[mark@marktwain]

hiya fella's,

Welp, I finally got my 2 channel rig set up in the living room of the new house which will be it's temporary home until I get the upstairs listening room finished. I'm looking for some help because it sounds pretty horrible and I'm pretty sure it's the room because it sounded a whole lot better at the previous house. I'm including a room layout for your reference. The walls and ceiling are 1/2" plaster over 1/2" drywall (These walls are as hard as concrete), the floor is hardwood (oak) and the ceiling height is 8'-3". The windows have no coverings yet but will be covered with a roman type shade made from a heavy fabric whenever my lovely wife gets around to making them. The large bay window is 6' tall or so. I'm not gonna be able to put up a bunch of 2 x 4 acoustic panels for obvious reasons, WAF. My first thoughts are to put a large area rug on the floor between the speakers and the listening seat. Maybe a fake ficus tree in each corner behind the speakers. I could also get away with maybe the eighth nerve response corner treatments. Anyone have any other thoughts or suggestions that would meet the WAF?

Mark

[mark@marktwain]

Here's the link to the pic, I don't know why it didn't show up in the first post.
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallerylastup&cat=0&pos=0
Mark

[steve k]

Congrats on getting your rig set up, Mark! What in particular is wrong with the sound?
steve

[mark@marktwain]

Hi Steve,
Well I guess it's muddy or muffled, I'm not good at describing it, I just know it's not right and I don't like it. It helps to stuff pillows into the horn mouths but it dosen't sound near as good as it did at the other place and I know it was far from perfect there. I also pulled the BSC network out of the system and that helped a bit so I'm thinkin to much in the lower end. I've moved the horns around quite a bit, toe in, toe out etc and I think they sound best where they are now. I was sitting alot closer at the other place probably 8ft or so and now I'm at 14ft The horns were also alot closer to the wall maybe 6 inches at the other place. I'm guessing that all the hard surfaces in this new room are probably the problem but what do I know that's why I'm asking the experts.

Mark

[MerRev]

Glad to hear you're up & running even if it isn't quite right yet.  It looks like a nice space to work with and relatively close to the ideal ratio of length vs. width.  No help here.

What???  sacrilege, no captains chair in the sweet spot?

[woodsyi]

Hello Mark,

My room is very similar in size and my speakers are about where you have them.  I listen much closer in.  Have you tried listening a little closer (on a stool if you can't move the sectional any closer)?

[mark@marktwain]

What???  sacrilege, no captains chair in the sweet spot?

Remember Chris, this is the temporary room. The captain's chair is reserved for the dedicated listening room. aa

I thought about that too Woodsyi, I'll give it a try tonight.

Mark

[bpape]

Most likely it's a ton of bottom end to upper bass builup.  You don't even have the drywall over cavities to help you out since it's been plastered over.

The rug on the floor will help a little bit, but only in the upper mids and highs.  You're 'off center' with an opening on one side and reflective glass on the other - curtains will help.

Consider DIYing some bass absorbers for the front corner.  They can be made to look nice and you can put a wood shelf on top of them for her to decorate with something. 

Another option is to put up a soffit around the room filled with insulation and using different thicknesses of drywall on the bottom and sides.  That will give you at least a little broadband bass control.

Bryan

[mark@marktwain]

Thanks Bryan, that's kinda what I figured but I needed to hear it from an expert.

I'll look into diy base traps for the front two corners. Do you have any recommendations? I've seen some made from fiberglass pipe covering or a wire skeleton covered with fiberglass insulation and a fabric sock outer layer. Would the mineral wool be a better material? How tall do they need to be? Maybe I can disguise them as plant stands. I have some sealed bags of fiberglass batts for insulating my garage, I may just stick one in each corner and see what kind of a difference it makes before making anything. Do you think the eighth nerve corners would help? I thought about diy some corners out of the 705-frk mounted with the foil side out on a frame which set them off the wall a bit and see if they made any difference.

Mark

[bpape]

Mineral wool will work fine.  If you make them thick enough, you can get 703 instead of 705 for half the money.

I'd consider making them maybe 1'x1'x4' so they'll tuck into the corner nicely.  Plants or whatever on top will be fine.

The 8th Nerve helps with general corner buildup but won't do anything for the bottom end which IMO is the biggest issue you're having right now.

Bryan

[gooberdude]

Definitely give these new panels a try...they are supposed to be just awesome and
probably have the best WAF factor in the biz for these products.

Also, they have a 30 day trial.

the big guys gotta be scared about this product, it flies in the face of big bass traps and panels.

i have no 1st hand experience with them, but the acoustic treamtents i enjoy are based on
similar technology...focusing on controlling the room's energy versus simply absorbing sounds.

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/tweaks/messages/141762.html

You can read all about them at the Cable Company's website..


matt

[bpape]

I'll look more at those later - off the top of my head I'm very suspect.  I understand the concept and in theory it could work.  However, I see no official tests on them and the graphs certainly have me scratching my head.  Not sure how one reduces the overall level at 200Hz by 16db! but doesn't do anything to smooth the response curve for instance.  My suspicion is that the levels of the test were different for another reason.  Had the levels been left the same, looking at the graphs, I suspect that the decay times would not have been affected much - which IMO is Mark's major issue. 


Bryan

[Scott F.]

I'm with Bryan on this one. Unless they show that they have followed ASTM testing standards (ASTM 423/795) with the A mounting, I'd be suspect. You can do things to increase the overall NC rating and specific absorption rates like moving the panels out further from the mounting surface (E mounting) but Fatwire hasn't stated their testing procedures or even if their tests were conducted by an independent certified lab (at least in my cursory read). Caviat emptor, or better yet, buyer be informed.

[mark@marktwain]

Bryan,

So the diy traps your recommending would be made from OC 703 1ft x 1ft x 4ft, with a top and bottom and no filler I assume. How thick, is 1" enough? Should they be spaced out from the corners? how much?

Mark