A document of the same name was composed a few months ago. Since the ACI speakers were the tipping point of the project (not mentioned) I thought you guys might enjoy a little angst masquerading as comedy.
I am not a writer, so any proper form is out the window.
ENJOY
Room Acoustics - An Emotional Weather Report
For someone building a theater room from scratch, the normal process would be to plan for acoustics first. Like many, I assembled the gear, and promised myself some treatment ‘At Some Point’ when the system was complete. The system will never be complete. Next!
The Plan (or a little owings corning 703 & some frames – been there a hundred times)
My living situation is somewhat unusual in that I live and work in a leased space. A 10,000-foot space to be exact. I could rebuild a room with no worries from my landlord, but at this point it seems too aggressive. The best solution for me is to build acoustic panels and a couple of simple poly diffusers that I can take away from the room at a moments notice, or even sell if the need arises. Good plan. I like my equipment out in the open and easy to adjust and replace.
Being a fabricator for many recording studios over the years, I had the inside info on 700 Series panels long before they were known to anyone beyond acousticians, and it was cool info back in the day. I’ve fabricated 100s of panels and my fair share of diffusers, and long before they were available in any pre made form. I listened and learned over the years whenever the latest acoustic thingy drawing came across my desk. It was fun taking in the egg head (OK, Acoustician) explanation of why these things worked, and even more fun watching studio owners gasp at how much money they were dropping on a typical square foot of their space. Some of that pain was my fee, but that’s another story.
OC is perfectly willing to call the 700 product ‘acoustic’ these days, but it’s fire rated insulation for commercial buildings in rigid form. That’s it. Believe me, there will come a day when they market a lesser product and use the word ‘Acoustic’ at triple the price.
Perhaps I should look around, it might be available now?
You hear about the plumber with leaky pipes. Same here I suppose. I could have taken steps long ago, but was too busy with the gear. Yeah Right! After a few friends saying ‘E, your room really needs what you know how to do – fix it’ I finally made plans to take action. This was a long time ago.
After scanning a good number of sites on the subject, I came to the conclusion that there’s some very good info out there, and a lot of BS to go along with it. Some of my original knowledge seems to hold ground, and there’s plenty of new opinions to go along with the Ol’ Web101 approach. Any one with a long term hobbie becomes an expert. (given enough time in their own mind)
I could take a wild guess and get better results than someone crunching his own math from the things I’ve read on line. At least that’s what I think, sitting in front of my computer with an attitude.
I’m spoiled with the real guys (those acousticians) telling me what to build. Why not abuse the connection for my humble project. A friend was happy to do the math for my room. He agreed with my plan to just control the room. Soundproofing was never in the discussion. The space is an isolated industrial area and very old. I can make all the noise I want. Piece O’ Cake! Not really.
In spite of what I know, I suffer from the same hesitation anyone feels when it comes to tossing money into the walls. Hey, I could get a Bla Bla for that. Yes, but the room would still bang your head to death, so shut up and keep going. OK, but this is not as much fun as shopping for my latest ‘Gotta Have’ and waiting for Brown to knock on the door.
No, but the impact will be much bigger when you’re done. Shut Up And Do It!
Projection Meets Reality (Project Meets My Reality Distortion)
Perhaps it’s just my way of promoting a project, but my estimates for time and costs are often well below the truth. Sound familiar? I can’t remember how many times I’d make the claim ‘I should be done by Thursday, or end of next week’ Couple this with pre buying materials and pretending that portion of the show is over. You get the idea. It only takes a few quick decisions to add one more panel here, and a little extra something there. It’s amazing what happens under the heading ‘It’s for the acoustics’ when you need to keep things flowing.
From what I can remember, an additional 800 to 1000 bucks managed to slip out as I moved along (or was that 1500?) Working as a contractor for someone, this 1000.00 would translate to 3000.00 or more. I’m not counting time involved with all these small add on items, just the expense. This mode allows a few items to ‘slip through’ since an actual budget never really existed. I had a basic figure in mind and made sure it was available for each phase. Needless to say, I could hear a long reverb in my checking account from time to time. Where did it go?
OK, Impress Me (Hey! If it stinks, I’ll just keep it a secret)
Look! It’s a crisp new room with new wall stuff and carpet. Don’t drop the chips!
My first evening was interesting. I start with a few film DVDs and marvel at the pinpoint surround location. The front end is tight. So much so that it takes me by surprise. I manage to forget how this type of control will give you more of the truth than you might want to hear. Example – on one film, the center voice track is so dry, it sounds like the actors in a studio doing voiceover. Guess what, they DID! Are we missing some ambient room here? You bet. I’m getting only what’s coming from the speaker, and at first, it’s a little disconcerting.
After a few years of living with my room and all of it’s noise, I’ve grown comfortable with that noise and it’s warm distortion from various sources. Careful what you wish for – no kidding!
You know how it goes with increasing your source quality. You get an equal amount of
The bad with the good. The new room is driving this point down my throat. What was an
acceptable amount of compression on my favorite satellite channels is now really easy to
hear, and therefore, not as easy to dismiss. Looks like I have a new level of acceptance to deal with. A higher level in the case of Dolby on satellite.
I can counter this with a report that many of the newer titles I’ve auditioned are brimming with new life across the board. Yes, some great stuff, but I feel like the gods of audio have descended upon my beloved DVD collection with the veracity of the MPAA. `OK, these are really good, and these are OK, but these stink!’ WOW! I had no idea!
Has this been re-mastered? Can I get that in a Superbit? Jeez, I hope the HiDef comes along, but I’ll probably just hear more of the bad stuff.
PLEASE DON’T LET IT START OVER
OK, so we’re done?
Once you go down that road with the room, there are two schools of thought.
#1 – Looks Great – Sounds Better, lets’s move on.
#2 – Ya know, I really need to fix that ……….. and I think the front image would be
better if I ……… Oh Boy! Here it comes.
And you thought cables and speakers were a pain. You just turned a room into an instrument. How good is that instrument, and can you get on with life, or will you
think you just bought a 200.00 guitar and you might want something more serious
When you get some chops together.
Man, I really hate when that happens.
E
