Audyssey results...

[mperfct]

Maybe these are all meaningless without seeing what my room "sounds" like, but I just re-ran Audyssey and thought the adjustments seemed pretty scattered.

My room is roughly 21' long, 11' wide, and 7.75' tall, and has a completely treated front wall, with 4" cotton bass trapping inside of the soffits running down both sides of the room (the underneath side of the soffit is AT cloth).

I don't know what other information would make someone's assessment of my numbers more meaningful/easier, but I'll offer what ever I have at my disposal.

I think a true in-room assessment/measurement will probably be the way to go, and I have a guy in mind, but I want to get a feel
for my room and have as much knowledge as possible before I hire him.

Here's the layout of my room, too.

Any thoughts? I do notice there is a bit of slap echo when the freq sweeps are occurring, but I don't *notice* it during movies. Maybe I don't know what I'm missing.

 

[mperfct]

 

[lsiberian]

Why not DIY? You have access to an amazing forum of knowledgeable people. And from what I can tell you have an idea what you are doing.

From what I can tell you have a very controlled and nice looking room. But it would seem that side walls should be treated with that narrow hall.

I can see reflections being a huge issue off the narrow hall like structure. It's like shining a big light down a mirror lined hallway. Make sure you kill the 1st order reflections at least. I suggest maybe 2nd and 3rd too due to the narrowness of the hall way. This can be done using mirrors. Sit in your chair and have a friend hold against the wall and walk until you can see the speaker. Treat that area. for 2nd order you would use two mirrors with a similar principle. Once you treat the walls then can try audyssey again.

 

[jostenmeat]

I think Isiberian is on the right track. An acoustician would tell you that the treating of 1st reflections (sidewalls and ceiling) and corner trapping as the first order of business. Deadening the front wall would be secondary to those things. They probably would like you to kill the glass doors in the rear, but of course that's in an ideal world.

I think someone was saying that slap echo, or perhaps specifically flutter echo, could be reduced by having a sloped ceiling, getting higher in the back. Just an FYI.

Audyssey was never meant to replace the need for treating first reflections. I think of it as icing on the cake, and that of course is if it works well to the ears of the consumer to begin with.

FWIW, if you don't DIY, the big panel companies start bulk discounting roughly at double digit panels or so, IIRC.

 

[mperfct]

I think Isiberian is on the right track. An acoustician would tell you that the treating of 1st reflections (sidewalls and ceiling) and corner trapping as the first order of business. Deadening the front wall would be secondary to those things. They probably would like you to kill the glass doors in the rear, but of course that's in an ideal world.

I think someone was saying that slap echo, or perhaps specifically flutter echo, could be reduced by having a sloped ceiling, getting higher in the back. Just an FYI.

Audyssey was never meant to replace the need for treating first reflections. I think of it as icing on the cake, and that of course is if it works well to the ears of the consumer to begin with.

FWIW, if you don't DIY, the big panel companies start bulk discounting roughly at double digit panels or so, IIRC.

I think my primary trepidation is WAF. She painted the walls, and they look awesome, however she doesn't want ANYTHING on them. I'm hoping that down the road, months and months after all of this is paid off, that I could get her hooked on some of the cool GIK art panels. That'd be pretty slick, but it ought to be for $250 a panel. She's already signed off on a star ceiling, so I've been thinking that through for a bit, but not quite ready to jump on that until this fall.

How much acoustical difference would a large star ceiling made from acoustical panels make?

And if you have slap/flutter echo, how does that translate into real applications? Of course you can hear it when you clap your hands, but I never notice it during movies. Maybe I'm sitting too close to the screen.

 

[jostenmeat]

I think my primary trepidation is WAF. She painted the walls, and they look awesome, however she doesn't want ANYTHING on them. I'm hoping that down the road, months and months after all of this is paid off, that I could get her hooked on some of the cool GIK art panels. That'd be pretty slick, but it ought to be for $250 a panel. She's already signed off on a star ceiling, so I've been thinking that through for a bit, but not quite ready to jump on that until this fall.

I would agree that the walls look great. I understand her feelings.

How much acoustical difference would a large star ceiling made from acoustical panels make?

I would do it. Since you have a dark ceiling, why not? Hmm. Are you considering fiber optics? Not sure how easy or difficult that would be run through broad band absorption.... better ask someone else! if you had to choose one or the other, I definitely vote for treatments. That's just me.

And if you have slap/flutter echo, how does that translate into real applications? Of course you can hear it when you clap your hands, but I never notice it during movies. Maybe I'm sitting too close to the screen.

My guess is that it's possible you might further increase your listening volume. Well, that's what happened to me for a while. I feel that the threshold of when room acoustical issues rears its ugly head is greatly increased/furthered. I can't remember what HT volumes were before treating, but the increase was at the minimum of 3 db, and I'm pretty sure it was actually double that. Maybe even greater than that, but can't recall exactly.

