Open Floor Plan Listening Room

Sandpat- great intro to the forums. You ask great questions and have a good attitude. Well done. We’ve had a lot of know-it-alls who have signed up lately and proceeded to school us all and save us from our ignorance. Not a great first impression.

I can’t help with advice for your issue, but it sounds like you’ve plenty of that. I just wanted to second the recommendations for room measurement. I recently purchased a calibrated USB mic that I use with REW, a free program. It’s the mic they recommend and was $90 shipped. Each mic also has a specific calibration file to use, making the whole process more accurate. I’ve found some bass modes that I thought were there, but I didn’t know at what frequencies or if they truly were problems. Now that I’ve the info, I need to decide what to do. But that is a way better situation than buying room treatments and placing them based on my thoughts instead of data.

I'm convinced re: the room measurements.  I did reach out to a local specialist but their prices seem a bit steep to me at this point.  Also, they insist on a solution of cutting off the bass to the Apogees and letting the subs do the work.  Normally I would be happy with that, but with Apogees the bass ribbons are their strength.  The definition, when you hear it, is fantastic.  

I'm going to attempt to measure and figure out the room bass issues myself and if I don't succeed I can always go back to the consultant.  I've ordered the mic that is recommended.  Wish me luck!  Either way I'll come out of this learning a lot more about sound engineering.  Thanks for all the feedback here I've already learned a lot, mainly that my original assumptions were probably completely wrong about the room.  

Hi All,

Thanks again for all the advice. I wanted to provide an update- I purchased a couple REL T9/i subwoofers for stereo setup and dialed them in using my ears. The improvement has been just outstanding. I enjoy listening to music again, even regular rock music that was not from the best recordings. This is about as close as I can get to getting an Infinity IRS (Beta or V) system at a palatable price. No doubt the Infinitys are better (but comparatively I am satisfied with the sound I have now at the right price overall).

Note that I did originally buy measuring equipment but I didn’t have the time to really understand how I should interpret the results. I do intend to go back and try and take a more scientific approach to all of this but in the meantime trusting my ears has resulted in, well, pleasing my ears. 🙂

Next on the list is to get rid of a bit of boom I’m now getting in the lower frequency bass. I already pulled the subs out from the corners and positioned halfway along the side walls at an angle towards the listening position and that has helped with the tight higher frequency bass and reducing boom in the lower frequencies. I also took the styrofoam and cardboatd box the subs came in and placed those directly behind the subs and that has helped quite a bit as well. I intend to go the professional room treatment route and will post updates as I discover newer ways to thin out my wallet.   Talking to GIK about treatments.  Perhaps next on the list after room treatment might be experimentation with servo controlled subs.

Thanks again for all your help. Saved me from wasting a lot of money on the wrong areas of my room.

I would suggest an Antimode 8033 room eq unit to smoothen your subs even more. They are cheap, easy to use, and highly effective.