New room set-up advice needed, please !

My listening room comprises a larger concrete box than your own. It had a very live sound and an unpleasant echo. In essence, I like a live sound but an echo ruins the sound.

I spent about £500 on RPG foam. I put absorbant foam on the wall behind the speakers (half doubled-up in a chequerboard fashion) and at side reflection points. The wall behind me has 6 'Skyline' diffusers. These break up extraneous sound waves without deadening the sound. The floor has a rug infront of the speakers and the ceiling is untreated plasterboard.

The result of my efforts was to maintain the live sound but to kill the echo. It is easily the best £500 I have spent on improving music reproduction.

For further information RPG have a web site RPG There are other companies doing similar work and I gather that RPG are one of the most expensive. Nonetheless, their products work, they are fire proof, they look quite pleasant and the staff are helpful; they visited and gave advice before I had to buy annything.

Alex

You have a room just about the same size as mine, plus. like me, its a dedicated music room. Unless you take a few steps you are going to have a sonic disaster.

Again, like myself, you've got solid masonary walls and probably not a lot of everyday furniture and clutter that normally inhabits a regular living space. This is going to lead to plenty of reflections and bass lift. Reflections will need treating with some kind of absorbant or diffractive surface at the very least on the side walls but probably the speaker wall and ceiling also. For a few ideas, have a look at www.soundstage.com/synergize/synergize091998.htm

Unfortunately those solid walls, floor and ceiling are going to be the cause of bass lift. If you had at least one of the walls and the ceiling constructed from plasterboard then this would act as a partial bass trap and would help alleviate the problem. Not in your case, you are going to have to build a couple of bass traps.

As a suggestion you could try hanging large heavy curtaining across a couple of the corners of the room. The main thing is to try and achieve plenty of airspace between the curtain and the walls. Absorbant material placed ON the wall is totally ineffective at bass frequencies. Naim have used bass traps made from carpet material in their listening room. Take a look at the virtual-tour on the Naim website. I think you'll be a bit short of space, so go for the curtain idea.

Anyway, there's no need to do anything at this stage until the system is up and running and you can see what needs addressing then.

Allan

regards,

Mark

Please send me what you have - sorry if this is very rushed, but fear that I may loose my connection again before I get this sent ...

Thanks Mister !

Steve

I'd be very interested in a copy of your speaker positioning spreadsheet. I've got some, lets say rather large, speakers coming in for evaluation soon in my 14ft x 11ft room and I think I'm going to need all the help I can get.

thanks,
Allan

Forgive my nosiness but when you say "Rather Large Speakers" are you talking about dabbling with Dibbles and replacing your Sybilles??

P - Nosey bleeder and frequent cotton bud user.

PS - Apologies for hijacking your thread SteveandKate (that's a funny name BTW - reminds me of an early Steve Martin movie - The Man with Two Brains?)

[This message was edited by P on SUNDAY 14 October 2001 at 04:11.]

DBL's by any chance?

Bri

Then along comes a deal on a pair of DBLs in part-ex for the SBLs that was too good to ignore. Had a think about it and decided that if they could be made to work in my room, why not ? They are effectively on approval so if they don't work I only end up losing my time and effort shifting them around the country.

Allan

Have fun with the toe in!

P