GIK Acoustics 244 Sound Panel Review

[Tom Andry]

I would have rather been sipping on a Mic Ultra watching a great flick on my laser disk player and Zenith video CRT FP rig over the long itchy hours in the garage

Mic Ultra: Low Carb/High Hangover beer. Thanks, but no thanks. If I have to go low carb, I go Rolling Rock Greenlight

 

[Glenn Kuras]

For those who listen to there system at movie theater levels room acoustics can make or break a home theater. I highly recommend people try these in their HT. Prior to working on the acoustics in my HT my wife repeatedly asked me to turn it down.."it hurts my ears." After treating the room I have been able to get away with alot more. The best I can tell is less distortion.

As for the comment about cost in comparison to DIY panels. Take a look at this link. http://www.angelfire.com/sports/RCcars/acoustic_panels.htm You will be able to pick any color you want.

Even if you're not a DIY'er the price of GIK's product is impressive. You can do a $2000 upgrade to any equipment for ~$250 or less.

Boy I would hate to be the person to tell you this, but you really should not have the wood/pegboard backing on them.. Sound needs to pass though the back, hit the wall and absorb again.. Also it lowers how much low end it will pick up.. Don't through them away, but understand that you really are not picking up the low end you could..
I had to let you know..

Glenn

 

[RLA]

Mic Ultra: Low Carb/High Hangover beer. Thanks, but no thanks

Dude! you know you can't drink more than one
I'll know exactly what to get ya at CEDIA so you can look like me in the AM

 

[Vaughan Odendaa]

Glenn, I was just wondering, are there any threads that show more pictures of your panels ? Or any links ? Because I have looked at all the pics at your website and I have seen some pics in this thread.

I guess I just would like to see more. See, I have a significant other and this significant other needs convincing and I need more pictures to convince her.

Heh.

--Sincerely,

 

[Doug917]

Good luck Vaughan! Seems like any acoustic panels (unless they are built into the walls of the room) don't really ellicit the WAF. For me, the HT room is the one room in the house I have total control over. Being I have a dedicated room, I can get away with the panels. If I were to try and put them in the living room, my wife would kick me to the curb. I don't think they look bad at all and when the lights are out for a movie, they actually help dim reflections down a lot. Oddly enough, as much as my wofe protests (even in the room I have final say on), she does admit it makes a night/day difference in the sound.

 

[Vaughan Odendaa]

Well, when I decide to bite the bullet I will definitely go with the white colour. And since my walls are white, it should blend in quite nicely. I just need some more pictures of the white coloured panels, if possible.

Those black coloured panels looks great, especially for those in dedicated home theaters, but for my living room at least, I most surely would be kicked to the curb if I chose it.

--Sincerely,

 

[Glenn Kuras]

I just moved GIK!!! If any of you out there own a company I am sure you will feel my pain at this moment and send BEER!!!!!!! The good thing is I have moved 2 other production type companies in my life and pretty much know the inns and out, but man what a pain!!

I am off to watch the Braves game LIVE and enjoy my $10.00 beer (S) and $15.00 hotdog!!


Glenn

 

[Vaughan Odendaa]

Glenn, I would like to ask you something about your basstraps. Do they have a membrane ? And if so, could you explain what it is ? Thanks !

--Sincerely,

 

[steinoch]

Boy I would hate to be the person to tell you this, but you really should not have the wood/pegboard backing on them.. Sound needs to pass though the back, hit the wall and absorb again.. Also it lowers how much low end it will pick up.. Don't through them away, but understand that you really are not picking up the low end you could..
I had to let you know..

Glenn

Interesting thought.
If your mounting them directly on the wall your only talking < 1/4" difference. In addition, wouldn't the irregular surface of the pegboard help defuse the sound even more? With length of the low frquency waves I couldn't imagine the small hole making that much of a difference...though i am not a sound engineer.

I would guess the pegboard's irregular surace would be like a egg carton. We use to line the walls with egg cartons in the garage days playing everything from Rush to Metallica...I'm showing my age! This was suggested by everyone who didn't want to hear us, like the neighbors three blocks away. The amazing thing to us was that we discovered we sounded so much tighter once we treated the walls.

