[jtwrace]

Hello,

I am interested in treating my room.  I have been looking into the eight nerve & echo busters products.  Does anyone have any feedback on them.  Pro's & Con's?  I would like to hear all the feedback.

thanks-

[Big Red Machine]

Here are some sites to compare with.  If you are handy at all, DIY'ing is a real cost effective route.

http://www.readyacoustics.com/index.php?go=products.categories
 
http://www.truesoundcontrol.com/
 
http://teresaudio.com/haven/traps/traps.html
 
http://sensiblesoundsolutions.com/
 
http://www.batt-mart.com/

[rabpaul]

There is a lot more to this (room treatment) than selecting which brand and/or type of treatment to use. Don't you need to measure the room to find out the issues and what will work best?

[zybar]

There is a lot more to this (room treatment) than selecting which brand and/or type of treatment to use. Don't you need to measure the room to find out the issues and what will work best?

EVERY room (except for extremely large spaces) has the same issues at 200Hz and below and would benefit from broadboand bass treatment.

While measuring your room is a good thing and something everybody should do...buying quality products from Realtraps or GIK will absolutely improve your musical experience.

George

[bpape]

The trick is to look at the size of the space, how it's constructed, the type of furnishings are in it, how many people, what the room will be used for (2 channel, HT, combination, etc.), and the layout and type of speakers.  Based on all of those things, there are some treatment regimens that are always recommended.  Then we look at what specific problems the room may have and can address them individulally as required.

If you could post a pic, I'd be happy to take a look and see what's appropriate.

Bryan

[jaspal kallar]

Hello,

I am interested in treating my room.  I have been looking into the eight nerve & echo busters products.  Does anyone have any feedback on them.  Pro's & Con's?  I would like to hear all the feedback.

thanks-

Hi,

I'm new to all this but apart from the good info you have received so far wanted to mention that there is a "The Acoustics Circle" circle here on Audiocircle.

   jaspal

[Ethan Winer]

Does anyone have any feedback on them.  Pro's & Con's?  I would like to hear all the feedback.

The quote below is from the Product Data page of the RealTraps web site, and it's relevant to your question.

--Ethan

One final point is the surprising number of acoustic product vendors who give no performance data at all. Testing in an acoustics lab is not free, but the cost is reasonable (about $1,000) for anyone running a real business. We're often asked how MiniTraps compare to various other products for which no data is offered at all. Think about that. Would you buy an expensive pair of loudspeakers without having any idea of their frequency response? Or a power amp with absolutely no distortion, noise, or even output power specs? Marketing acoustic panels without furnishing performance data tells consumers either "We have no idea if they actually work" or, worse, "We did test them and they're not very good."

[Ready Acoustics]

For most smaller mix/recording/ critical listening environments, and broadband absorption approach (including bass traps) is the most pragmatic. There are some simple rules for treating a room without using software.

1. Use 4" thickness of OC703 or Rockwool at 4-8lb pcf
2. Install your bass traps across vertical corners first at 45 degrees, or as close as possible (window and door openings sometime prevent complete 45 degree angle installation)
3. Treat early reflection points in your room. See this explanation on this subject: Treating Early Reflections (explained)
4. Bring your ears to approximately 38% of your rooms length (from your front/facing wall, backward)
5. Make note of the furnishings in your listening environment as they may already be helping your absorption needs (sofas, chairs, bed, etc)

Check out http://forum.studiotips.com to read discussions from actual acousticians, acoustics engineers and acoustics physicists. It's a cool place to learn the truth.

I'm happy to offer any assistance I can as well, here.


Great forum everyone!


Joel DuBay
ReadyAcoustics.com
Bass Traps and DIY

[richidoo]

I have GIK and 8th nerve. I want more of both. I like them both for different jobs. 8th nerve makes tone and texture more beautiful and clearer detail by cleaning up phase damaging corners. It also absorbs bass and can flatten a room effectively into the low bass freqs (if you use a lot of it.) A purpose made bass trap like GIK 244 or tritrap will suck up more bass in the same space and for less money than 8th nerve, but may also eat higher freqs which make ambience. 8th nerve are easy on the eyes too, but pricey.

As for DIY, it is near impossible for you to make panels same as GIK 244s at the price they charge. On the other hand that BBC diffusor design might be worth a try compared to comercial offerings of similar performance.

Diffusion also breaks up reflections without removing energy from the room. Diffusion for bass problems is not practical due to the physics of low freq sound, but higher up diffusion sounds (feels?) better than absorption for quality sound listening. Above bass freqs absorbtion is best used for "noise reduction," not music. Quality diffusion is MUCH more expensive though, so absorption is frequently chosen to treat all freqs when budget is a concern.

WAF is the biggest factor to consider before you even start. They allow giant wooden boxes to sit in the middle of the living room, but they call a thin, designer-fabric-covered panel on the wall 'clutter.' If it spit out money or cleaned the house they would want it everywhere. Hey, no win there, right? Stand firm gentlemen! 

