Spend less on speakers, more on acoustic treatment?

[Seth=L]

Wait a minute...

Is there a double-blinded study on effects of acoustic panels on speaker sounds?

I don't know, but it seems like that it would pretty easy to set up.

 

[walter duque]

Can anybody make heads or tails out of this graph. This is from a Gradient- Absorber Diffuser Panel. I have no idea what I am looking at. I am going to start with some room treatments but I am totally new this.

Sorry I posted this in the wrong tread, it's been an 18 hour workd day. Moderator please delete this post if possible.

 

[walter duque]

Can anybody make heads or tails out of this graph. This is from a Gradient- Absorber Diffuser Panel. I have no idea what I am looking at. I am going to start with some room treatments but I am totally new this.

Sorry I posted this in the wrong tread, it's been an 18 hour workd day. Moderator please delete this post if possible.

View attachment 8548

Moved tread to Room Acoustics. I feel like a real dope.

 

[Seth=L]

Moved tread to Room Acoustics. I feel like a real dope.

Dope as in "this subwoofer is DOPE DUDE!", or dope as in "hur dur"?

 

[walter duque]

Dope as in cool, or dope as in "hur dur"?

Dope as in "hur dur"
Once I start getting into these 18 hour work days I start cracking a few Heinekens and I get lost where I am posting at.

 

[Seth=L]

Dope as in "hur dur"
Once I start getting into these 18 hour work days I start cracking a few Heinekens and I get lost where I am posting at.

"89 bottles of beer on the floor, 89 bottles of beer.....uhm.......Let's post on audioholics YEAHHHHHHHH PARTYY!!!"

 

[KEW]

Hello all,

Is it fair to say that correct acoustic treatment is vastly underrated by most people? I'm working on my dedicated home theater room, and recently went on a "parade of homes" tour and was looking for theater ideas.

The thaters I saw were nice, and professionally designed, but the sound was just OK. The speakers used were theoretically very good.

However, I couldn't see any evident acoustic treatment. It could be that it was fantastically well hidden, but I don't think so.

It got me thinking about my own design and thinking about whether I should stop obsessing about speakers and start obsessing about AT.

Put another way, given a limited budget, might I be able to achieve pretty darned good results by focusing my efforts on A.T.? Granted, the speakers are only as good as they are good (A.T. won't improve them) but I'm guessing that in many, many cases what people actually have running at home (and what I saw in those theaters) is great equipment wasted in a bad space...

thoughts?

My local concert venues consists primarily of a concrete/steel arena for the big name concerts or an older theater for lesser know performers. I have completely stopped going to the concrete/steel arena - why pay $80-200 plus for SQ which doesn't come close to even my computer sound system. OTOH, I have found that even if I get poor seats in the older theater, I enjoy the sound. For those familiar with Atlanta, I'm comparing Philips Arena to Fox Theater. I simply cannot enjoy the sound at Philips Arena, even with the psychological benefits of a live performance.

So, I have to believe the acoustics of the venue matter and similarly that the acoustics of your room matter. Unfortunately, I have neither time nor resources to establish proof of this. Personal experience is all I have.

I am not nearly as knowledgeable as most who have chimed in here, but thought I would add some thoughts to help with your original question.

1) I believe it is difficult to have any idea what is needed for acoustic treatments until you have the details of your system and room in place. I see the AT process as a tuning process which is difficult if not impossible to predetermine.

2) I also believe that if you have nice carpet and a couple of rows of sofas, your acoustics will not be too terrible. If you use some sort of fabric on the walls (there are also some acoustic wall papers which seem to be a nice option for a general improvement over cinder blocks or sheet rock, but they will cost more than basic wall paper - viability may depend on how your room vs HT budget is determined). What is your intended wall surface? Are you attempting to isolate the sound from your HT from the rest of the house?

3) Do you have flexibility in placement of your speakers? Often a custom HT room will dictate where the speakers will sit. There are people here who can tell if your placement is likely to be problematic or not (alternately, you can read some of the literature on this site about speaker placement-see 5 below).

