Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)

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InfernoSTi

Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« on: 13 Aug 2011, 10:30 pm »
This is my first time using measurement. I should say that if I've done something obviously wrong, I don't know it so feel free to point it out to me, please.  I used a calibrated Dayton EMM-6, M-Audio Mobile Pre, and REW to generate these two graphs. 

Besides the obvious need for bass traps, any comments would be very welcome (I've already ordered GIK Tri Traps guessing I needed to start there but I bet I order the Soffit Traps sooner than I thought I would.:lol:).

This was very interesting to me and I think I'm a bass junky as I had my lower end turned up WAY too much (perhaps still so).  I wonder if that is because I'm trying to overcome the ringing/peaks/valleys stupidly with volume?   :duh:   I think I'm trying to hear detail when it is clearly impossible to hear detail with this crazy level of decay below 600Hz.

Please feel free to post any thoughts the more experienced folks might have looking at these...thank you in advance.   :scratch:

John








richidoo

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #1 on: 13 Aug 2011, 11:26 pm »
Congrats diving into the deep end!! There is a lot to gain.

You should evaluate the chart without any smoothing at all. Modes can hide within a couple Hertz.

Yes it is a lot of decay in the bass. Do you have concrete walls?

Use modecalc to see what freq your potential room modes are, and what dimension is causing the problem modes you see on the scan.

JohnR

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #2 on: 14 Aug 2011, 12:46 am »
Cool :thumb:

I find decay plots easier to use than waterfalls - http://www.hifizine.com/2011/06/bass-integration-guide-part-1/

Do you have sub/s? Some experiments in different positions would be illuminating.

InfernoSTi

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #3 on: 14 Aug 2011, 05:16 am »
Congrats diving into the deep end!! There is a lot to gain.

Thank you!  I am amazed at what I am seeing compared to what I "thought" I was hearing.  Broadly speaking, I was on target but I never would have guessed at the details.

You should evaluate the chart without any smoothing at all. Modes can hide within a couple Hertz.

I have a "raw" (non-smoothed) version that sets the limits from 20-600Hz attached.

Yes it is a lot of decay in the bass. Do you have concrete walls?

Actually, I'm in an apartment (I believe it has double sheetrock on each side of the walls, however).  I am using four dipole 15" woofers....I think I have them turned up too high...will play with it tomorrow mid-day and see if I can adjust my way to a flatter curve. That would be cheap acoustic treatments indeed!

Use modecalc to see what freq your potential room modes are, and what dimension is causing the problem modes you see on the scan.

I will take a look.  Thank you for the link/suggested reading.

John









InfernoSTi

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #4 on: 14 Aug 2011, 05:24 am »
Cool :thumb:

I find decay plots easier to use than waterfalls - http://www.hifizine.com/2011/06/bass-integration-guide-part-1/

Do you have sub/s? Some experiments in different positions would be illuminating.

Thanks for the suggestion and reading material...I took a look at the hifizine bass integration article and it was an excellent introduction...much appreciated.  I have attached a decay that covers the bass region and looks at the critical delay just past 150ms.  It is non-smoothed.  Blue is bad...red is good.  Much easier to understand!  :lol:

I have four dipole (open baffle) 15" woofers and believe I had them turned up too high.  I will play with the crossover, rolloff curve, and volume tomorrow and see if I can get better results simply from adjusting using the RTA feature. 

I can see I am in for another year's worth of learning with this tool...the learning is a part of the hobby I really enjoy!

John




InfernoSTi

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #5 on: 14 Aug 2011, 05:08 pm »
Well, I woke up excited to work on the woofer plate amp adjustments. I adjusted the volume level, the crossover value, and the crossover slope settings. There is no PEQ applied.  I also adjusted the dampening setting to high from medium. I am certain there is room for improvement, still, but the improvements I am happy with for a first try.  8)

Volume Level:
Previously, I had my volume up pretty high...I dropped that first until the SPLs were more "flat" with the mids. 

