Trell's home theatre/living room

[Trell]

Do you notice any difference in dynamics- i.e., one woofer vs two?

Not yet, though the listening volume played so far is moderate, about -30 dB to -25 dB on the receiver. And, of course, it depends on the content

 

[Eppie]

Those panels actually add to the decor with a modern look. Very nice room and system!

 

[3db]

Wow Trell!!! Nice room and I have to agree with Eppie that the panels do look very hip and modern. Congrats!!!

 

[Trell]

I've made some REW measurements of all my speakers in my room using ASIO4All for single speaker measurements and REW builtin for combined FL+FR (for lower frequencies). All measurements are done at MLP, and for XT32 enabled I use Reference with DynEQ off.

I'm by no means any good in reading the REW measurements, so I'll leave that up to you to make sense of them

My HT setup is non-symetrical in the room with different types of materials/thickness the walls/roof/ceiling are made of, but after room treatments the room is not as lively but are far from dead sounding.

There is a subwoofer in front right corner and back right corner. In back left floor/ceiling corner I've put up two 4A Alpha Pro Series Panel Diffusor / Absorber (100mm) that straddles it, but that might change when we get the new furniture (bookselves). Center speaker is now a two way 6.8" bookshelf instead of a 2.5 way horizontal speaker.

 

[Trell]

I've made some changes to my living room which improved both the aesthetics and the sound.

The new bookshelves (the type you have books in ) have finally arrived just in time for Easter to replace the old one!

With new square acoustic panels the floor (almost) to ceiling is covered instead of leaving the bottom quarter a bare wall. This improves the look and performance for both the front and back wall, especially the the performance of the back wall with panels now having an 8.5 cm air gap added. The back and front walls are now about 50% covered in panels.

The decay time seems seems to be fairly even and lowish but with some issues in lower bass. I should have had the volume higher during measurements and there was some distortions in LF probably due to external noise, but that was something I discovered after I completed the measurements. The XO 90 Hz is cleaner.

I removed the grilles of the front Canton Vento speakers, which improved the sound very much as it became more "open". An A/B testing made that very apparent with some classical music, for instance. This is probably due to the acoustic panels I've added at the back wall, and by looking at the backside of the grilles I wonder if they are intended to be used in rooms with little or no acoustic treatments.

By moving the subwoofer in the back right corner forward to the middle of right wall improved the response very much. A broad deep (21 dB) dip at 42 Hz became a shallow one of a few dB. Other peaks and dips more or less disappeared as well.

A disappointment is that XT32 did not handle front right speaker integration with the subwoofers very well, but looking at mono (the FL+FR sum) it seems to be OK below 120 Hz where recorded material is usually mono as well.

 

[Trell]

A couple of more measurements as the limit per post is 10 attachments:

 

[Danzilla31]

I've added room treatments made by GIK Acoustics (Europe branch) to my small living room/home theatre, and is in the process of adding more panels and bass traps.

The panels are 10 cm (4 inch) thick, except for the corner traps, and all of them have a visible scatter/diffusion plate to avoid over-dampening the upper mid and high frequencies.

Sadly, left and right side walls cannot have room treatments added, and that leaves me with front and back wall as well as the ceiling. Possibly one floor/ceiling corner on the back wall can have tri traps added, otherwise only wall/ceiling corners can be used for treatments.

My room treatments are all from GIK Acoustics (Europe branch)

Front wall room treatments: Coverage ca 26%

• 4 * Demi CT Alpha Pro Series Corner Bass Trap on wall-ceiling corner.
• 1 * CT Alpha Pro Series Corner Bass Trap on wall-ceiling corner.
• 4 * 4A Alpha Pro Series Panel Diffusor / Absorber (100mm)

Back wall room treatments: Coverage ca 26%

• 4 * Demi Impression Pro Series Corner Bass Trap on wall-ceiling corner.
• 4 * Impression Pro Series 100mm Bass Trap Diffusor Absorber

Ceiling treatment: Coverage ca 23% when completed

• 4 * Demi CT Alpha Pro Series Corner Bass Trap on wall-ceiling corner shared with front wall.
• 1 * CT Alpha Pro Series Corner Bass Trap on wall-ceiling corner shared with front wall.
• 4 * Demi Impression Pro Series Corner Bass Trap on wall-ceiling corner shared with back wall.
• TO BE DONE: 4 * 4A Alpha Pro Series Panel Diffusor / Absorber (100mm)

Loud speakers:

• Front left/right: Canton Vento 886.2
• Center: Canton Vento 858.2 but has ordered a Canton Vento 830.2 to replace it.
• Surrounds: Canton Vento 820
• Subwoofers: Dual SVS SB-3000

Gear list:

• Receiver: Denon AVR-X4200W (2015 model, so no Audyssey app). Cooling using twin Noctua 5V PWM fans with a Noctua fan controller, and is powered by TV USB.
• BlueRay player: Oppo BDP-93EU
• TV: LG OLED 55CX
• Cable TV: Junk
• Remote Control: Logitech Harmony 900 (old, but works well, has RF)
• Streaming: Chromecast gen 2 as well as the new LG TV using ARC.
• Network: The devices are connected to an Ubiquiti gigabit switch using PoE (Power over Ethernet).
• AV rack: NorStone Design EPUR 3 AV
• TV wall mount: OmniMount OC120FM

View attachment 44973

View attachment 45161

That is an amazing setup! Very well done!

