Room Mod - Real Traps

Bob Wilcox · « **on:** 24 Mar 2004, 03:49 am »

After completing the lambs wool mod, I reconsidered my room treatments.

My 13 by 15 listening room had always been the limiting factor in my system. Besides the normal room mode issues, it is bordered on the left wall by the foyer and second floor/basement stair well. On the right wall it is bordered by the familiy room. So the structural coupling is different for each wall.

I have 4 home made bass traps using the Risch Q & D original recipe. I also have some ASC panels and diffusors and some eggshell foam. I had not verified the placements of the wall treatments since I got the RM 40's. So I did and moved the ASC pieces to to more useful placements. I used a mirror and also some rcommendations from the RPG Room Optimizer software.

I happened across Zybar's comments on Real Traps and found the web site. The owner, Ethan Winer has had several careers including as a developer of software components he licensed to Microsoft for use with its Visual Basic product. I read much of the material on his site and took the plunge. I ordered 4 of his Mini Traps. They cost $180 each plus shipping. Compare this to the cost of ASC 20 inch rounds.

I removed the homemade traps for placement around my son's drum kit in the basement (a good move).

Three of the Mini Traps I mounted on the room corners. The fourth I mounted on a microphone stand for placement near a corner door. I am floored at the amount of improvement this made. It sounds like a new system. Imaging is much improved. The articulation is fantastic. The sound has improved dramatically throughout the frequency range in a way that is difficult to explain. It reminds me of the sound of a larger and more neutral room.

It is clear to me now that the homemade traps were nowhere near as effective in controlling the bass and were absorbing too much of the mids and highs. When constructed, they were an improvement over nothing. Removal does explain the improvement. The Real Traps are just incredibly effective and fairly cheap.

Bob

zybar · « **Reply #1 on:** 24 Mar 2004, 03:58 am »

Bob,

Glad to hear they had the same effect in your room as mine.

I am using 6 of the MiniTraps and I am considering getting two more.

I did experiments and added the MiniTraps in pairs to see how much impact each additional pair had. Unfortunately (for my bank account), as I added pairs things got better and better.

When I talked with Ethan he thought that 8 MiniTraps would produce the best results in my room.

My buddy (Sunshinedawg) took Ethan's advice and is building the MiniTraps himself. He also thinks that adding them makes a tremedndous difference in the quality of his system.

I realize that in real terms $360/pair + shipping isn't cheap, but I think it is money well spent and much cheaper than many other room treatment options out on the market right now.

George

John B · « **Reply #2 on:** 24 Mar 2004, 04:20 am »

I have 5 mini-traps due to arrive next week. It's good to know that they are having a very positive effect with VMPS speakers. I guess lambs wool is my next step

Wonder I how much I should order for the 626R enclosure?

sunshinedawg · « **Reply #3 on:** 24 Mar 2004, 06:22 am »

Thanks to zybar, I went to realtraps looking to buy the rigid fiberglass panels(they use to sell the raw panels). To my luck, I found a warehouse in Denver that carries them. Incredibly, when I showed up there, the guy gave me 17 panels free. I bought 6 yards of fabric today for $12 to cover them. This has been the score of the year for me. You won't believe the diff that the traps make. Ethan is awesome, he has a forum, check it out http://www.musicplayer.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=26;DaysPrune=30

ctviggen · « **Reply #4 on:** 24 Mar 2004, 12:48 pm »

Realtraps are the second thing I'm going to buy after buying my VMPS speakers (the first will be a program to analyze room modes/frequency response so that I can see the effect of tweaks).

zybar · « **Reply #5 on:** 24 Mar 2004, 01:33 pm »

Bob,

Measuring is a good starting point but don't forget that a lot of what the room treatments are doing is changing things like tone, imaging, clarity, soundstage, etc... all things that can't be measured.

When I first started treating my room, I got a little caught up in measurements.

Once I got past the numbers, I just let me ears do the measuring and things came together.

Just my ususal two cents.

George

ctviggen · « **Reply #6 on:** 24 Mar 2004, 01:59 pm »

That is a good point. I think measuring, for me, fills the engineering part of my brain. This way, I can go, "I got rid of the hump at 120 HZ," and feel as if I'm doing something. I'll definitely let my ears do the work, but sometimes it's nice to have data to back up the ears.