4) My suggestion is to provide a layout of the room, showing your expected speaker placement (even if it is flexible) and ask for thoughts on how good or poor the acoustics will be. Declare what all wall & ceiling surfaces are. Also show screen/TV size and placement, since this is such a large surface.

5) Do this in another thread in the "Room Acoustics, System Layout & Setup" subforum. Hopefully this will lose the current theoretical debate from your discussion, which, while interesting, is unlikely to help you anytime soon with your immediate objectives.
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=10

6) Is this also a music room? What percentage of music vs HT? How loud do you like to listen?

So the idea is to give enough specifics to go from this nebulous theoretical discussion to a specific discussion of your room.

My personal feeling is that you should put all of your budget into speakers, while doing everything you can to make the basic room good for sound - then bring your first and second choice for speakers into the the room for auditioning (most bulk stores have a return policy and a decent audio store will at least let you take their floor models home for a trial on their "low traffic" days - You'll probably have to buy them, but with the understanding that they will either give a refund or replace them with brand new speakers if you like them). If the speakers that sound great in the showroom sound bad in your HT, then you might want to downgrade speakers and upgrade the AT budget.

Good luck and enjoy the process!

 

[highfigh]

Wait a minute...

Is there a double-blinded study on effects of acoustic panels on speaker sounds?

It could be done but it can also be measured. I made some panels for demonstration in a theater I worked on a few months ago and they were a decent improvement, although it doesn't need much at moderate SPL (less than 90dB). I brought them back and placed them in my living room, measuring and listening before and after. The difference was drastic. Bass is smoother without deep cancellations and reflections were decreased dramatically. If I could have the room I want, it wouldn't be this one but I'm not going to tear my house apart for that. I already removed a wall between the living room and kitchen, which helped greatly.

I would do the testing in a room that's typical of what people have to put up with in apartments and small homes. Large homes have benefits that will never be realized in small places because A) the budget is larger and can accommodate designed-in shapes/surfaces/treatments and B) many smaller places are rentals, which means they can't be changed much at all.

I was at Summerfest last night, where they have many stages with all kinds of musical groups/solo performers. After we left, we met a friends' wife and her friend at a place downtown, where a band was playing. Apparently, they wanted to get the attention of the people who book acts at Summerfest, because it was louder than the place could handle, acoustically. All walls and ceilings are drywall and the floors are Brazilian cherry. Lots of windows and mirrors, not many people and the sound was terrible. Along with that, the cabling that was "installed" looked like it may have been done by the owners to save money.

I just stuffed my ear plugs deeper into my ears and let it go.

When I got into selling audio, the general recommendation was that about 40% should go toward the speakers and the rest should be determined by the general importance of what was needed. If someone cranked the volume all the time, power was needed, scavenging some money from the sources. That was before we had as many options as now and it's far easier to get a good speaker for $500/pair. I would still spend on good speakers but I'd also make sure the room wasn't going to ruin the sound. When speaker options are limited because of location and time for auditioning is limited by the person's schedule/life, endless test sessions are unlikely. At some point, someone may have to settle on something that isn't "optimum" and still sounds good, even if it isn't great. It's not always possible to have the best and people need to be realistic about that.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Perhaps the question is, can some room treatment HURT the sound of your speakers?

Because even if they don't enhance the sound quality to some people, as long as they do NOT deteriorate the sound quality, then there is no harm done?

Does it hurt to "try" them out to see if they improve the sound?

Especially if you can return them for a refund?

Obviously, some people will never agree on this topic no matter how long they go at it.

Why take someone else's word for it when you could simply try them out yourself?

 

[highfigh]

Perhaps the question is, can some room treatment HURT the sound of your speakers?

Because even if they don't enhance the sound quality to some people, as long as they do NOT deteriorate the sound quality, then there is no harm done?

Does it hurt to "try" them out to see if they improve the sound?

Especially if you can return them for a refund?

Obviously, some people will never agree on this topic no matter how long they go at it.

