After considerable hemming and hawing (as they say in these parts) I finally pulled the trigger on some Adapt corners for my music/HT room. I'm an inveterate cheapskate, and am pretty reluctant to fork out the green unless it's for something I think is going to deliver. But, seeing as the big summer clearance sale knocked about $250 off the Adapts, I figured
what the hell.
Since I only installed them a couple hours ago, this won't be real "review", per se, just my quick first impressions.
First off, I have to say Nathan & company were pretty quick to ship. I PayPal'd
8th Nerve in the wee hours of the morn between the 5th and the 6th, and they were on my porch on the 11th!
Wow, fast shipping! The product was very well packaged, too- it's hard to imagine how the FedEx gorillas could hurt em.
The installation proved to be a snap. I have to tip my hat to Nathan on the ingenious mounting system; so simple, yet so effective. A ring with 3 springs attached to it snaps into 3 metal loops on the back side of the panels near the edge. A tab & loop is fixed to the corner of the ceiling about an inch from the walls with one screw. Then the spring net is stretched out & attached to the loop with an S-hook. Brilliant- the thing basically floats right into place. Stick on rubber standoffs are provided to help you center the panels so they straddle the corner very neatly. All in all I think it took me about 20 minutes, although to be fair my room only has 3 corners. The only "problem" I encountered is that I needed to dig up a bit longer screws to secure the tabs. No biggie, I had some in my toolbox.
As I only had an hour or two to listen I won't try to offer a full review, but my initial impressions are:
WOW! These things are damned impressive! Don't ask me for measurements, 'cause I'm not presently equipt to make them, but my subjective impressions are that these things work exactly as Nathan told me they would. They clean up & focus the sound very impressively- it's like taking a blanket off my speakers. Or more accurately, it's as if I'd been listening to my system in the shower and the Corners took my rig out to the living room again! It's the sonic equivalent of cleaning your glasses.
I popped in my
Alarm's Greatest Hits and cranked up
68 Guns to test the effects. Prior to adding the corners this album was so shrill it was like a dental drill, but after treatment the disc sounded bearable, almost good. In my smallish, live room I'd also found
John Saw That Number from
Neko Case's
Fox Confessor album was a bit of a mess- far too much echo, with a hard glassy haze over the sound. Post treatment it sounds simply glorious. I can clearly hear deep into the recording, picking up a lot of details I'd never heard. The hard glassy edge is gone, and in it's place is a smooth natural ambience. Lastly, in addition to the sense of quietus & smoothness they impart to the sound, they do seem to have some ability to smooth out the bass. I'm not sure if they're truly working at low frequencies or just smoothing away the crud to let you hear the bass better. On my copy of
Apple Venus Volume 1, the bass work in
Green Man has always sounded a bit boom in my new house, but the
8th Nerve corners seem to greatly mitigate it. No, they're not perfect bass traps but they do seem to help.
These are only initial impressions but so far I'm very pleased with them. I'll freely admit I was a bit skeptical about them before purchasing them. I mean, they're so small! I'm still on the fence as to
how they actually work- would pure absorption in the corners work just as well? I don't know, and in a sense I don't care. The
Corners are extremely attractive & visually unobtrusive, a breeze to mount and they work. Based on my short time with them I'd say they were well worth the money. Thanks, Nathan. Some of us might kick the tires for a year or so before we buy, but given time we can be convinced! Maybe this will help to get a couple more guys off the fence.
