Harsh Sounding Room

Without seeing the room and the kind of style you like, it's almost impossible to say!
However, if you like a clean, hard look, why not cover the underside of coffee tables, side tables, rear of sideboards etc. with sound absorbing material?
It might just give you the acoustics you're looking for, without altering the "look".

Hi Buster

Im looking at GIK acoustic panels for my room. My hifi is in my converted garage, which has bare walls and a pitched ceiling. Crazy reflections and and lack of bass is a big problem. I can’t get much furniture in so I’ll be adding panels soon. 

Buster Clayton posted:

System = CDS3/252/300/SBL  Fraim

Well a bit of an epiphany today with my listening room... I brought all of our soft furnishings from another room and placed in strategic locations in my listening room.

What a difference! Gone is the horrendous sharp top end that discouraged me from turning up the volume. Welcome to some great bass brought about by turning up the wick a little.... it appears very much like the ‘noise’ is from reflections off side walls etc... now I have the answer god knows how I go about solving this in an aesthetically pleasing way....

Couple of easy wins perhaps in replacing 2 leather sofas with 2 fabric sofas but the walls need some big space consuming fabric creations and we absolutely hate tapestry!!

i already have thick carpet on the floor

I could hang some curtains but it means curtains covering the bay window where my SBL’s Live 

looking for suggestions guys

Maybe sell the naim? Naim is known to be on the upper end of hard sound. 

GIK offer a (free!) service to help identify appropriate treatment - obviously they hope you'll buy from them, but you're not obligated. (However, from what I have seen their products are decent and their prices not ridiculous - though it is possible to DIY for quite a lot less if you are prepared to learn)

Get a copy of REW (stands for Room Equalisation Wizard) software -also free, though donations welcomed - and a measuring microphone (REW website gives suggestions). You can use it to identify some of the problems in the room - and if you do take up GIK's service they can suggest measurements to take and are happy to receive the measurement files.

Do feed back what transpires.

Does the bay fall back from a couple of flat sections of wall either side or is it the entire wall? I know someone who had SBLs either side of his bay and counts it an advantage. 

Hi it’s a recessed 3 facet bay... speakers located either side up close to the very solid exterior wall. Inside edges of the speakers are 2.7m apart currently. 

I have high ceilings and at the moment bare painted walls that are obviously reflecting sounds all over the room.... songs with a busy treble can sound really confused and harsh with all of the various time delayed information hitting my poor old ears !!

If the speakers are actually in a square bay, and close to the side walls of the bay (that’s how I understand the description anyway) it would be wise to either get them out of the bay altogether, and against another flat wall, or move them away from the bay walls so that they are about 2m apart, centre to centre. My speakers sit on a flat wall with over 1m to the side walls. We have upholstered furniture - a sofa and two chairs, a small low bookcase, thick carpet and heavy curtains, but apart from paintings the walls are bare and it sounds fine with no odd reflections or brightness. 

Hi

they are on the outside of the Bay...  I have a leather sofa actually completely inside the bay...

room arrangement and location of dedicated mains spur makes it awkward to locate the system anywhere else in the room.  I’d rather not have curtains as the bay is a nice feature and would look a bit weird with curtains behind the SBL’s 

I can’t aeem to upload a picture here from my phone 

If you use the impulse response plot of REW you can determine the path length difference for your reflection points and this can help you work out where the actual reflection points are.

Be aware that by reducing reflections you'll reduce the artefacts that make the stereo image appear to be higher than the speakers and wider than the distance between the speakers.

Ah, so if they are already outside the bay, it seems you are on the right track with soft furnishings. I’ve read elsewhere about leather sofas not really helping, so it may be time to hit the sales in January. I also read somewhere that bookcases are good for absorbing reflections - something technical about the layout of the books I think. You can get diffuser panels to go on the walls that are covered with fabric; if you do it right it could look like a Rothko I suppose - you certainly don’t want it to look like a studio. With a big bay with bare windows, I wonder whether sound bounces off the back wall, forward to the windows and then back again. Curtains would stop that of course, though only at night. I’m probably not helping here. 

What size (LWH) is the room?  it might have a bearing on the need to reduce reflections,   its possible to over damp a room.  

Thanks..... that’s not a desirable outcome !! 

As is the system sounds fantastic with simple passages of music - but it’s when it gets busy it gets shouty / distorted / confused. Particularly on the less well recorded / mastered CD’s 

With the room stuffed full of cushions from another room that issue all but vanished....  I wasn’t particularly listening to anything other than harsh top end so can’t at this stage comment on any downside but your suggestion makes sense.... always a compromise I guess !! 

Thanks everyone !

room is basically 5x5 m (I know square not great) with the bay adding about 1.3M to one wall and an adjacent wall having a chimney breast...

I've attempted to even up for the chimney breast by having a large solid unit on the opposite wall. I’ve assumed that was a good idea !?

I have wood Venetian blinds in the bay window so it’s not just plane / reflective glass, I guess Roman blinds might be a decent idea but I live on a main road and Romans are either up or down where as my wood venetians can be angled to allow some natural light without feeling like I’m in a goldfish bowl !

I think as a starting point I’ll take the wife sofa shopping at the weekend !! She’ll certainly smell a Rat !!!

Leave the cushions! Sorry not helping,.

I've seen the fabric covered panels on walls looking really good and fitting in with the colour scheme.

Mrs S would love us to have the same problem ( may have but have never noticed anything to shrill) as she'd swap the leather sofa for a fabric one in a heartbeat.

Yup,  square ain't great,  wooden blinds are not great either (IME)  I would seriously consider replacing with vertical;  the material choices are extensive & include heavy (light blocking) fabric looking material - I have them in my dining room & they do a great job of letting in light & block the goldfish bowl feeling. You need to get them from a pukka blind shop tho',  avoid DIY type stores.    Sofa shopping is a good plan.  

The only thing worse than a square room is a perfectly cubic one as certain frequencies are reinforced and others nulled.  Combine that with a sparse furnishings and you get very serious flutter echo that can be quite unlistenable. Room treatment is the only possible solution.  Or, if that doesn't work then move to a different room, or just use headphones...

Headphones !!! ???  I hope it doesn’t come to that !!

im not sure my other rooms are a practical solution... I moved into this room in order to have a ‘dedicated’ room (man cave) so I’d better try to make it work.... !! 

I actually work in the blinds industry so I’m well placed for options there  

It does sound like you're finding your way to getting the room to work for you rather than against you.  I wish you all the best with it.

As its a dedicated listening room , why not have a couple of GIK panels at the first reflection points on the side walls. They do many different colours and can even be printed with a picture / scene of your choice.

These would do better than soft furnishings scattered about.  They may be all you require to make the sound acceptable to you.

You could try the old hippy dorm look. Pin up a load of Indian throws around the ceiling.

Instant divorce

Buster Clayton posted:

Instant divorce

Get your better half to think it is her idea and choose fabrics, you grudgingly offering to put them up?

I have put three GIk 242 panels on the wall behind my listening position, and it has improved the SQ in my room. GIK made these with artwork I supplied to them - a picture my photographer friend provided.  The panels are 100cm x 60cm each and cost less than £500, which I think is excellent value.

GerryMcg posted:

I have put three GIk 242 panels on the wall behind my listening position, and it has improved the SQ in my room. GIK made these with artwork I supplied to them - a picture my photographer friend provided.  The panels are 100cm x 60cm each and cost less than £500, which I think is excellent value.

Hi Each panel cost £500 or is that the cost for all three and are they artwork panels?