Why take someone else's word for it when you could simply try them out yourself?

Well, if we assume the treatment will diminish some of the energy at certain frequencies, what would normally be heard will change if the speakers aren't arranged in a way that the surfaces would cause problems. For instance, if speakers are installed and set up to yield the best sound with no treatment and the room is large enough to handle these speakers with no reverberation issues, installing absorptive materials will cause dips in the range where they work most efficiently as long as the sound needs to reflect in order to have a reasonably even/smooth response. If the listening position and speakers are far enough from the reflective surfaces that the energy isn't sufficient to cause audible reverberation, then it's a moot point.

So, it won't "hurt" to try them. It may not be a good result but it's reversible.

 

[DukeL]

If there is serious problem with the room, like the boinnnnnng of slap-echo, that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, I think the burden falls almost entirely on the speaker.

As a thought exercise, consider an acoustic guitar. Doesn't matter what the room is like, it will sound like a real live acoustic guitar. Sure some rooms will sound better than others - and surprise surprise it sounds best in a reverberant space - but it will never sound unlike a live acoustic guitar. Likewise, a speaker that does a good job of replicating that acoustic guitar will do so in just about any reasonable setting.

So, when is room treatment usually sought out? When the speaker has an in-room response problem. Often this is in a particular frequency range - for example, excess off-axis energy in the lower treble region, at the bottom end of the tweeter's passband. I do not know of any room treatment products that are frequency-specific enough to address that kind of problem. In fact, not even DSP can solve a radiation pattern problem, though judicious equalization can minimize its audible consequence. The place to solve the problem is at the speaker, and more specifically at the design stage.

I have heard acoustic guitar players say that they would rather play a high quality guitar in the worst room imaginable than play a cheap guitar in the best room. And this makes sense - the ear can hear through a bad room, but it can't hear through a bad source.

Room treatment can definitely improve things, and personally I like the way a room with a lot of diffusion sounds, but you still have to start with a well-behaved loudspeaker in my opinion.

 

[Alex2507]

I have heard acoustic guitar players say that they would rather play a high quality guitar in the worst room imaginable than play a cheap guitar in the best room. And this makes sense - the ear can hear through a bad room, but it can't hear through a bad source.

I agree that it makes sense but have a little bit of a different thought as to why it makes sense. The musician hears the instrument first and foremost. They can tell best how the instrument and their playing sounds. What they might not be aware of or concerned with is that the room affects their listeners more than it does themselves but that's okay. I only need them to play the tune.

The Tennessee Theater is an old movie palace that is shaped like an oval. There are bad seats in there that could be made better by effective acoustical treatments. They actually had effective acoustical treatments but some designer said they needed to be painted ... oh well. The thing is that a musician would never be aware of what is going on in a bad seat and that's okay. Like I said, I just need them to play the tune. When they start telling me that the room doesn't matter is about when I start wanting to listen to an MP3 though ear buds ... like they do. I have noticed that musicians are not very concerned with SQ in the playback of recorded music at all. They are like the last people I would be taking tips from unless I wanted tips on rosining a bow or finger picking. Let it be known that if you were sitting in the very best seat in the Tennessee theater and I was playing the violin you would still not be having a very good time.

I had a concert violin soloist play a piece for me in a relatively bare small square room. I interrupted her about half way through and asked her very politely to humor me and repeat the piece in a larger rectangular room with couches and a bookshelf along one of the long walls so that I could hear the difference. Even though she poo=poo'ed the idea of the room making a difference I thought I liked it better in the bigger room. I figure that her proximity to the instrument and focus on her own playing blinded her to the effects of the room especially since it wasn't as drastic as a tiled bathroom would have been. Also consider that for teaching/rehearsal purposes she used a boombox in the crappy room when a much better system was available in the better room. Musicians are not to be trusted in these matters.

 

[GO-NAD!]

I agree that it makes sense but have a little bit of a different thought as to why it makes sense. The musician hears the instrument first and foremost. They can tell best how the instrument and their playing sounds. What they might not be aware of or concerned with is that the room affects their listeners more than it does themselves but that's okay. I only need them to play the tune.

