[AintJoM0mma]

For christmas I was looking to get some acoustic treatment for my small room. My budget is around $800. I hear realtraps are really nice, but they are huge and heavy. Is there any smaller alternative to them? Whats the next best thing basically?

Thanks

[rosconey]

call ac member -8th nerve

[lonewolfny42]

What speakers are you using.......

[Hantra]

For christmas I was looking to get some acoustic treatment for my small room. My budget is around $800. I hear realtraps are really nice, but they are huge and heavy. Is there any smaller alternative to them? Whats the next best thing basically?

Thanks

I'd highly recommend a conversation with Nathan at 8th Nerve.  The new series they have coming out should be amazing.  It should be coming out as we speak, and I understand it's patent pending.  

Sounds exciting, and I know I am going ot try them as soon as I can.  I currently have my room treated with the first gen 8th Nerve products, and I can't imagine it being better.  It's the best I've used.

[Ethan Winer]

Jo,

> I hear realtraps are really nice, but they are huge and heavy <

I don't know if 2x4 feet could be considered huge, and at 18 pounds they're not really all that heavy. We also have a smaller 2x2 foot unit that does a great job in tri-corners. But you bring up a good point.

Acoustic treatment, and especially bass traps, is all about coverage. If you cover ten percent of the room surfaces you'll get far better results than covering only one or two percent. This is physics, and there's no getting around that. Just as important as surface area is the thickness and mass of the absorber. Assuming competent materials having an equal surface area, a device that weighs one pound and is half an inch thick will not absorb as well as one that weighs five times more and is three or four inches thick. This too is physics.

Believe me, I'd love to come up with a bass trap that's the size of a book yet still absorbs a huge amount at bass frequencies! But it's just not possible, and the performance always suffers.

--Ethan

[zybar]

I'd highly recommend a conversation with Nathan at 8th Nerve.  The new series they have coming out should be amazing.  It should be coming out as we speak, and I understand it's patent pending.  

Sounds exciting, and I know I am going ot try them as soon as I can.  I currently have my room treated with the first gen 8th Nerve products, and I can't imagine it being better.  It's the best I've used.

B,

I use the 8thNerve stuff for HF, but it can't do anything at lower frequencies.  

Maybe the new stuff will, but the old stuff definitely didn't.

George

[Hantra]

B,

I use the 8thNerve stuff for HF, but it can't do anything at lower frequencies.  

Maybe the new stuff will, but the old stuff definitely didn't.

George

G:

I dunno man, adding the frames to my corners solved my small bass hump.  But from what I hear about the new stuff, the principal is a bit different, and it should be much more flexible at addressing problem frequencies.  

I know the Room Pack physically can't do much for bass, but the frames do.  But Nathan is discontinuing the frames b/c the new stuff is supposed to just kill the frames as far as functionality.

I can easily see how you could have a bass problem with those behemoths, but my speakers don't put out a ton of bass, so I can't relate.  

[F-100]

AJM,
  Check out these foam:

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?accstwek&1107537310

You can treat a 12'x12' room for less than $150. I'm using them for my room and they work nicely.

So which speakers are in your setup now?

[jermmd]

Should 3" or 4" foam be used and where is it best placed (How far off the ground, along the side walls only,corners?)?

Joe M.

[Hantra]

Should 3" or 4" foam be used and where is it best placed (How far off the ground, along the side walls only,corners?)?

Joe M.

Depends on who you ask.  There's a guy that comes to some of our meetings in NC, and his entire room is foam.  He lives in a cocoon of thick foam with no reflections.  

I've been inside an anechoic chamber, and I can't say I liked it one bit.  I think foam is horrible.  Especially used in mass quantities.

[Red Dragon Audio]

I think foam has it place but I agree with Hantra; its place isn't ALL OVER THE ROOM!

Use treatments in moderation.  I don't think the 8th Nerve "Roompack" is enough for any room....but covering the walls floor to ceiling and front to back is absolute overkill.

If you are at all capable, just go get some rigid fiberglass panels in varying thickness densities. Play around a bit with 8 panels placed throughout your room.  Take some away.  Add them back in but with a few more panels in different places.  Season to taste.  Then cover the in your choice of fabric and you have your very own custom acoustic treatments.

