NEW from RFC - Room Acoustic Treatment

[Pac67]

Its been a little while in development but I'm finally delighted to announce that I will be providing a new range of products, all hand crafted, to help you get the very best out of your systems at home. Most people neglect acoustic room treatment, but miss out on perhaps the biggest "upgrade" available by simply and effectively treating room acoustics. The idea is to tame unwanted bass boom and early reflections created by the interaction of the loudspeakers with surrounding acoustically reflective surfaces with the aim of improving clarity, stereo image and detail, allowing your system to perform at its best.

Trouble is, most commonly available eggbox foam slabs look unsightly, can be costly, and can fade in sunlight.

In response to this, I have developed a small but perfectly formed range of full bandwidth (can be used as bass traps as well) acoustic panels available in the following sizes:

1.2m by 0.75m
1.2m by 0.6m
1.0m by 0.35m

Features:

• Choice of 50mm or 100mm deep panels filled with high density fire retardant glass fibre wadding which has excellent sound absorption characteristics (better than open cell foam). Benefits include being less bulky than equivalent foam panels to achieve the same results plus remain SAFE from a fire safety point of view
• The panels are framed with sold pine frames which are then covered in top quality flame retardant acoustically transparent cloth which will be available in a range of colours to suit your decor requirements. Benefits include them being much more domestically friendly so your lving room won't resemble a recording studio!
• they can be cleaned by wiping over with a damp cloth to remain fresh looking and will not fade in sunlight nor allow migration of the glass fibre filling.

These can be supplied with a free standing feet kit (optional) or can be hung on walls using standard picture hooks, or fixed using brass brackets and a few screws.
They are not to be confused with cheap and nasty DIY attempts sold on various auction sites which generally are not fire retardant nor use the same quality pukka acoustic fabrics.

I am happy to take pre-orders or for you to register interest (no obligation) so that I can create a priority list for manufacture.

The standard room would benefit from a minimum of one bass trap (small panel) in each corner on the 'speaker wall plus one of the larger panels placed behind each 'speaker. The ability to use free standing panels means you can place below windows or in front of radiators.

For more troublesome rooms, additional panels in each room corner, on the rear wall and perhaps on side walls would be enough for most listening spaces. Its better to build the treatment a little at a time rather than go for overkill which could result in a "dead" listening space, so I'd advise a little at a time, a period of evaluation then order more only if needed.

The icing on the cake is that the materials are from environmentally friendly sources:

• Glass fibre filling is made from 60% recycled glass bottles;
• Timber is sourced from ONLY FSC approved sustainable sources using PEFC chain of custody certification
• recyclable Polyolefin custom weave fabrics used in the acoustic fabric

Not only will you be provided with one of the best quality acoustic fabrics in a colour of your choice, stretched over lightweight but very robust hand jointed solid pine frames and filled with one of the best acoustic absorbent materials available, but you can rest assured that the sourcing and manufacture is about as environmentally friendly as its possible to achieve.


Happy to speak on a one-to-one basis to help for your individual circumstances and to work with you to design around your particular requirements.
I can offer one off custom built panels to any size up to a maximum of 2m in length by 1.5m in depth.

Prices (excluding courier delivery) expected to be:

Large panels = £95
Medium Panels = £82.50
Slender Panels = £75

Delivery prices start from £8 per panel via courier delivery.

PM me if interested or feel free to post on this thread.

[Tarzan]

Piccys would help.

[Pac67]

I'll be posting pics in due course Andy, just trying to gauge interest first before I decide to go hell for leather with it. First units should be ready for photos within a week to 10 days (just waiting on coverings).

[lee1975]

I could be tempted as above some pics would be big help

Cheers

Lee

[JANDL100]

One thing you can be sure of with Paul - these will be properly engineered and based on sound science!

It's always tricky - perhaps the seller should wait 'til all is ready to go - and then get a deluge of "if only I'd known these were coming then I wouldn't have bought 'xyz mega-£dosh absorbers' last week ". Not a good result for anyone.

[Pac67]

Thanks Jerry

Best to let folk know it's coming is the way I like to do things. Pictures will follow. I have a large set of frames ready but it took a while to strike a deal with the right supplier for the specialist fabric. All should be ready for photos within a day of the fabric arriving.

[gjm]

One of the wonderful things about this approach, when compared to the more hardcore hifi ideas, is that they can be decorated to suit your room. I've seen them with airbrushed designs and embroidered finishes; both are effective.

[Pac67]

Absolutely Graham. They can be configured to suit your own room and tastes.

[Pac67]

Following a few queries via PM I have updated some of the information in the OP to give more detail.

[bigfish]

I am interested too...look forward to some photos etc

[bigfish]

Pm sent

[Hayward]

Interested in these, looking forward to some pics... Would you think it would be possible to use them for the ceiling too?

