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has anyone heard the arp reflective boards?

i've been in hifi for years, lastly coming on board with room acoustics; maybe it should have been one of the first things i worked on. as my system has evolved (yes, many many times)it's finally come to a point where the sound of the room has become very apparent to me. for years we were taught egg crates, foam, carpet pads, carpet, rugs, which now, as i've turned all my focus on the room, i just don't believe in anymore. i attend much live music, much, and one thing i noticed in the best of halls is not a lot of damping, rather, wonderful wood. great old shiny wood, and old plaster. not overdamped rooms. concert halls are not designed like recording studios. why should people try to do "that" to their rooms? i basically have a room, 14by15,with wide openings to the right and rear, that is like a concert hall. wood floors, lots of wood in the room, high ceiling. so i started to emulate a hall in st louis, the sheldon, close to perfect sound. i pulled the area rug out, installed solid wood shutters over the 3 windows, and began to listen. my system consists of the new welltempered amadeus due out soon, a dynavector drt xv-1s, dynavector L300 preamp, EAR 890 amp, and shahinian arc speakers, wire the new dnm. typically you hear shahinians need damping, especially behind them. not so, i say. they now radiate, they breathe. no harshness, no slap. the final touch to the room has been in choosing the right reflective surfaces. i bought some arp -acoustic reflective panels, from a bright chap in st louis who has been basing his panels on the charles altmann reflective panels, now out of production. altmann's theory was to use a wood that behaved like a musical instrument, spruce. and then to top it off, he used a varnish that imitated the old masters. Bill beilstein has outdone himself in recreating the panels from scratch, using natural glue and a special varnish made of larch. they're sold in groups of 3. after putting them roughly behind each speaker and the center, it only convinces me more that a good reflective surface is key. i can take them off and on and hear an immediate change. my next project is to buy more and put them on the ceiling over the speakers. i see there are lots of other panels out there made of various substances. i think these all spruce panels are the way to go. if anyone has had any experience with such products please let me know. i've since bought some of the larch and have been redoing every wood surface in the room to amazing results. covering the plaster walls with the arp panels has been the initial key that started it all. let me know.
Ag insider logo xs@2xchashas1
rives
953 posts
 
Kal has already stated this, but to somewhat rephrase:
1. Sound production and reproduction are two very different animals, be that in a concert hall or a recording studio.
2. When comparing large room acoustics such as a concert hall and small room acoustics the reverberation times that are acceptable and do not detract from the coherence of the music are VERY different. A concert hall, cathdral, or other large space will have RT times of well over a second. Small room acoustics we are basically at 0.4 seconds or less depending on the room size and applications. Longer RT times in a small room means many reflections and a very incoherent sound.
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chashas1 OP
596 posts
 
thanks for the nice response. my room has what appears to be almost perfect symmetry between amp/speaker/room, other speakers even in the shahinian line didn't work as well. the wood panels only intensified what was already sounding great. i have a friend with similiar gear in a cavernous room that might need some of the type of treatment you describe. all fellow listeners have said it just doesn't work in mine. just like your treated rooms work for some people, others not. they are always very beautiful, however.
unsound
6,115 posts
 
Chashas1, every room is different, and your's may respond to some unusual treatment, but, your post seemed to suggest that the typical methods don't work as well in general as your rather unique method. I'd suggest that for the vast majority, your approach would be an anthema to accurate sound reproduction.
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chashas1 OP
596 posts
 
thanks, that's something worth pondering. maybe i do have a unique situation.....it's just every time i think back to rooms i've heard that are so overdamped, or maybe it's wrongly damped, all i can think of is dry, sterile sound. it's like they want to take the room out of the equation, which i don't think you can, course there's always headphones...one other interesting outcome of this, i found there is a huge difference in what you treat your wood with, starting with standard poly, natural varnish, and then ending with larch colophony. amazing stuff. available from sinopia.com
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,424 posts
 
I have yet to see/hear an untreated domestic listening room that would not benefit from proper treatment but the panels you propose cannot resolve any of those issues. Perhaps you just like the certain sound of your own room to which you have become adapted and these accentuate what you like about it.

As for the varnish differences, I fail to see any valid reason or evidence for their effectiveness in this application. Now, if you were building violins..........................
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