Crossover Value:
Previously, I had the crossover setting at about 60Hz.  Reading the HiFiZine article on bass integration, they suggested creating a little more overlap than I had. Although they suggested a lot more, I did increase my crossover value up to 100Hz, which was a pretty big increase.

Crossover Slope:
Previously, I had my slope set at 24db.  Since I was now trying to gain a little more overlap, I switched that to 12db.  When combined with the higher crossover range, I felt that should get me a nice blend into the 100-200Hz upper bass area.


You can see the SPL level is much more even now.  Additionally, the 80-300Hz upper bass/lower midrange is much better matched to the 300-600Hz midrange SPL (top/green are with my original settings and bottom/red are with the new settings).



I used the 1/2 smoothing to see the SPL levels easier.  Previously, I had a big "V" that would bottom out at 200Hz and then climb back up (easy to see in the smoothed overlay graphic).



In summary, my morning adjustments were to lower the volume, raise the crossover point, and select a more shallow crossover slope.  The "V" is now pretty well gone (decay and comb filtering notwithstanding :lol:). I'm going to listen to this setting for a while and see how I like the musicality of the settings. 

Here are a couple of 20-200Hz graphs from this morning's adjustments (SPL, waterfall, and decay).  I have limited the area to the 300ms and a 35db drop, assuming anything outside this was an issue and it makes the chart easier to see the good and bad.  I also unselected the "good" decay fill colors leaving just the base range in red and the problem ranges in blue.  Again, that makes the chart easier to glance at and see the problem spots (not that it was hard to see before :lol:).

Thanks for the comments/reading suggestions.  They really helped me get started with some enthusiasm this morning!   :thumb:

John







richidoo

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #6 on: 14 Aug 2011, 05:48 pm »
I love the learning too!! That's the best part!

Nice job on the bass adjustments. That scan looks excellent! You are lucky to have a nice sounding room. From 80Hz on up is about as good as you can expect from residential room. The double sheetrocks helped a lot. Sheetrock absorbs some bass energy, plus there's probably thick insulation between the units. You can add more treatments to make it even better. Ignore the comb filtering spikes in higher freqs. You can hear them but your brain is already adjusted to the sound of the room so it is not a distraction. To kill them means wall to wall coverage, "like a recording studio," as my wife says in disgust.  :D

If you have infinite phase adjustment, adjust it on each sub separately, using a test tone at your crossover freq and a SPL meter. Robert Harley once posted a good idea how to adjust it. http://www.avguide.com/forums/subwoofer-phase   Of course you can't control the phase of bass freq echos which effect phase, but the direct sound is worth dialing in. Then adjust the sub levels again.  If it's not adjustable, move the subs into phase by their position. But this limits the ability to improve the modes by moving the subs.

Subs are rarely as fast as your main speakers' woofer, so the higher the sub plays you will hear more "thickness" in male voices and tenor sax, cello, etc.  You might like some fattening, but too much will lose resolution. It would be better to boost the midwoofer with EQ if you want it louder than to ask the sub do a job it is not designed to handle. This is the area in which sub phase error is heard, in the crossover band. If the phase is not adjusted, a 12dB slope at 100Hz will smear well into mids (800Hz) before it is -40dB and inaudible.

It's hard to adjust all this stuff to perfection. There's no perfection, only improvements and saving for better gear and better rooms in the future. Also remember that better on paper is not necessarily better for you. If you like symphonies or dance music, you might prefer  +6-10dB in the bass, just like you had it set before! It's all about the music. Measurements / technology are a totally different hobby than music listening. But many people like both hobbies which complement each other...  :thumb:

(excuse the PM, I couldn't get the whole message to post because I didn't have the URL tags around the link.)

InfernoSTi

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #7 on: 14 Aug 2011, 06:41 pm »
I love the learning too!! That's the best part!

