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Room treatment success story

A couple of months ago I asked the forum for advice about what may make the best upgrade for my system (e.g., better amp, sub woofer, etc.) One of the responses was to focus on room treatment/room acoustics. While I had seen mention of the importance of room treatment, this was not originally on my list of possible upgrades. However, it got me thinking and doing more research.

A few days ago I took delivery of 5 GIK Acoustic 244 bass trap panels. WOW, WHAT A DIFFERENCE! I knew my room had a little too much slap echo (e.g., clap of hands echoed a little too long than it should), but I was not prepared for the dramatic change that the bass trap panels made. They not only took care of the slap echo problem, but the bass in the Magnepans have completely come to life.

A few of the very noticable differences:

-- Bass lines are much more prominent and it is much easier to distinguish individual notes (rather than low notes that sound more the same).

-- Vocals are clearer and more focused. For example, Mark Knopfler's vocals on the Get Lucky CD are now much more easily understandable and clearer.

-- Listening to Keb Mo's Slow Down CD, I realized that there were certain guitar notes that without the traps would seem to disappear or have such a lower volume as to almost not there, but now I am hearing notes that I simply could not hear before.

-- Some of my rock CDs that I thought were simply very poorly recorded (and perhaps are) are now much more listenable and actually sound pretty decent.

Before getting the bass trap panels, I had borrowed a REL sub from a friend for a couple of weeks. It sounded great. However, the roughly $400 spend on these bass trap panels made a MUCH more significant difference in the bass in my room than this $1,500 REL subwoofer. (Again, the REL sounded great, but I now realize that I was not able to hear what it or the Magnepans were truly capable of.)

GIK Acoustics was great to deal and was very patient in answering my questions. I am in no way affiliated with them, just a satisfied customer.

So thanks to Lenny_zwik for pushing me in the direction of improving my room acoustics!

By the way, I would still like to get a better amp and a sub woofer, but I plan on my next purchase to be a rug for hard wood floors and a few more bass trap panels (I have a large room).
edge22
inpieces's avatar
inpieces
199 posts
 
Edge22,

i'll have my room treated to (can't wait;).
In about 7-14 days.
Though i will run even more than stuff than you.

2 Monster bass
4 244
3 242
6 Tritraps

All but two on stands, the other two will be hanging.

I noticed someone asked on how to know how to position.
That is not difficult.
Best is to start with corners, bass traps (tritraps, 1 in each corner or 1 in each corner behind speaker. Or 2, on top of eachother).
Behind speakers, 244 or 242.
First reflection - 242.
Behind sofa, 1 or 2 monster bass.

Or, why not check Gik acoustics home page or mail/ call them, Frank or Bryan help you out.
They are nice.

It is staggering how much it sometimes interacts.
If you got a chance to hear before and after, you see (hear).
A dealer/ speaker manufacturer, told me straight up. He had been at audiophilers so many times. He was shocked in some cases. Bad set ups of speakers in the actual room. Many clients switched gears like shirts and they had excellent set ups but bad rooms or set ups.

The most problem with this are often with the ladies.
I guess it i somewhat difficult with WAF (wife acceptance facor).
Even small rooms can use quite large speakers if done propperly:)
newbee
4,093 posts
 
Kclone, I sort of agree with the oversimplification set forth by Keithr. He left out some treatments for sidewall first reflections (usually necessary) but included some reference to ceilings which most over look. :-)

But, FWIW, in my opinion you would be best served by getting a good handbook on room acoustics and how you treat them (anomalies). Its far more of a science and the practice is more methodical and very specific to your room than just the application of a little black magic. In fact I would suggest that you spend little money until you have a good understanding of room acoustics, prospective treatments, and are not just reliant on the typical internet advice. Good luck..........
schipo
1,267 posts
 
This information comes from "Sound Reproduction" The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms written by a pioneer in acoustics Floyd Toole

first reflections
While the consensus is that there should be some absorption in a room, there are two schools of thought on whether one should try to absorb first reflections:

1) Don't treat first reflections: See Toole, Sound Reproduction for info that you don't need to treat first reflections. Toole's chapters 6 and 7 and in many places throughout the whole book, explain that when tested and asked in controlled experiments, people prefer early reflections for music and early reflections help speech intelligibilty. having the first reflections give the benefit of a sense of envelopment and broader spatial imaging (and low IACC) that listeners in Toole's experiments prefer from first lateral reflections.

Of course, you do still want absorption in the room primarily to avoid flutter echoes. But so long as reflections are not so delayed that they start to resemble echoes, people prefer them.

2) The old conventional wisdom, but on the wane (especially among those who have read Toole's book), is that you should treat first reflections.

Possible good reasons to absorb first reflections are:

speakers with poor off-axis repsonse may benefit from first reflection absorption. That is, if your front speakers send out the equivalent of acoustic flatulence to the side to be reflected off the walls, then you probably don't want that acoustic flatulence to be bounced back to you, so you might as well absorb it.
if you are a sound engineer and want to hear only the direct sound, including the direct sound from the surround speakers and don't want to be distracted by the ambiance and envelopment created by the reflections, then you should absorb them.
Apart from those good reasons to absorb first reflections, some people maintain that absorbing first reflections helps imaging. This is inconsistent with Toole's experiments, however.
kclone's avatar
kclone
601 posts
 
thanks for the help guys. I have spent tons of money on the gear all these years, and very little on the room. So time to change that. thanks again.
edge22 OP
31 posts
 
Schipo,

You asked about where I put the panels.

The short answer is that I put all 5 on the back wall (that is, the wall behind me when I am seated).

Here is the longer answer: When I talked with the folks at GIK Acoustics, they originally recommended 8 of the 244s based on my room size (about 25 x 23 x 9 foot ceilings) and seeing pictures (lots of bare walls and hard wood floors).

I decided to start with 5 of the 244s based on (1) I came up with a design idea using 5 on the back wall that my wife liked, and (2) I was somewhat skeptical about how much an improvement room treatment would make in the first place. I am now a convert after hearing the "before" and "after."

In talking to GIK Acoustics about my idea of using 5 on the same wall, they suggested that the back wall would be better for this. This was at least in part because the Magnepan speakers that I have are dipoles (that is, sound comes from both the front and the back of the speaker). Because of the design of the Magnepans, putting too much absorption behind them would cause them to lose some of benefits of this design.

What they suggested for my "next" step is to have some absorption closer to the center of the front wall and to have diffusion behind the Magnepan speakers.

What kind of RPG treatment did you get?
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