In the case of building my panels, I worked with what I had and used 1/4 ac ply that I had left over from a cabinet project. Therefore I skipped the pegboard. Though I have to admit that I wondered if the pegboard was chosen for a particular reason.

Now I want to build another set with pegboard to see if it effects the sound. Damn, I need to take my ritalin.

Peace!

 

[Vaughan Odendaa]

Do the GIK traps have a membrane as well ? And any other pictures or threads to pictures with the white panels ? I would very much appreciate it.

For those who know, how effective is rockwool to rigid fiberglass in terms of bass absorbsion ? And finally, something I haven't understood completely (but want to understand ) is how low bass like, for instance, 40 hz (which has a wavelength of greater than 10 m), can be absorbed by the Monster traps.

Perhaps someone could explain this to me. If a bass wave is 10 m or more, doesn't the trap need to be insanely large to trap it ?

Thanks again.

--Sincerely,

 

[ScottMayo]

Good luck Vaughan! Seems like any acoustic panels (unless they are built into the walls of the room) don't really ellicit the WAF. For me, the HT room is the one room in the house I have total control over. Being I have a dedicated room, I can get away with the panels. If I were to try and put them in the living room, my wife would kick me to the curb.

This comment is really for the folk at GIK and RealTraps.

Traps are a problem. They are must have items if you care about the sound, but they are still rectangles hanging on a wall, looking like a picture that someone forgot to start. When I draw acoustic plans for people, the appearance issue is invariably topic number 2 (#1 is cost).

Now, in a lot of situations, I've had excellent luck with clever tricks. In my living room I have a tapestry, about 3'x4', which came with a lining in back. By carefully slitting down the side and inserting 1" OC 703, and sewing it back up again (credit where due: my wife has nimble fingers), I got something that looks like a normal tapestry, hangs about 2" off the wall, and gives excellent echo control. No, it's not a full blown trap and it has no bass absorption, but it does what I needed and there is NO issue with WAF. I've done similiar things with batik prints - there's often an inch of frame involved, and OC703 can fit inside.

I realise that trap manufacturers don't want to get into home decorating issues like colors and patterns. But the ability to put a pattern on a sheet of cloth is something that any T shirt company can offer, and it's possible to dye cloth so that the absorption isn't compromised. If you guys can work out a deal where you have have a catalogued collection of art, and customers can send you .bmp files of their own art (album covers, anyone? Movie posters?) that you could spray on, I would see a lot less resistance to certain acoustic planning.

 

[Vaughan Odendaa]

Another question I wanted to ask is concerning absorbsion. On the GIK website it states that the 244 panels can absorb still down to 40 hz. Which I think is very impressive.

If the 244 can absorb that low then how low can the "Monster Trap" absorb to ? I hope my other questions on page 7 will also be addressed.

Thank you.

--Sincerely,

 

[Ethan Winer]

Scott,

> I realise that trap manufacturers don't want to get into home decorating issues like colors and patterns. <

Agreed, and there's no way to make panels small without compromising their effectiveness. But I can tell you that we're working on this.

Watch this space.

> the ability to put a pattern on a sheet of cloth is something that any T shirt company can offer <

Yes, and we've considered that too. One problem is an acoustic panel large enough to be effective is a lot bigger than a T-shirt, and a properly treated room has more than one or two of them. How many tie-died panels are you or your custoemrs willing to look at?

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

Vaughan,

> it states that the 244 panels can absorb still down to 40 hz. Which I think is very impressive. <

It is impressive, but not unprecedented. If you watch the MiniTraps Demonstration video on our web site you'll see eight MiniTraps making a real improvement all the way down to the 40 Hz lower limit we tested to. I have other tests showing meaningful absorption down to around 30 Hz using MondoTraps. This brings up an interesting related point:

Often someone will call me and ask, "How low do your traps absorb to?" Without batting an eyelid I always answer "1 Hz." Then I explain that absorption is relative, and even a hand towel absorbs something at 1 Hz. And given enough hand towels they really could absorb a useful amount down to 40 Hz or whatever.