Nice job on the bass adjustments. That scan looks excellent! You are lucky to have a nice sounding room. From 80Hz on up is about as good as you can expect from residential room. The double sheetrocks helped a lot. Sheetrock absorbs some bass energy, plus there's probably thick insulation between the units. You can add more treatments to make it even better. Ignore the comb filtering spikes in higher freqs. You can hear them but your brain is already adjusted to the sound of the room so it is not a distraction. To kill them means wall to wall coverage, "like a recording studio," as my wife says in disgust.  :D

Thank you!  I feel very encouraged and am looking forward to my GIK Tri Traps arriving so I can see if they can tame the decay (the modes are unlikely to go away with the level of treatment I can do, but I am hoping the decay times will improve).  I am looking for a house as I have recently moved to a new city but still haven't found a place I like/can afford (I can find lots of one or the other!).

If you have infinite phase adjustment, adjust it on each sub separately, using a test tone at your crossover freq and a SPL meter. Robert Harley once posted a good idea how to adjust it. http://www.avguide.com/forums/subwoofer-phase   Of course you can't control the phase of bass freq echos which effect phase, but the direct sound is worth dialing in. Then adjust the sub levels again.  If it's not adjustable, move the subs into phase by their position. But this limits the ability to improve the modes by moving the subs.

Subs are rarely as fast as your main speakers' woofer, so the higher the sub plays you will hear more "thickness" in male voices and tenor sax, cello, etc.  You might like some fattening, but too much will lose resolution. It would be better to boost the midwoofer with EQ if you want it louder than to ask the sub do a job it is not designed to handle. This is the area in which sub phase error is heard, in the crossover band. If the phase is not adjusted, a 12dB slope at 100Hz will smear well into mids (800Hz) before it is -40dB and inaudible.

I will read up on phase adjustment. The woofers are set up in stereo (two per channel). I have two Rythmik PEQ 370 plate amps, one for the left and one for the right channel, each seeing a nice 4 ohm load. They do have a 0-180 phase control but I've never know how to take advantage of it so I just left them at 0.  Thank you for the suggested reading and set up tips!

It's hard to adjust all this stuff to perfection. There's no perfection, only improvements and saving for better gear and better rooms in the future. Also remember that better on paper is not necessarily better for you. If you like symphonies or dance music, you might prefer  +6-10dB in the bass, just like you had it set before! It's all about the music. Measurements / technology are a totally different hobby than music listening. But many people like both hobbies which complement each other...  :thumb:

I truly appreciate this comment.  For me, music is an emotional experience. If I am left "cold" from a perfectly flat sound, I have lost too much. On the other hand, if I can establish a base setting that I know is as flat as I can achieve with my gear and my room, then I have a place to start from.  I enjoy the organic process of adjusting a little here, a little there and then listening to the changes.  This is the same kind of experience that makes tube rolling fun.  Another way of saying it is knowing where neutral is allows me to both repeat and describe the adjustments.   

(excuse the PM, I couldn't get the whole message to post because I didn't have the URL tags around the link.)

I did receive the PM but there wasn't any text/attachments!   :lol:

John

bpape

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Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #8 on: 14 Aug 2011, 06:55 pm »
Excessive decay times and ringing can certainly mask bass detail.  Another thing is that when the bass rings for long periods, it tends to cancel itself out - not to mention masking imaging cues, harmonic details etc.

Tri Traps can certainly help with decay times.  For the modal problems, we would need to identify where they're coming from in order to understand how best and where to address them.  If the room has an 8' ceiling, that's a common culprit for the 70Hz peak.  May not be all of it but certainly a factor.

Bryan

JohnR

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #9 on: 14 Aug 2011, 11:26 pm »
I have four dipole (open baffle) 15" woofers

If you can, try moving them closer to you and further from the wall. I found having them on either side of me to be particularly (and measurably) effective.

InfernoSTi

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #10 on: 15 Aug 2011, 12:39 pm »
Excessive decay times and ringing can certainly mask bass detail.  Another thing is that when the bass rings for long periods, it tends to cancel itself out - not to mention masking imaging cues, harmonic details etc.

Tri Traps can certainly help with decay times.  For the modal problems, we would need to identify where they're coming from in order to understand how best and where to address them.  If the room has an 8' ceiling, that's a common culprit for the 70Hz peak.  May not be all of it but certainly a factor.

