[oneinthepipe]

I am moving into a new loft-style condominium.  The ceiling is 20' high.  Does anyone have an opinion about whether or not I would benefit from ceiling treatments?  In my old listening room, I had 8' ceilings with (4) 2'X4' six inch thick OC703 panels at the 1st reflection point.

Thanks.

[John Casler]

I visited a friend the other day who has 20ft ceilings and I was "amazed" at the amount of echo.  He had his walls and floor highly damped, but if I snapped my fingers, it echoed like crazy.

Not sure how to really (easily and effectively) combat that.

He has the same speakers I do, but it sounded entirely different.

[gooberdude]

I live in a hard loft downtown St Louis w/15-16' tall timber ceilings.  I haven't gone that far to do ceiling treatments, my ceilings look so bad-ass that it would be a shame.

In my room I have (4) gik tri-traps, 3 - 242 panels and one Monster Trap.

My place has 100% stained concrete floors, most walls are floor to ceiling brick masonry, and a 10' tall, 16' wide window system.  A tough space for acoustics!!!

Just my opinion, but having tons of volume in a room isn't a bad thing, but i'm no acoustics expert.  I'm lucky to have Bryan Pape from gik local to me.  When he visited my home we did not discuss ceiling treatments, but you might drop him a PM here & send him some pics.  His input has been invaluable to me.  My room sounded terrible before he helped. 

matt

[gooberdude]

John brings up a good point, slap echo is a major issue.  My room doesn't have it, although it is certainly a bit brighter than those lucky enough to have carpeted man caves or a more typical residential setting.

Absorption, absorption, absorption.   Its the key to taming a hard space, IME. 

My speakers sit in front of the only drywall wall in my place, which happens to be the 'party wall' that's shared with my neighbor.  I can only have ob speakers, and after 1 year have only received 1 'turn it down' note from my neighbor   

[OzarkTom]

I would take 20 foot ceilings over 8 foot anyday of the week. I have heard too many great sounding rooms with high ceilings, and none of them ever had any room treatments.

[Phil A]

I have a 19 foot ceiling in my Grand Room and treated it with the help of my one third octave RTA.  The room does open into other spaces and it has a couple of foot wide shelf about 10 feet high in the back.  You definitely want to make sure that you don't leave the room where stuff just bounces all over back and forth.

[bpape]

In higher rooms like that, I've found that the ceiling itself isn't as much of an issue as the higher portion of the walls.  A mix of some light absorption and diffusion can go a long way to minimize any problems without overdamping the room.

Bryan

[Rocket_Ronny]

The more open the room, the more open the sound. 

Phil:

Not to highjack the thread but can you tell us about the sound of your Thiel's and what kink of power do they need?


Rocket_Ronny

[oneinthepipe]

Thank you for the comments.  I have (16) 6 inch thick panels, (4) 4 inch thick panels, and (10) 2 inch thick panels.  I will start with the corners, the front-wall, the first and second side-wall reflection points, and take it from there. 

Henry

[gooberdude]

30 panels is a lot of absorption.  Are they all 2' x 4'?

[Phil A]

The more open the room, the more open the sound. 

Phil:

Not to highjack the thread but can you tell us about the sound of your Thiel's and what kink of power do they need?


Rocket_Ronny

They are efficient.  They are rated at 90db and I believe Stereophile tested them at 90.7.  However, I believe they tested the minimum impedance at 2.4 ohms and between 2 and 3 over much of the audio band.  Believe it or not I had a Bryston 14BSST rated at 600W (and tested at 645 in one channel and 649 in the other) into 8 ohms and 900W into 4 ohms and it would get extremely hot (particularly one channel).  I have a Modwright KWA150SE driving them now (rated at 150 into 8 and 275 into 4 ohms) and it drives them much better.  While I had the Bryston, I sent it to them twice.  Once with my old Thiel 7.2s (which were a worse load and I had to build a custom amp stand with fans) and once when I pretty much knew I was going to sell it (to make sure there was no problem).  They found no problem either time and I'd have to say the technician I spoke to the second time probably could use customer training skills.  I have a receptacle on a separate 20 amp circuit (I just asked for 15 amp when the house was going up) and they put the bigger circuit in but just used 14 ga. wire for whatever reason, otherwise I would have gotten the 20 amp version of the Bryston when I bought it which would have been better for lower impedance loads.

So, with a huge room that opens into other spaces, I find the 275W sufficient and in a couple of years they will be in a big room, but not the cubic footage I am dealing with now.  Years back when I had the Thiel 7.2s, a Bryston 4BST (400W into 4 ohms) was pushing it in the room.  On demanding movies (and perhaps once on music), I did get to momentary clipping for a fraction of a second (per the front LEDs).  So, it is not just power that makes a difference.  Of course the 7.2s were rated at 86db and I believe tested at 85.5db.  They were probably the least efficient speakers I every owned.  There's some speakers I really like and won't consider (due to their efficiency_ as I don't want to start going through the chain of perhaps having to go amp shopping again.  I love the amp I have know.

[oneinthepipe]

30 panels is a lot of absorption.  Are they all 2' x 4'?

Yes, 2 X 4