The Tennessee Theater is an old movie palace that is shaped like an oval. There are bad seats in there that could be made better by effective acoustical treatments. They actually had effective acoustical treatments but some designer said they needed to be painted ... oh well. The thing is that a musician would never be aware of what is going on in a bad seat and that's okay. Like I said, I just need them to play the tune. When they start telling me that the room doesn't matter is about when I start wanting to listen to an MP3 though ear buds ... like they do. I have noticed that musicians are not very concerned with SQ in the playback of recorded music at all. They are like the last people I would be taking tips from unless I wanted tips on rosining a bow or finger picking. Let it be known that if you were sitting in the very best seat in the Tennessee theater and I was playing the violin you would still not be having a very good time.

I had a concert violin soloist play a piece for me in a relatively bare small square room. I interrupted her about half way through and asked her very politely to humor me and repeat the piece in a larger rectangular room with couches and a bookshelf along one of the long walls so that I could hear the difference. Even though she poo=poo'ed the idea of the room making a difference I thought I liked it better in the bigger room. I figure that her proximity to the instrument and focus on her own playing blinded her to the effects of the room especially since it wasn't as drastic as a tiled bathroom would have been. Also consider that for teaching/rehearsal purposes she used a boombox in the crappy room when a much better system was available in the better room. Musicians are not to be trusted in these matters.

I agree, Alex. My brother-in-law plays drums and bass guitar, while my sister-in-law plays piano. Both of them are clueless as to how recorded music should/could sound and really don't care. It's reflected in what they listen to music through. He - the cheapest Sony HTiB available, with the "subwoofer" not even connected. She - her laptop, using the integral speakers. As far as I know, the question of room acoustics has never entered their minds. I think they'd just rather play and too hell with the audience....

 

[DukeL]

Hi Alex2507,

You may not agree with my example but the point I was making is that the ear has the ability to overlook the room to a considerable extent, while it does not have a comparable ability to overlook the source. Toole supports this idea in his book.

 

[highfigh]

While some musicians only care about the sound from being in contact with the instrument, many may be considered 'clueless' about the sound quality because they care more about the actual music and not the sound. There's a lot of music out there that sounds great but as music, it's crap. Really, it's best to care about the music and if it sounds great, that's just gravy on the icing.

I tend to agree but I also know musicians who care about the sound quality to an extreme degree. It's not so much that they're audiophiles but they record and produce others. One received awards for his re-mastering work on 'Stop Making Sense' and he was in the band. He owns a recording studio now and has produced a whole line of recordings that were well-received.

 

[highfigh]

Hi Alex2507,

You may not agree with my example but the point I was making is that the ear has the ability to overlook the room to a considerable extent, while it does not have a comparable ability to overlook the source. Toole supports this idea in his book.

It's the mind, not the ears. Once the music reaches us on an emotional level, how good it sounds is secondary. There's a lot of great music that will never sound great because of when it was recorded but it moves people to tears. The subconscious mind can forgive a lot of things the conscious mind won't, or can't. Once we start to think about it and analyze it, the wheels fall off. If the music is bad, who cares about how it sounds? At that point, it's just sound effects and a technical exercise.

 

[JerryLove]

As a thought exercise, consider an acoustic guitar. Doesn't matter what the room is like, it will sound like a real live acoustic guitar. Sure some rooms will sound better than others - and surprise surprise it sounds best in a reverberant space - but it will never sound unlike a live acoustic guitar. Likewise, a speaker that does a good job of replicating that acoustic guitar will do so in just about any reasonable setting.

Three responses come screaming to mind

1) How well does the acoustic guitar sound like a bongo drum? Remember that I am not asking my speaker to sound like a speaker.

This is important because a speaker will never radiate like every insturment it's imitating. It's impossible as they don't radiate like one another. They don't even work in the same ways.

2) "It sounds awful, but I know it's an acoustic guitar" is really not a good outcome. I don't want to listen to a band play in a horrible setting.

