How to avoid echoes in a high ceilinged room

[yaji]

Can someone guide me as to how to avoid echoeing in a high ceilinged living room. I have been having this problem in my new living room with all my audio systems and also when two people talk to each other. Does anyone here know of DYI sound absorbers ?

thanks
yaji

 

[Audioholics]

Couple things to try:

• Check to make sure it's the ceiling-to-floor causing the issues and not front-to-back or side-to-side walls doing it. One way you might do this is to take a padded carpet remnant and place it on the floor to see if the problem is reduced at all, at least at the higher frequencies
• You can attack the problem using diffusion and absorption - the key is going to be solving the issue without going to far and deadening the room entirely
• Absorption is likely going to be cheaper and you can search the forums (and our site) for DIY absorption products

Other things you can do include utilizing furniture to break up the sound, like bookshelves (with staggered books) on the back wall, and padded cloth seats and sofas.

Once you isolate the reasons you can attack them systematically in the best way possible that will still elave your room aesthetically pelasing and livable. A padded throw rug woudl be my first thought in this case, though I don't have pics, dimensions, or details of your room.

 

[mulester7]

Can someone guide me as to how to avoid echoeing in a high ceilinged living room. I have been having this problem in my new living room with all my audio systems and also when two people talk to each other. Does anyone here know of DYI sound absorbers ?

thanks
yaji

.....Yaji, welcome to Audioholics, should I call you Saheeb?, and you could try hanging tasteful oriental rugs on the side walls up in the front of the room to catch what would be the first bounce from the mains....same with rear surrounds, and let those front-firing subs from the front RIP straight into the sweet-spot where you're sitting....with down-firing subs, oh for joy, hang a tasteful bathmat down low on he wall catching the first bounces of the down-firing in a tall room, and that would be a down-firing sub that fires into it's own plate, you'll probably want to raise the volume of the sub a bit after doing this....if you kill the first bounces down low in the room from all the voices, reflections from the ceiling would probably be nice.....

 

[Joel DuBay]

.....Yaji, welcome to Audioholics, should I call you Saheeb?, and you could try hanging tasteful oriental rugs on the side walls up in the front of the room to catch what would be the first bounce from the mains....same with rear surrounds, and let those front-firing subs from the front RIP straight into the sweet-spot where you're sitting....with down-firing subs, oh for joy, hang a tasteful bathmat down low on he wall catching the first bounces of the down-firing in a tall room, and that would be a down-firing sub that fires into it's own plate, you'll probably want to raise the volume of the sub a bit after doing this....if you kill the first bounces down low in the room from all the voices, reflections from the ceiling would probably be nice.....

Hey there, don't forget to treat your corners with good bass trapping too. This cannot be overstated to even out your bass response. Also, you can treat your "first reflections" point with Owens Corning 703 / 705 acoustic insulation. There are many places on the net where you can obtain this, then wrap your panels in fabric, sound suede, or other open weave materials. You can do this elegantly and inexpensively at the same time. Depending on your room configuration, you "may" benefit from treating the peaks of your ceiling...

Good luck,