[zybar]

G:

I dunno man, adding the frames to my corners solved my small bass hump.  But from what I hear about the new stuff, the principal is a bit different, and it should be much more flexible at addressing problem frequencies.  

I know the Room Pack physically can't do much for bass, but the frames do.  But Nathan is discontinuing the frames b/c the new stuff is supposed to just kill the frames as far as functionality.

I can easily see how you could have a bass problem with those behemoths, but my speakers don't put out a ton of bass, so I can't relate.  

You should hear/feel the bass coming from RM 40's + Two Larger subs (fully corrected by a Tact 2.2x preamp)!!

But seriously, not knocking 8thNerve, but based on the laws of physics, the Frames can't do anything for low bass.  Your hump must have been mid or upper bass.  When I talked to Nathan, he told me his frames weren't going to help below 80Hz where I was having some big issues.

George

[DSK]

There's a guy that comes to some of our meetings in NC, and his entire room is foam.  He lives in a cocoon of thick foam with no reflections.  

I've been inside an anechoic chamber, and I can't say I liked it one bit.  I think foam is horrible.  Especially used in mass quantities.

I have to agree. Although under-damped rooms have problems, so too IMHO do over-damped ones. I visited a guy who had all wall and ceiling surfaces totally covered with thick black foam, plus hanging foam baffles and corner traps. I've heard the argument that we should only hear the ambience of the venue on the recording, without impact from our own rooms, but the music in that room sounded dead and unexciting. Surprisingly, it didn't image very well either.

On the other hand, my room is still a little under-damped due to WAF issues. When I drag in a bit more absorption (eg. a thick floor rug from another room) the music becomes more open, rich, beautiful and delicate. Solo violins sound sweeter and have greater emotional transfer, choral pieces have greater separation and sound more natural etc. So, I'm working on mobile acoustic treatments or ones that don't look out of place in a formal lounge room. Once your system is at a certain point, these treatments definitely provide greater improvements than equipment upgrades.

[F-100]

Should 3" or 4" foam be used and where is it best placed (How far off the ground, along the side walls only,corners?)?

Joe M.

I'm using  4" wedge foams for the front wall and ceiling, and corner bass absorbers for the corners. For $150, it's the best bang for your buck.


Here is the pattern that I'm using. (suggested by another AC member)


Here is a pic of my room.

[zybar]

Just curious, what does the pattern do (besides looking cool)?  

George

[F-100]

Didn't want to cover the entire wall with foam because 1) it look ugly. 2) Wife wouldn't approve. 3) Don't want to overdamp the room.

This is my way of "using treatments in moderation".  

[F-100]

Just curious, what does the pattern do (besides looking cool)?    

Just another way of "decorating" the foam. At first, I went with the checker board look but like this pattern better.  You can use any pattern as you like, as long as they improve the sound in the room, that is all matter

[8thnerve]

But seriously, not knocking 8thNerve, but based on the laws of physics, the Frames can't do anything for low bass.  Your hump must have been mid or upper bass.  When I talked to Nathan, he told me his frames weren't going to help below 80Hz where I was having some big issues.

George

George, mostly true.  I said the frames probably won't fix your problem as you were experienceing an extreme hump at 80 Hz, but they will certainly have an impact.  I would rather be conservative in my claims and have the customer be pleasantly surprised than the inverse.

The newer products are much more effective at lower frequencies, and are thinner.  Based on placement and distance from the product to the wall surface, you can achieve better bass absorption than you would be able to calculate using the 1/4 wavelength versus absorptive depth formula.  Also, it is likely that not all of your bass hump is due to room modes, but some is contributed by the horn loading of the corner.  By blocking that return energy, you reduce a significant amount of bass energy, even with a product that you would think would be too thin to make any difference.

Nathan

[ctviggen]

Nathan,

Are you saying that the new products' frequency response depends on distance to the wall's surface?  If so, do you tell people how to figure out what distance to use?

[ctviggen]

George,

How did you make your links so small?