3) (and this is most relevent). I heard Eric Clapton play live outside. Will your acoustic guitar played in my bathroom sound the same?

Speakers aren't intended to produce music, they are intended to reproduce it. I can pick out an acoustic guitar on the speakers in my laptop played on an airplane. What I can't do is think I'm listening to my live Clapton performance off them.

Your example doesn't address at all that the point of the exercise is to imitate listening to something other than a speaker in a place other than your room. It is re-production: not production.

 

[AJinFLA]

Perhaps the question is, can some room treatment HURT the sound of your speakers?

Yes.

Is there a double-blinded study on effects of acoustic panels on speaker sounds?

Yes again.
What do you think the folks I keep referencing do for a living? Dr. Toole, Dr. Geddes, Sean et al?????
It is precisely because they done a lifetime of DBT's, on speakers in rooms, why they reach the same conclusions...very different from the "lower pay grade" folks here (who have never performed an acoustic measurement in their lives, as their posts reveal, unable to perform even basic adjustments even to a DCX, to solve "room" problems). How many (occupied home) living rooms have you been in that are so "echoey" that you cannot carry on a conversation? That you cannot hear what people are saying? There may be reverberation there, plenty of reflections, but our ear/brains do an excellent job of "gating" much of it out. It's only in empty apartments and homes that I have ever had this experience. Furnished, occupied abodes? Never.
I realize that there can be extreme examples of rooms, like Jerry's 8x8x8 bare cell that he spent time in (Had no idea stereo's, much less full HT's were allowed), that can indeed represent the "rare" that I referred to (pity he didn't opt for the 8x8x8 padded version...with accompanying "treatment").
Just like Duke noted, or ear/brain is excellent at ignoring the room, while being unable to ignore the source...which I keep referring to. Unfortunately, even if the source is good enough to perform well, essentially ignoring the room (except at LF, but it can also be made to better couple to modes), it is still possible to introduce user incompetence, such as with placement (like Jerry illustrated, such as blaming the room if the speaker sounds poorly under the couch, or blaming the room if the speakers are placed too close to wall, or placed in the corner, facing the corner...like he had to do in school). No design can compensate for that.
Toole found that excessive reverberation from reflections (Jerry's 8x8 bare cell) can indeed confuse and blur the clarity of speech and music, etc., but also excessive absorption (aka so called "treatments") of reflections, i.e., not enough (Chris's straight jacket room/tomb) will lower clarity...while simultaneously kill "spaciousness" and realism. There you will find agreement amongst Sean, Toole, Geddes, Linkwitz, et al.

If there is serious problem with the room, like the boinnnnnng of slap-echo, that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, I think the burden falls almost entirely on the speaker.

I guess it's no surprise that you also may have spent a good deal of your life measuring...and designing loudspeakers to be placed in real rooms, much unlike those who advocate starting with turds and dousing them with perfume...excuse me, "treatments" as some kind of cure to the self imposed maladies.
Good luck getting that message through around these parts.
Anyone in the middle-west FL region with a set of your speakers Duke? I'd certainly like to give them a listen.

cheers,

AJ

 

[AJinFLA]

Three responses come screaming to mind
3) (and this is most relevent). I heard Eric Clapton play live outside. Will your acoustic guitar played in my bathroom sound the same?

Like most of us, Duke probably rarely if ever, listens to his stereo/HT in his "bathroom". Just because yours doubles as your living space does not make it representative of anything but an extreme, illogical example.
Reductio ad absurdum. Will Dukes, my or any other speakers sound good in Jerry's refrigerator or shoebox? No, they won't fit in there...therefore the "room" is what cause the problem.

 

[AJinFLA]

I assume you are in violent opposition to the THX standards then?

responses come screaming to mind

Violence and screaming in the mind eh?
The heretics have breached the church walls, oh my. Let's meet them with screams and violent opposition....
You do make me LOL Jerry. Funny guy
All we're missing now is something about dolphins and 5 guys