 

[Midcow2]

Very Very nice -was that an echo?

Mperfect,

Very nice setup! The mirror idea getting rid of first harmonic seems like the way to go. And to overcome WAF why not find some nice paintings ,that would serve two purposes: (1) provice acoustic attentuation and (2) enhnce the already beautiful walls.

Later,

MidCow2

P.S.- You avitar never fails to intrigue me

P.S.S. - If you had table soccer instead of air hockey, this would be a Challenge

 

[mperfct]

Mperfect,

Very nice setup! The mirror idea getting rid of first harmonic seems like the way to go. And to overcome WAF why not find some nice paintings ,that would serve two purposes: (1) provice acoustic attentuation and (2) enhnce the already beautiful walls.

Later,

MidCow2

P.S.- You avitar never fails to intrigue me

P.S.S. - If you had table soccer instead of air hockey, this would be a Challenge

There's always options! I tried to spring Vudu and you would have thought I just brought home a Runco Cinewide setup. No more $$$ on the theater until everything is paid off. I got by blu-ray player, so now I'm focusing on tweaking (which is free).

I'm glad that my avatar "intrigues" you. It intrigues me too. I've been a fan of hers for awhile now.

And we were going to do Air Hockey, but all of the "Jones" around here copied our idea and now there are 4 houses on the cul-de-sac with air hockey tables. Table soccer might be a good option!

 

[mperfct]

I keep reading this post by Jeff Szymanski http://www.audioholics.com/education/acoustics-principles/early-reflections-in-home-theaters-a-different-perspective (oddly enough he lives in the same city as me). I went ahead and plugged in my numbers on the delay calculator and came up with 4.8ms, which is well into the suggested treatment of "reflection or no treatment".

I do have six or so 8 lb mineral wool panels left over, and was going to use those, *if* I wanted to go to war with the wife. I put them out roughly where I thought the panels would be in the theater, and listened to some material. I didn't really notice a difference, which makes it even tougher to justify. Are my ears just dead or is there something else at play, more specifically what Jeff addresses in his article?

 

[jostenmeat]

Where exactly are the front three speakers located? It seems that highly technical article does point out drop off in absorption when off-axis. In a narrow situation like that, the off-axis angle will indeed be great.

Isn't the minimum threshold about 6ms for us to distinguish reflection from primary audio? Maybe even 10ms is the safer side?

While I am a noob when it comes to stuff, I do know that a concert hall sounds very different than most other public venues, including movie theaters.

Even the absorptive properties of humans themselves, and the clothing they wear, are generally not considered to be of great impact when measuring, but that's not the case with, say, classical music concert halls.

In fact, I recently learned that they say the Metropolitan had a much livelier sound back in the day due to the greater display of decolletage.

 

[mperfct]

Here's the layout. Behold my MSPaint skills!

 

[mperfct]

Here's the layout. Behold my MSPaint skills!

is the pic showing up for everyone? It didn't at first for me, but when I refreshed it was there. Here's a direct link.

 

[jostenmeat]

Here's the layout. Behold my MSPaint skills!

is the pic showing up for everyone? It didn't at first for me, but when I refreshed it was there. Here's a direct link.

 

[highfigh]

I think Isiberian is on the right track. An acoustician would tell you that the treating of 1st reflections (sidewalls and ceiling) and corner trapping as the first order of business. Deadening the front wall would be secondary to those things. They probably would like you to kill the glass doors in the rear, but of course that's in an ideal world.

I think someone was saying that slap echo, or perhaps specifically flutter echo, could be reduced by having a sloped ceiling, getting higher in the back. Just an FYI.

I'm pretty sure the flutter is coming from the side speakers firing into the opposite wall, which is 11' away. It would be easy enough to test that theory, though.

 

[no. 5]

Isn't the minimum threshold about 6ms for us to distinguish reflection from primary audio?

The threshold depends on the material (music, speech, etc), and the relationship between relative reflection level and the delay.

So, a reflection that is 20dB lower in level than the direct sound with a delay of 6ms will be inaudible with speech, but may just be audible with classical music. But if that reflection's level was increased to 10dB above the direct sound, a second 'image' would then be present.

 

[jostenmeat]

The threshold depends on the material (music, speech, etc), and the relationship between relative reflection level and the delay.

So, a reflection that is 20dB lower in level than the direct sound with a delay of 6ms will be inaudible with speech, but may just be audible with classical music. But if that reflection's level was increased to 10dB above the direct sound, a second 'image' would then be present.

Thanks no.5. I've never read about these distinctions before.

Recently, I was looking to change out cd's, and was sitting plop in the middle of my electrostats (90 degrees to each panel), and it sounded like my untreated rear wall was where the speakers were!

front wall is heavily treated.

 

[no. 5]

You're welcome.

Always glad to jabber about psychoacoustics.