[TCM]

I asked a question in this thread in the SlimDevices forum. There was a poster who had a "hard" room (by the look of it) and he had bought some Eighth Nerve triangles and rectangles. I asked:

My room is not quite as extreme (regarding hard surfaces), but it's still way too hard. How much of a difference will those Eighth Nerve stuff do?

He responded

Well, I still have to receive four response seams for the left and right walls, so what I have right now is only on the front wall (adapt: three rectangles and two triangles). But even that makes a nice difference, the sound is cleaner and tighter. Enough of a difference that I hear things in some music I haven't noticed for a long time. For example, the first song on the first Dire Straits album, "down to the waterline", before the guitar starts to play, there are some sounds, don't know how to describe it. I've played that album quite a few times, and never noticed it until I played it after hanging up the eight nerve stuff. I wasn't really paying attention either, just reading and playing some background music, but noticed it anyway! I had to replay it a couple of times to make sure it was on the album So now I hope the seams will improve it a bit more!
They have a money-back guarantee, so you can always give it a try. ( http://www.eighthnerve.com/ ) I'm keeping mine...

If you take a look at his picture, what would you say: is his comments what you would expect? Are the Eighth Nerve acoustic products that efficient?

[Rob Babcock]

Yes, they work very well.  I have 4 Adapt corners and a slew of Response seams, with a couple Response corners for good measure.  Eventually I'd like to go to all Adapt as I can afford the upgrades, but I'm getting very good sound.  I treat the middle of every ceiling/wall junction and the middle of all floor/wall junctions.  I have the Adapts in the corners of the ceilings and Response triangles at the floor/wall corners.  The biggest things you notice are the stillness of the room when it's silent, the blackness of the background and the improved level of details.  Truly it was a bigger upgrade than my last speaker upgrades.  A lot of overhang in the bass is gone, too, although they're not ideal as bass treatments.  They greatly improve intellegibility in the speech range for movies and they prevent the room from "getting away from itself" during fortissimos & movie climaxes.

[TCM]

Thanks for your answer!

As usual I have to consider the WAF - that's what first had me looking at Eighth Nerve (they are very discrete). If you look at the pictures on their site, the Response series seem to be closer to the wall - they blend in the background better - is that correct? Is that something that makes the Adapt series better? Is there a big difference between the two?

I'm very tempted to order some corners and seams 

/Håkan

[Rob Babcock]

They're two very different products.  The Response are basically little 'pillows', absorbtive on one side and reflective on the other.  They're soft and flexible, designed to be mounted with pins.  I can say screw WAF since I live alone, so I just stapled mine up.   The Adapt are rigid boards, reflective on the front with fiberglass behind.  They're fully wrapped in fabric and look very, very sharp.  They attach with an ingenius hidden spring-and-loop system that's so simple that it's a wonder everyone doesn't use it.  The install is very neat & clean.  Since my listening room does double duty as my HT room, I chose black to help darken the room but if you get the white ones they'd be very unobtrusive.

The Adapt are more advanced and more effective, although considerably more expensive.  While they do a great job, I wouldn't recommend them to solve bad bass problems- in my experience they help with bass but are more effective from the lower mids on up.  But to be fair, I haven't tried using 10 or so Adapts; mine is a mixture of the two.  Nathan claims an Adapt system with enough peices for your room will do deep bass.  I have no reason to doubt his as his stuff does what he says it does, but I can't confirm it, either.

The Adapts are slicker looking, more professional in appearance.  The Response's look a little DIY/homemade.  I think your WAF will be much better with the Adapts.  I suspect they could even be painted or dyed to better match your walls if your room has some unique color.

[PhilNYC]

Is that something that makes the Adapt series better? Is there a big difference between the two?

IMHO, the Adapt products are *far* superior to the Response stuff, both performance-wise as well as aesthetically.  As most of the guys from the NY Audio Rave can tell you, my old listening room was a major acoustic challenge...the Response stuff did virtually nothing, while the Adapt stuff really helped a lot in all respects (frequency response, widening the sweet spot, improving soundstage and imaging, etc).  And as Rob says, the Adapt stuff looks like professional stuff, whereas the Response products look like DIY projects (eg. you attach them to the room via thumbtacks).

Disclaimer that I'm an 8th Nerve dealer, but the Adapt stuff is what I chose to use in my main demo room...

[TCM]

I really appreciate your answers! I have to take a closer look at this and talk with the W.

One more question: I live in Sweden and on the where to buy page there's only one dealer in the EU (in Spain) and I'm not sure that company still exists. Aren't there any more dealers in the EU?

/Håkan

[jmourik]

I asked a question in this thread in the SlimDevices forum. There was a poster who had a "hard" room (by the look of it) and he had bought some Eighth Nerve triangles and rectangles.

That would be me. I received the response seams (4) last Friday, and mounted them on the side walls. I do think it helped, cleaned up the sound a bit more. See the above thread for a pic...

Must say I'm not sure what the best way to mount these seams is. How many pins to use? 4, one on each corner, or 6? Can anybody give some advice?

jan

[Rob Babcock]

I have to confess, I used a staple gun.   Six staples per seam.  Pins would work fine, but if you don't use at least six or eight per unit they start to sag and lose their shape.