? Is it speaker location?

That's why I said to spend some time moving things and taking measurements. If you move the mic a foot closer to the front from your seat and the 60hz moves, then it's seating related - and most likely coming off the back wall.

Without knowing what the issues are being caused by, it will be purely hit and miss for you to figure out how to deal with it.

The suggestion to get a few mineral wool boards is a good one. 6 boards at 2" will allow you to make 3 4" panels sufficient to tell you if you're trying to treat the right things - and will cost you less than $50.

Bryan

 

[Bloodstriker]

I'm not sure what's causing the nulls, but I tried a constant 60Hz tone and 90Hz tone last night and just crawled around listening to the sound.

I noticed that as I was moving toward the corners of the room, the bass got a lot stronger - epsecially at the opposite corner. As a moved closer to the opening of the hallway, I could barely hear any bass at all. At my current seating position, the bass was somewhere near the middle, although it felt like the bass was directional at both frequencies. i.e. no bass from right side (where opening to hallway is) and more bass on left side (concrete wall).

Hmm.... I'll draw a pic an post up what my room layout is like.

 

[Bloodstriker]

Okay, picture is done.. I don't know where to upload it!

 

[ParadigmDawg]

It is best to build a free account with Photobucket, load them there and then just paste the image into here.

Okay, picture is done.. I don't know where to upload it!

 

[mtrycrafts]

I'm thinking along the lines of getting all the pillows, blankets, comforters, bed sheets, cushions, etc and throwing them along the floor and duct taping them to the walls to see if I hear a difference.

Any sugguestions before I destroy all my linen?

Yes, don't bother with the linen Too thin to do anything and most likely you don't have enough to to make a difference
Pillows may be useful to a small extent but even them you would have to have the square footage coverage to make a difference.
However, how will you judge the effect? Memory? With small changes, very small effects perhaps, memory is unreliable, especially when it is very subjective in nature.
Not sure your experiment will bear much fruit.

 

[Bloodstriker]

Well, there's the room.. all hardwood with drywall.

 

[peerlesser]

Well, there's the room.. all hardwood with drywall.

The width of the room is 17ft, meaning that it will make first axial node at around 65Hz to the center of its dimension. This could cause the loss of transient impact coherency, or "oomph" as you described it. It would be good starting strategy to set up REW and try placing first two absorbers to the side walls. With REW it is easier to analyze if the null is a node or direct reflection cancel, and you get its bandwidth and center frequency more accurately. So if you can take some measurement plots we would know more. One measurement point in the middle of the couch and a couple more points 3ft away from it to every direction.

Phenomena that happen around 100Hz can also be vertical floor-roof interaction, so also the room height and roof paneling, carpets etc. can affect to it, especially if there isn't any.