Room Acoustics

Pictures Steve, Pictures.

You put in the hard yards and learnt the hard (best) way. Show us what you cooked up.

No worries Zen, I'll get them up soon.

Steve,

Great post. Well described. Your journey with acoustic treatments parallels mine. I've come to many of the same conclusions as you regarding the priority and value of room treatment. My journey is still unfinished. Maybe all I'd add is that for folks with digital systems room correction software is cheaper and potentially equally as effective as room treatment. Plus the room correction software is infinitely tweakable and can be tuned as your system or hearing changes with time.

It's the part of the journey I haven't travelled. Interesting read, thank you for the insights.

Totally agree with Steve , having just built a dedicated listening room and treated it with GIK panels. GIK give much free advice on treatment and they also offer a return service if needed.

Obviously using panels in a living room can be more tricky , but worth trying if possible. Apart from all the sound improvement one side effect I found is that the room is a lot calmer and more relaxing just to sit in , something that digital room correction cant do.

I did my home theatre room with Viscoutics,bass traps in corners,absorbsion panels at first reflection points and around the TV(front wall)and their diffusion panels on the rear wall behind my seated position,the combination sounds fantastic.My 2 channel room,all I have done,or am really able to do,is Viscoustics absorbsion panels on the side walls(first reflection point)but that room has a lot of openings to other rooms,hallways etc.,that result is good too.

Between 2005 - 2013 I was into home cinema more than hifi and remember the disasters that can come from overdoing room treatment. It is such an interesting topic because treatments for one application are not suitable for another.

The room will colour the sound and indeed cause problems. But some of this is necessary for stereo listening where the intent is put the performer virtually in your room between the speakers. This illusion only hold together as long as you can beleive the sound is in your room (i.e. there is enough of the room signature on it). With AV applications the intents is the exact opposite. By treating the room to make it acoustically dead, you attempt to delete the room and put the listener virtually where the action is. The problem I had with this was that such a room treated for AV to such extremes was great for movies and simply awful for stero music. Rather than putting the musicians in the room with you, you are transported to being an ant inside a giant pair of headphones.

It is all about balance.

Hi Joe,   I actually tested a DEQX unit in my room as I went along, DSP is great and effective, but it didn't appear to remove the rear reflections of the bass drivers behind them or the first reflections and decay times in my room. Also I was wary of introducing a unit which takes the final analogue signal, converts it to digital - alters it and converts back to analogue again. I assumed this would alter the final signal after my own DAC had done the job, and since I have learned the DAC is so vital I didn't feel comfortable, I could be wrong there. The DSP unit also has a maximum resolution of 192 and I wasn't sure if or how it would impact on the new DSD hi-res stuff being made available now. That said it is probably the future so I still look on with great interest. The other reason for treating my room was to keep the ambient noise below 40dB which allows me to hear into the music and play it loud enough without hassling my wife or the neighbours.  I only have a moderate sized room I think I have achieved what I wanted,, in the end.  I am no physicist, so I have had to learn as much as I can from the sources available especially asking acoustics engineers down here to try to grasp what it all means. It's been trial and error, no doubt others can do better but I've done my best. I love the look of it too!!!

feeling_zen posted:

Between 2005 - 2013 I was into home cinema more than hifi and remember the disasters that can come from overdoing room treatment. It is such an interesting topic because treatments for one application are not suitable for another.

The room will colour the sound and indeed cause problems. But some of this is necessary for stereo listening where the intent is put the performer virtually in your room between the speakers. This illusion only hold together as long as you can beleive the sound is in your room (i.e. there is enough of the room signature on it). With AV applications the intents is the exact opposite. By treating the room to make it acoustically dead, you attempt to delete the room and put the listener virtually where the action is. The problem I had with this was that such a room treated for AV to such extremes was great for movies and simply awful for stero music. Rather than putting the musicians in the room with you, you are transported to being an ant inside a giant pair of headphones.

It is all about balance.

Absolutely mate, ain't that the truth.

Feeling Zen

i really don't listen to 2 channel in my home theatre,for one,I don't like going down to the basement for that,most of my time is spent upstairs,so I always have music playing with my Naim setup throughout the day....which is upstairs.But I agree when you say an overtreated room is not good for 2 channel.

AussieSteve posted:

I was wary of introducing a unit which takes the final analogue signal, converts it to digital - alters it and converts back to analogue again.

As a vinyl lover this is my main misgiving as well. I see room treatment as the preferable route for those who want to hear an unaltered analog signal. Beyond that, digital room correction is no panacea and comes with its own set of caveats.