[mfsoa]

Calling GIK dudes:

I only have 2 of the D1s, but placed anywhere behind my speakers (which have rear ambience tweeter) they make a huge beneficial difference. Usually they sit atop a vertical 244 panel right behind the speakers - moving the D1 an inch at a time causes clearly audible changes in the width of the soundstage. I need to get more...

Anyway, the panels do ring when you rap 'em. I know some have damped them with spray-on bed-liner type goo.

Is there a specific product that can be recommended for this?

Thanks!

-Mike

[bpape]

Hi Mike

It all depends on what you really want them to do.  If you want them to do double duty behind speakers, you can stuff them full of fiberglass insulation and you'll get a bit of bass control as well as damping the composite. 

I've seen guys use bedliner, Mortite, etc.  Bedliner I'd guess would damp a little but mostly drop the resonance.  The Mortite is pretty well going to kill it and make it much stiffer due to more mass. 

Bryan

[tanchiro58]

Hi Bryan,

I also have had questions for the set up 242 acoustic panels. Russ stopped by yesterday and had helped to setup the 242s in my living room. I could hear much less echoes in my living room but when I seat to listen for awhile the sound is less musical than before. It sounds less lively to me and the question is do I need any diffusers and where do I place them?

Many thanks,
Tan 

[Big Red Machine]

Plumber's putty

[bpape]

Tan.

Maybe we should do this in a different thread.

Bryan

[Glenn K]

Also Tan,

If we don't have your room detail you might want to email it to us so we can look it over. D1s may be the trick but would be great to know more about the room.

Glenn

[mfsoa]

I don't mind dealing w/ Tan's issue here, FWIW.

Tan - When I started using the 242/244 panels, there initially seemed to be a loss of something as well. After a few days, though, I came to realize that much more was gained (image focus) than was lost (ambience). The ambience that was lost was really just distortion bouncing around the room mucking things up. Sure, the new sound is less "airy", less "live" in ways. I think those reflections may be pleasing to the human hearing process in general (in my overdamped room, the brain is kinda freaked out at first since ambient spacial cues are attenuated) but really interfere with hearing what the system is doing.  That's my layman's take on it. Once you are recalibrated to the sound and feel of a well-damped room, live rooms are positively annoying (to me).

BTW, my wife is actually asking me to get MORE panels, this time for our family room where the HT is. She absolutely loves the peace and quiet in the 2-ch room and is now recalibrated so that reflective rooms (stores, resaurants etc.) are annoying. She is a very talented (amateur) interior designer and has come to grasp that the sense of hearing is just as important to please as is sight, if you are actually going to live in the space.

Gotta love those mega-buck systems put into glass-walled rooms. AAHHHGGH!!. At least they have cable-lifters to eeek out that last nth of performance!!   

-Mike

[bpape]

Well said. 

If you have the space, a mix of absorbtion to deal with decay times, early reflections that are out of time and usually have poor frequency response, and general cancellations in the bottom end - coupled with selective diffusive elements to restore some of the ambient cues can be a very nice solution.  The trick is to get things balanced and have diffusion far enough away to be effective. 

Remember that diffusion can act both in the physical domain and the time domain.

Bryan

[tanchiro58]

Well said. 

If you have the space, a mix of absorbtion to deal with decay times, early reflections that are out of time and usually have poor frequency response, and general cancellations in the bottom end - coupled with selective diffusive elements to restore some of the ambient cues can be a very nice solution.  The trick is to get things balanced and have diffusion far enough away to be effective. 

Remember that diffusion can act both in the physical domain and the time domain.

Bryan

Bryan,

You are absolutely right. Maybe the first time listening to my musics with acoustic panels I imagine I put myself in a box so my ears would not get used to it. Maybe I should take time and furnish some more panels and diffusors to calibrate my living room to the state of more easier listening like before without echos and acoustic distortion (not from my components I hope).

Thanks for all of your inputs and help to solve my problems.

Tan

[Spkr_Bldr]

How about just a 2 part expanding pour foam?  Mix and pour it in the backside, and if it expands over the edges just use something like a hacksaw blade to trim it flush. 

[richidoo]

Tan, my experience was exactly the same as mfsoa. The trick is to add even more to kill off even more room muck. When you are only halfway treated or less, your brain can still hear the room ring and misses it, especially with absorbtion placed on the front wall where a lot of reflection comes from. When reflection is reduced to where you don't notice it then you hear mostly the recorded ambiance which is usually much nicer than the room sound, so then it's easy to kick the live room habit. For midrange ringing diffusion works good without any perceived dulling. Sorry for the hijack

The spray foam will also expand sideways inside the D1 valleys so might deform the shape?
Rich

[launche]

I'll echo what's been said before about getting used to a better treated room vs the not so treated room.  Years ago I remember having the same reaction as you Tan, thinking initially (first few minutes) that things sounded less lively or exciting but you learn and adapt quickly.  Now it's hard to listen to the untreated room. To me it is one of those can't go back affairs (for critical listening anyway.)  I honestly don't know that I would bother assembling a refined system of components without the ability to tune the room to a satisfactory degree.

Keep going Tan, the more you refine things you'll just be astounded once you start hearing more of the recording in your room.  It's truly like entering some magically music land when you get it dialed in right, when you go from that 2D soundstage to something with real space is amazing.  When those Hemps start revealing bass that may just have you scratching your head thinking you're listening to a bigger more potent speaker.  Especially with single drivers and their coherence and the treated room, everything just sounds so "in step"  almost everything else may sound slow and pieced together.

Sorry to intrude, just had a moment and two cents to spare.

[Nils]

....
Anyway, the panels do ring when you rap 'em. I know some have damped them with spray-on bed-liner type goo.

Is there a specific product that can be recommended for this?

Thanks!

-Mike

Hi Mike, I own 8 GIK D1 diffusers.  They're GREAT panels--better than RPG Skylines in my experience.  I used raam-mat (http://www.raamaudio.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi) constrained layer damping to add serious mass to my panels.  They definitely don't ring anymore

-- Nils

[mfsoa]

Nils, thanks, great link

 

[tanchiro58]

...or you can DIY diffusors based on this:

http://www.pmerecords.com/Diffusor.cfm

[Ethan Winer]

Years ago I remember having the same reaction as you Tan, thinking initially (first few minutes) that things sounded less lively or exciting but you learn and adapt quickly.  Now it's hard to listen to the untreated room.

I agree with this 100 percent. A treated room can be sort of an acquired taste, especially for people not used to the sound. It can seem like "something" is missing. Of course, what's missing is the extraneous reflections and ambience that harm clarity and cloud the music.

--Ethan