NEW from RFC - Room Acoustic Treatment

[Pac67]

Hi Alex,

I am happy to custom make any panels you need. I can forward a colour swatch to match to the walls/decor...in fact invite your wife to do this and she may buy in to the project as she obviously will have better taste than you (I had to put that in case your dear lady wife reads this )

A few slender corner bass traps plus a few side panels for the walls (first points of reflection) and a rear absorbant panel would be a minimum in your room as a guess, but you obviously will know what's needed as you've already treated the room. Your wife may insist on the fugly foam things going, you never know! Don't forget you can get the side panels air-brushed with artwork or overlay photos done on canvas (simply stick them onto the panels applying spray adhesive to the corners) by sending off you favourite photos to an on-line photo printers.

[alexh]

Hi Paul,

I will have to have a measuring session over the weekend and send you some photo`s of the room.

It will need some of the thick panels for bass trapping, lots of side and rear treatment and some on the ceiling.

Yes I prefer a fairly dead room, I like to hear things as recorded with no room interference. The depth and positioning on a well recorded CD can be amazing.

What would be the best Email address to send my scribbles ?

Cheerz,

Alex.

[Pac67]

PM sent Alex. Just ping me a sketch of the room along with furnishing details and I'll draft a suggested initial layout. Best to start light and add only if you need it, although you can never go overboard on bass traps!

[bigdur]

Have you any pics of the finished units yet or just the prototypes still?

[Pac67]

Just the prototypes Jack. They're all built to custom order. I have a few orders in and will post updated pictures when done.

[bigdur]

Cool thanks

[Bertiebee]

Good luck with this, of all the things I've bought recently spending relatively little money on room acoustic treatment has reaped the biggest benefit.

I'm suprised you haven't been inundated with orders but bide your time and when the flurry of mains regenerator purchases is over people will be in touch (personally I think acoustic treatment should be bought first).

[Pac67]

Thanks Iain; I happen to agree with you. Room treatment is IMHO a better "upgrade" than many/most mains regenerators IMHO (and can cure a host of ills with speaker/room interaction) . Anything that reduces in room distortion and improve the clarity of the sound and soundstage for such little outlay is a no-brainer. I wouldn't be without panels in my room now!

[Bertiebee]

I'm not sure how many panels etc. I have, maybe 14 or so in my largish room.

The beauty is that you notice a massive difference with just 2 behind the front speakers and it just keeps getting better as you add more.......

[User211]

I'm suprised you haven't been inundated with orders but bide your time and when the flurry of mains regenerator purchases is over people will be in touch (personally I think acoustic treatment should be bought first).

Experiment 1 in my system - plug in mains regen - not a massive change by any means.

Experiment 2 add Paul's traps to the front wall corners. Much more affect on the sonics - for the better - at least using dipoles and when the traps were positioned correctly.

Given the cost, relative to electronics, a no brainer for at least giving a couple a try.

[Pac67]

Update for you folks:

I am currently constructing a set of corner panels for a customer and thought it worthwhile mentioning that these have been designed to fit snugly into the corner. They share the 100mm deep frames of the larger units, are 600 wide on the front face but have the sides angled at 45 degrees for a perfect snug fit into the corners. They are 1.2m high and come with compact pine feet finished in antique pine satin varnish. Photos to follow. A bit more involved in construction than the standard panel hence £200 per pair, but may suit some of your room applications better as they do melt into the corners better.

[Pac67]

Pictures of corner bass traps completed today for a customer. I've constructed the frames so that their edges are at 45 degrees for a snug fit across the corner walls:







Anyone wanting a similar pair of bass traps can have the fabric in an alternative colour. Price for a pair like this is £200 as it's a more complex construction than a standard square frame and a good deal more fiddly to cover neatly!

[Pac67]

Feedback from Justin after installing the panels should above in his listening room:

They work pretty much exactly as you heard them with your originals in place. Thanks for having me round and thanks to Kirsty & Ben for putting up with me!

The Harbeth's are very nicely made and I personally really like the Eucalyptus in the flesh.