[Pac67]

Hi Ritchie

absolutely. I can manufacture some thinner walled versions for ceiling placement to minimise profile and weight. I have a range of fibre fill material and for ceilings would specify 50 to 75mm glass fibre slabs. They wouldn't weigh any more than some light fittings! You'd have to identify the ceiling joists to fix them to, but its not a difficult job to fix them to ceilings. The added bonus of doing this is that they also add to sound proofing between floors!

[Hayward]

Hi Ritchie

absolutely. I can manufacture some thinner walled versions for ceiling placement to minimise profile and weight. I have a range of fibre fill material and for ceilings would specify 50 to 75mm glass fibre slabs. They wouldn't weigh any more than some light fittings! You'd have to identify the ceiling joists to fix them to, but its not a difficult job to fix them to ceilings. The added bonus of doing this is that they also add to sound proofing between floors!

Excellent! Room treatment is my next upgrade. If I can get these past my best friend... Pics please!

[Parkandbike]

Very timely as I have been messing around with meaurement. Once you have your prototypes, will you be positing any performance measurements? I'm particularly interested in bass <100Hz.

[CarlBkk]

Was thinking about buying some panels from EQ Acoustics online which to me seemed to look like the best value for money (and appearance), but I'll hang on here for some pics. I'm after two wall panels which are light enough to be taped/velcroed to the wall without screwing them in. Also two corner bass traps, similar to the ones offered on EQ. What fabric company did you choose to supply?

[Pac67]

Hi

I will be posting some performance specs for the panels in due course. Fabric is from Cara Acoustic Fabric. This is used in most of the top flight panels and carries FR certification.

Panels for wall mounting are better with picture frame hanging kits or raw-plugs. I wouldn't recommend Velcro for suspending panels (except perhaps for 50mm panels), but for holding them against walls (base on ground) its fine. Whilst the panels are quite lightweight, they're not like foam tiles which weight next to nothing. These are more effective at sound absorption that equivalent thickness foam tiles.

[Pac67]

I have the following design specifications for the panels. The figures quoted are the DESIGN specifications based upon the published reverberation room method for the materials used, and based upon NO air gap behind the panels:

Before looking through the figures, it's important NOT to get too hung up on them. Anything with an absorption coefficient of 0.7 or greater is said to offer good sound absorption at that frequency. The figures drop off at low frequencies as these are harder to absorb, but an air gap behind the panels significantly increases efficiency since the sound that makes it through the panel is reflected back into the panel and is re-absorbed.

100mm panel:
Frequency (HZ): 125 250 500 1000 2000 4000
Absorption Coeff: 0.84 1.2 1.2 1.1 1.1 1.1

50mm Panel:
Frequency (HZ): 125 250 500 1000 2000 4000
Absorption Coeff: 0.24 0.73 0.93 1.1 1.1 1.1

As you can see, the 100mm panel is 4 times more effective as a sound aborber at 125 Hz than the 50mm panel. To increase the absorption effect, an air gap is left between the wall and the panel (hence free standing panels are said to be more effective than panels hard up against walls since the sound is reflected off the wall and travels back through the panel).

For that reason, one of my 100mm bass traps (300mm wide) placed across the corner should be more effective than a 200 or 300mm foam bass trap and to my mind would look much nicer!

As you can see, from 500 Hz upwards, there is little to choose between the 50mm deep panel and the 100mm panel. I will offer 50mm panels for wall fixing on the side and rear walls.

The 50mm panels are most effective when placed at the PRIMARY reflection points which are the side walls mid-way between the loudspeakers and the listening position and the ceiling mid way between the loudspeakers and listening position. I would advise using 100mm panels behind the speakers and in the corners.

Panels behind speakers and in the corners is a good place to start, only adding more if required. You can over-do it and deaden the room and reduce SPLs if too many are used.

On a practical note, the 100mm panels are MORE RIGID and should be used for all free standing applications irrespective of placement. The thinner panels are for wall or ceiling fixing.

Hope this helps.

[User211]

What happens above 4KHz, or does absorbtion drop off rapidly? Any figures, Paul?

[Pac67]

Hi Justin

it's the lower figures which are the problematical ones. There's very little drop off above 4kHz up to 20KHz. Most foam bass traps have quite a low coefficient hence need to be very thick. The ones you often see for sale (cheaper 300mm tick corner traps) aren't very effective sub 250Hz, the one's I'll provide at 100mm thickness being more effective, especially when placed across a corner with an air gap behind. From 500Hz upwards, a 50mm thickness is actually pretty effective for almost all situations. The effectiveness can be increased (as with bass traps) by leaving a 50mm air gap between them and wall/ceiling. You just attach 25mm-50mm battens one to each side of the back, and use brackets to fix to the wall or ceiling.