What really matters is the amount of absorption versus frequency versus trap surface size. The only way I know to measure absorption reliably below 100 Hz is with software like ETF, by comparing the ringing in a room with and without traps in place. Very few acoustic labs are certified to measure below 100 Hz, and I make that clear on the RealTraps web site. Even at 125 Hz, where acoustic labs are certified, they can vary as much as 50 percent. Part of the reason is because labs use a microphone that is always moving during the tests (for averaging). While this works well at midrange frequencies, it is inadequate at low frequencies where the lab's own room modes begin to dominate. This is why even at 125 Hz labs vary a lot.

--Ethan

 

[Buckle-meister]

...at 125 Hz, where acoustic labs are certified, they can vary as much as 50 percent. Part of the reason is because labs use a microphone that is always moving during the tests (for averaging). While this works well at midrange frequencies, it is inadequate at low frequencies where the lab's own room modes begin to dominate.

Why don't they just place a number of static mics, say in a grid, and average them for the mid frequencies, but use static results for the low frequencies?

 

[Audioholics]

There are some practical guidelines for acoustical panel absorption that are helpful. Specifically, you can count on 1" panels working down to ~1kHz, 2" panels going to ~500Hz and 4" panels absorbing down to ~250Hz. You can also get close to 4" performance by standing a 2" panel, 2" off the wall.

This is for any kind of real absorption amounts.

This article, which covers a lecture by Anthony Grimani of PMI Ltd., is very helpful and page 3 discusses absorption panels specifically.

As for the panels themselves, if they are made correctly, they are all very similar in their effectiveness. Unless someone has a really bad design or doesn't know their physics, you are primarily shopping for options, features, the installer, etc...

 

[Glenn Kuras]

Hey Ethan,

Thanks for helping out on this thread even though it is a positive review of our product.. You rock man and it is a pleasure to be your friend..

Ok guys I am very sorry I have not been chiming in more on this thread.. We are very proud of it, but I have been in the middle of this move and just like all good plans, things can turn to worst at anytime.. On top of that Ray's review has proven to increase our sales by a TON and I refuse to be late on any orders..

Ok back to fighting with the phone company (yes the phones work but needs help)

We are also working on a new product that will be more efficient also and your wife will not even see..

Glenn

 

[Ethan Winer]

Robbie,

> Why don't they just place a number of static mics, say in a grid, and average them for the mid frequencies, but use static results for the low frequencies? <

It's not that simple. But you knew that already!

Acoustic labs determine absorption by measuring the reverb time in a large "echo chamber" type room with and without the absorbing material present. They do this by playing pink noise loudly through a loudspeaker, and measuring for how long the sound lingers after the noise stops. The more the reverb time is reduced at a given frequency or range, the more the material absorbs at that frequency or range.

A moving microphone is a good way to avoid the effects of standing waves at mid and high frequencies. Most people think of standing waves as occuring only at low frequencies, but in fact they occur anywhere waves arriving from opposing directions collide in the air. So the reverb time measured at one place in the room might be very different from another place, even a few inches away, because the levels can vary so much.

With a moving microphone, the tests are repeated many times in succession, and all the results are averaged together. At IBM's lab we use each test is run 100 times. But as I already pointed out, this doesn't work well at low frequencies, partly because a room has no real reverb at low frequencies. If these labs could be made with dimensions of 50 feet, then there would be enough "real" reverb to measure.

So for low frequencies it's better to put the loudspeaker in a tri-corner, and the measuring microphone in an opposing tri-corner. This placement excites and "reads" all of the room's modes the best, which yields the most information. The downside is the only frequencies you can then assess accurately are the room's own modes. If there are modes at 50 Hz and 60 Hz but nothing in between, then you can measure an absorber's effectiveness at only 50 Hz and 60 Hz but not in between. There are standard 1/3 octave frequencies, but I don't know if it's even possible to design a room shape having modes that align with those standard frequencies. And even if you could build such a room, it would be so large that it would cost too much to build.

--Ethan

 

[ScottMayo]

Scott,
...How many tie-died panels are you or your custoemrs willing to look at?
--Ethan

Tie dye? It's OVER, Ethan. The sixties are OVER. I can see why you're in acoustics, not interior decorating....

Flower painting

Imagine 16 different variations of that, scaled up to 2x4. Twenty minutes in a poster shop will give more than enough ideas.

 

[ned]

We are also working on a new product that will be more efficient also and your wife will not even see..

Glenn

Would that be a couch that double as traps? Could you give us more hint? Thanks.