It is safe to budget 50% of your total audio budget to acoustics. The clearer your audio equipment presents music the more it seems that the room ruins it without treatment. As the system clarity improves with upgrades, the room must also be improved to keep up. 50% sounds like a lot with these high value mfgs' products, but as you get closer to perfect it is more expensive to gain further improvement. To get maximum potential out of a receiver and two def tech speakers would require $1000 of bass traps and maybe a diffusor on the rear wall, same cost as the system including wires, source, etc. The resolution of the system would not exceed the smear left over after modest treatment. When you have AR tube amps, Karma speakers and dCS source, you're paying for a lot of detail there that will be smeared to hell when you move 10 feet away unless that airspace is controlled to perfection. A ceiling full of RPG skyline diffusors will make you long for your old deftechs again. hehe

It is a very fun aspect of the audio hobby, and I'm so grateful for personalities like Ethan Winer and Bryan Pape to help make the learning fun. They can give you a lot of great advice.
Rich

[Big Red Machine]

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/pad8947@sbcglobal.net/album/576460762365394780/photo/294928803909388359/3



Some bass traps I made.  A box of 703 for approx $90 and some lumber, paint, and burlap, and whalla!  You could go with 4" thick and make 4 of them for under $200 easy.  I made them 6" though.  And added a fancy front piece more for looks than bass trapping.

Agreee on the high freq absorption - can extract quite a bit of that if not careful.

[poseidonsvoice]

Sorry to go off topic but...

That's a beautiful system and a beautiful room. Kudos! 

Anand.

[bluewax]

I treated my room with 8th Nerve a few months back. The change was not subtle, and I recognize now that I wasted way too much time (and money) evaluating equipment under less than ideal conditions. I intend a more proper review in the next few weeks, but do recommend exploring the 8th Nerve option. Cheers, bw   

[Ethan Winer]

Ethan, I can only think you were referring to Eighth Nerve with your quote from your website as it pertains to this thread.

Not at all. I wrote that long before I ever heard of Eighth Nerve. There are plenty of fraudulent and incompetent vendors of acoustic products, and a number of them are listed on my personal web site (for obvious reasons):

www.ethanwiner.com/fraud.html

And as Joel rightly pointed out, few vendors are genuine audio and acoustics experts as my partner and I are.

--Ethan

[Glenn K]

Diffusion also breaks up reflections without removing energy from the room. Diffusion for bass problems is not practical due to the physics of low freq sound, but higher up diffusion sounds (feels?) better than absorption for quality sound listening. Above bass freqs absorbtion is best used for "noise reduction," not music. Quality diffusion is MUCH more expensive though, so absorption is frequently chosen to treat all freqs when budget is a concern.

 
Rich

But but but but but we have the D1 Diffuser now.    aa
http://www.gikacoustics.com/diffuser_products.html

Glenn

[richidoo]

Yeah baby! Congrats Glenn! They look great! Can't wait to hear them. The convex tips are an innovative idea!


I removed my reference to DIY panel parts based on Ethan's story. What a crazy world!

[tonyptony]

I have a question that is slightly OT (but I think still relevant). I remember there was a room design software package a while back that allowed for some analysis of room modes and reflections, but my memory tells me it was fairly simplistic (room was basically 4 walls, speakers were always front firing...). Is there any software package that allows you to create complex room shapes (maybe part of one wall being a half wall, adding a bay window...) and using different kinds of speaker architectures (dipole, point source...)? And is it not that expensive (or maybe even free!  )?

[AB]

I have a question that is slightly OT (but I think still relevant). I remember there was a room design software package a while back that allowed for some analysis of room modes and reflections, but my memory tells me it was fairly simplistic (room was basically 4 walls, speakers were always front firing...). Is there any software package that allows you to create complex room shapes (maybe part of one wall being a half wall, adding a bay window...) and using different kinds of speaker architectures (dipole, point source...)? And is it not that expensive (or maybe even free!  )?

Are you thinking of CARA?

http://www.rhintek.com/cara/cara21desc.php

Not free but I kinda remember there might have been a free demo at one point in the past, maybe.

[Ethan Winer]

Is there any software package that allows you to create complex room shapes

Not that I know of. Modeling acoustic behavior is very difficult because there are so many variables that are more or less impossible for a program to know. For example, wall thickness and mass directly affect the modal frequencies, and some types of wall construction have bass trapping properties. Just having or not having insulation inside the wall can make a big difference. Then add the floor mass and rigidity, and same for the ceiling. And that's just for the six boundaries in a plain shaped room. But that's nothing compared to the variables of speaker construction and placement. All conventional box speakers become omnidirectional at low frequencies, and that affects which directions bass waves exit the cabinet. But planar speakers are totally different. And so forth.

--Ethan

[bpape]

And just to add a couple more variables..... 

How far is the next hard boundary from each of those surfaces?

What is the stud spacing on your walls?

Those things will also change the real measured modal behavior over and above anything that a program can 'decide'.  That's why we can predict till the cows come home but to get it exactly right still takes some work and experimentation....  and that's STILL in a plain rectangular room.  Throw in odd shapes and it's a whole different ballgame.

Bryan

[tonyptony]

Well, I hear you all, but it still seems that if all of that information were to be known (stud spacing, wall type, insulation type, etc...) the algorithms could be developed to provide a reasonable approximation of the room modes (certainly not 6 sigma). There will always need to be a knowledgable person to take it from there, but a tool like that would be great to help us civilians understand where all the factors come into play. If I said it's not rocket science (without by any means diminishing the acoustic science) I would be a little familiar with the comparison. Where I work we actually do rocket science, and some of the simulation tools we use model some incredibly complex phenomena that are driven by more variables than a lay person would suspect  (the kind of rocket systems we work on don't carry people or satellites, and I'll leave it at that). I believe the science is there to account for the variables; I suspect the reason it hasn't been done is that no one would pay for it. The NRE cost would be too high.

I think it's an eye opening testament to people like Nathan who can understand this kind of acoustic problem and be able to make well founded recommendations on methods to improve a listening space.

Sorry to take it so far OT. I'll lay low so it can get back to the topic at hand.