Bryan

Bryan,

I think I was in a middle of a double null (13x26x9) and I had a half wave front/back and a quarter wave left/right.  Given the location of doors, the kitchen bar extension, etc, there was no way to be out of the null.  So I have rearranged the location to be "off-set" at an angle.  I haven't taken measurements, but to my ear, it sounds much better.  It will be a while before I can measure again: work travel, weekend commitments with the wife, etc. 

I will report back on the "data" and see what it shows! 

John

InfernoSTi

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #11 on: 15 Aug 2011, 12:41 pm »
If you can, try moving them closer to you and further from the wall. I found having them on either side of me to be particularly (and measurably) effective.

John,

I have moved them in between the mains and that seemed to sound very good.  I pulled them closer but didn't hear an improvement like I did between the mains.  Thanks for getting me moving in the right direction!

John

InfernoSTi

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #12 on: 18 Aug 2011, 09:40 pm »
I received the GIK Tri Traps (2) in record time. I unpacked them placed them stacked in the front left corner of the room.  The fit and finish is very nice...I am pleased as they have exceeded my expectations in that regard. 

As far as subjective quality, my first impressions are favorable...a little more detail and I was able to turn down the low end amps a little bit and still feel like I was getting all the bass I needed.  I feel like I am getting a little more detail and clarity throughout the whole range, not just down low, too. 

Here are some quick measurements that show some pretty good improvements (for just adding two).  I am certain even a little more bass trap treatment will really smooth things out.

Early verdict: my expectations on both sound and look have been exceeded!  :thumb: :thumb:

John

SPL non-smoothed 20-200Hz is very interesting with the two Tri Traps added:


Original in purple (lower) and with two Tri Traps added in green (upper):


Oddly, my wide 70Hz peak turned into a narrow/steep valley.  But the good news is I am pretty flat from 70Hz to 100Hz now.

Decay is still an issue at -30db but much less so at -20db (only the 40Hz ringing is in the 150ms threshold for the most part):


The waterfall tells the same story as the decay graph:



InfernoSTi

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #13 on: 27 Aug 2011, 07:01 pm »
The latest update:

I added a GIK Soffit Trap and have enjoyed the benefits of to the sound quality. When I measured, it was clear to me the benefits came a little from a flatter curve but much more so from improved decay rates (less ringing at the bass register).

Green with two GIK Tri Traps and one GIK Soffit Trap, gold with just two GIK Tri Traps:


Decay graph showing reduced ringing above 50Hz (really good at -20db 240ms):


I'm assuming I have interpreted these graphs correctly...the sound quality is very good.  I can hear bass lines that I haven't before!

John

« Last Edit: 27 Aug 2011, 08:27 pm by InfernoSTi »

Glenn Kuras

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Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #14 on: 29 Aug 2011, 03:23 pm »
It looks to me things are shaping up nicely. I think we can get that null around 65hz solved with a bit more work.
 
Just a little video to show how well things can get.  :D

http://www.gikacoustics.com/treated_video.html

Glenn Kuras
GIK Acoustics

InfernoSTi

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #15 on: 30 Aug 2011, 04:57 am »
Thanks, Glenn.

I'm very happy with the results so far and will keep adding traps until things stop sounding better.  That is an informative video...nice!  Do you think I should continue to concentrate on the Soffit Traps or should I be looking at something else...diffusion perhaps? 

John

bpape

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Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #16 on: 30 Aug 2011, 12:37 pm »
Looks to me like initially you  had 2 different problems tending to cancel themselves out. Adding the Tri Traps helped some things but took out one problem that was cancelling the 65hz null.  The soffit appears to be addressing that.  Where did you place the soffit.

BTW, finding a problem after beginning treatment is not unusual.

Have you tried moving the mic around at all to see what impact it has on the 65Hz?

Bryan

richidoo

Re: Room Measurements (First Time Measuring)
« Reply #17 on: 30 Aug 2011, 02:35 pm »
Moving the speakers will also affect the FR. With measurement you can find a spot for speakers that tames the null. Just make sure both tweeters remain equal distance from your ears, to preserve imaging.