 

[Trell]

That is an amazing setup! Very well done!

Thanks!

There are more panels added than shown in the first post, along with other changes. GIK made a misconfiguration of their CNC machine so that all of my new 60 cm x 60 cm was 59.5 cm x 59.5 cm and would not align nicely with the rectangular panels. Now I got the replacement panels and can use the old ones for more testing before I return them.

 

[Danzilla31]

Thanks!

There are more panels added than shown in the first post, along with other changes. GIK made a misconfiguration of their CNC machine so that all of my new 60 cm x 60 cm was 59.5 cm x 59.5 cm and would not align nicely with the rectangular panels. Now I got the replacement panels and can use the old ones for more testing before I return them.

Those panels are very nicely done I love how they go with the room

 

[}Fear_Inoculum{]

Are those parquet floors? Wow, I haven't seen those since my grandma had them when I was a kid. I loved those floors.

Nice set up. Looks great.

 

[Trell]

Are those parquet floors? Wow, I haven't seen those since my grandma had them when I was a kid. I loved those floors.

Nice set up. Looks great.

Thanks!

Yes, the parquet floors are over 50 years old and installed when the apartment was built.

 

[Trell]

Edit: Issues with uploading.... Ugh!!

Updated pictures of our living room.

The first is towards the back.

Back wall where the panels have been moved out about 10 inches from the wall and added panels to complete it down to the floor:

The front wall with new center speaker and more panels to complete down to the floor:

 

[Danzilla31]

Edit: Issues with uploading.... Ugh!!

Updated pictures of our living room.

The first is towards the back.
View attachment 50375

Back wall where the panels have ben moved out about 10 inches from the wall and added panels to complete it down to the floor:

View attachment 50376

The front wall with new center speaker and more panels to complete down to the floor:

View attachment 50377

Very nice! Have you been able to measure an improvement in the response due to the room treatment?

 

[Trell]

Very nice! Have you been able to measure an improvement in the response due to the room treatment?

Thanks!

There are measurable improvements over time but more of them was in the end more in reduced decay time as opposed to fr. I've posted measurements earlier in this thread so time to make new ones that I can present. Our living room is "acoustically challenged".

I clearly am unable to do a simple AB test but it does sounds better The first panels (before extending down to the floor) made a big improvement in clarity when listening to dialogue and the room itself was nicer to be in due to not being so filled with flutter and echo.

What is important to note is that many panels covering a large area is needed for good effect, more than many want to do. About 50% of front/back wall is covered with 4" panels.

 

[Danzilla31]

Thanks!

There are measurable improvements over time but more of them was in the end more in reduced decay time as opposed to fr. I've posted measurements earlier in this thread so time to make new ones that I can present. Our living room is "acoustically challenged".

I clearly am unable to do a simple AB test but it does sounds better The first panels (before extending down to the floor) made a big improvement in clarity when listening to dialogue and the room itself was nicer to be in due to not being so filled with flutter and echo.

What is important to note is that many panels covering a large area is needed for good effect, more than many want to do. About 50% of front/back wall is covered with 4" panels.

The house I'm in now is the first that I've had a room that I could do room treatments I was amazed at how much of a difference it makes. I love the look of the panels too its almost like it's just an extension or part of the wall. And they go very well with the rest of the room

 

[highfigh]

Thanks!

There are measurable improvements over time but more of them was in the end more in reduced decay time as opposed to fr. I've posted measurements earlier in this thread so time to make new ones that I can present. Our living room is "acoustically challenged".

I clearly am unable to do a simple AB test but it does sounds better The first panels (before extending down to the floor) made a big improvement in clarity when listening to dialogue and the room itself was nicer to be in due to not being so filled with flutter and echo.

What is important to note is that many panels covering a large area is needed for good effect, more than many want to do. About 50% of front/back wall is covered with 4" panels.

Not that I'm trying to spend your money, but have you tried using a larger rug?

 

[Trell]

Not that I'm trying to spend your money, but have you tried using a larger rug?

Have not done so.

 

[afterlife2]

Whoa first time seeing your setup. Looks amazing. Too bad you're not in FL. I'd have to visit. Canton oh my.

 

[Alex2507]

Nobody needs all those panels ...

... so jealous.

And your place is too clean. You got like a butler?

 

[Oski1997]

Cooling using twin Noctua 5V PWM fans with a Noctua fan controller, and is powered by TV USB.

I just got my Denon this week. I also put two 120mm fans on top to pull the hot air out to create the pull/push effect inside the unit. I can’t believe how much $20 fans help cool my receiver. One guy said for every 10 degrees we cool the receivers, we increase 70% of the life of the Denons. That’s worth the money I spent in fans in spades.