With your panels in place, it is now possible to crank the volume up without the sensation that the room is being overdriven - or indeed that the speakers are too big for the room. The overall presentation is considerably cleaner than before and I have to admit I should have ignored the Apogee manual as in my case this is definately preferable to no treatment. The EAR infront of the A21 is proving an almost chronically intense experience - overbearing is not the word, really. Extreme speed, massive dynamics & resolution - jaw dropping stuff - but you have to be in the mood to handle it. Otherwise, back to the 211s for an easier, more musical & relaxed experience.
Thanks for the Justin!

[User211]

Feedback from Justin after installing the panels should above in his listening room:

They work pretty much exactly as you heard them with your originals in place. Thanks for having me round and thanks to Kirsty & Ben for putting up with me!

The Harbeth's are very nicely made and I personally really like the Eucalyptus in the flesh.

With your panels in place, it is now possible to crank the volume up without the sensation that the room is being overdriven - or indeed that the speakers are too big for the room. The overall presentation is considerably cleaner than before and I have to admit I should have ignored the Apogee manual as in my case this is definately preferable to no treatment. The EAR infront of the A21 is proving an almost chronically intense experience - overbearing is not the word, really. Extreme speed, massive dynamics & resolution - jaw dropping stuff - but you have to be in the mood to handle it. Otherwise, back to the 211s for an easier, more musical & relaxed experience.
Thanks for the Justin!

Wot including the ridiculous A21 babble? No problem

It's probably worth pointing out that when we used all four traps with the Harbys things seemed rather cleaner too.

[User211]

Bit more playing around - there turned out to be a fairly significant bass problem with the traps on the front wall. They can't attenuate the low bass - but they do attenuate higher up. This leads to too much LF output at the listening position.

They actually work better in the rear wall corners - where bass is much more evenly balanced when moving your head backwards and forwards.

This would easily be measurable based on experience. So I'll leave them there for the moment. I've managed to flatten the padding a bit too so they look a little nicer.

So then - a bit more respect to the Apogee manual - wise after all.

[Pac67]

PM'd Justin. The bass traps do attenuate low bass but when in the corners will not attenuate bass which is reflected off the back wall and reinforced by other room corners. The traps were designed (in your case) for corner placement to reduce boom and that they do very effectively as witnessed when we first trialled them in your listening room. If you have them on the rear walls and not in the corners, they will attenuate upper bass and you will get lower bass boom from the corners.

[User211]

Let's try and explain this all a little better.

With the traps on the front wall the results were as post #53. In other words - very good - those observations are valid. This was observed by me, Paul and Jerry.

However, the Duetta can get a bit bass heavy at 30Hz. +10DB is common, and from the measurements I have taken in room this is the case at the listening position. Move a metre or so forward with the measurement mic and this all but disappears. I need to sit where I need to sit, however.

All I am saying in post #55 is that it became apparent after extended listening that this was not the best place for the traps. Why? Because they are very effective, really - but they can't absorb 30Hz and below with the same proficiency as above 40Hz. This makes 30Hz bass more prominent than it was without the traps in place.

PLEASE NOTE: this is only because we are dealing with a dipole that has a very low frequency response capability i.e. it fires very low frequency bass in BOTH directions. This precise scenario will NOT be relevant to 90%+ of users.

But, I found by placing the traps in the room corners at the other end of the room, bass - at the very low end, is better. In fact overall, and bear in mind my ears are in the same plane as the rear wall corners, the result is preferable.

So all I am really saying here is I moved the traps to the other end of the room and it gave an EVEN BETTER result overall.

With regards to the padding, I have simply removed a few ripples you can see in the pics above by running my hand over the front. The fabric is very nice indeedy, BTW.

Hope that clears things up. These traps won't be going anywhere outside the listening room - they are very good.

[Pac67]

Sounds like a decent result Justin and you're right, those dipoles in a compact room with few soft furnishings do present quite a strong room treatment challenge!

[tinny1]

hiya pac67 i brought a audiolab 8200cdq yesterday of belliore he says you make cables, just wondering i have the roksan kandy k2 integrated amp and has no balanced connections so would you be able to make xlr for audiolab to rca for roksan would this be able to be done and would it make a diffrence or am i wasting my time and just keep it connected at the rcas?

[Pac67]

PM sent Tinny1