[Captain Humble]

Thanks for posting the pics.
Awesome!

[TRADERXFAN]

Hello Art,

Art mentioned that this question came up: front wall acoustic or aesthetic...

I am the acoustical designer who was very furtunate to work with a client as focused as Art.

Back to the question: both.  Primary function is acoustical to control the omni-directional low frequency energy from speakers that otherwise "damages" the harmonic series in first two octaves...the result affects the entire listening spectrum.  We of course want the speakers to couple in positive manner and create that great, robust yet tight low frqeuency response...we do not want mush and phasey low end that is often attributed soley to speaker...when it is often the speaker IN ROOM. 

Now in Art's case this wall is actually and multi-tiered diaphragmatic trap...where specific (yet simple) use of cavity depth, face material and insulation are targeting the first order "Y" axial mode, the second order "Y" axial mode, the speaker boundary interference null based on original speaker location and then a more general upper bass absorption (around 125 Hz).  The wall is finished with 1/4" drywall which keeps mid and high frequency energy in the room so it feel "typical" and not "studio". 


As highly engineered as these systems are, I intentionally made them "forgiving" systems that are modestly damped and intended to work together.  They are in relation to corner located passive traps, the room dimensions and the room volume.

A more offcial case study of Art's room is coming...I'd be glad to answer specific questions.

Do you have a room response measurement for this? Like waterfall plot?

Interesting touch. And great looking!

Are those candles or ports in the "window wells" I can't tell what is really going on with that wall...

[ted_b]

Jeff,
Welcome to AC!  

Guys, I'm next, so wish us luck (more luck needed for Jeff, as he works with me.    ).  With Jeff's direction, and the already great sound I'm getting from Ethan's traps (which are being used heavily again in this setup), I'm very excited as to the final sound. 

Those are candles, btw.  Art and I chatted a bit before I moved on to step two with Jeff.  Art, thanks much for the great referral. 

[Jeffrey Hedback]

We do not have room measurements in time domain although we're going to grab some LF freq data soon.  As much as I value thorough acoustical measurements...it just wasn't in this scope of work...we'll see over time...and totally candid...I'm always relectant to hook into a system like Art's (stray pop)... testing with my own speaker shows room, but not Art's speaker in room.  I know I'm pushing a bit further in this direction...but it's a cool topic.  For further background as to why I could be comfy without such data...comes from a very diligent background understanding both the analytical physics in time, freq and spatial aspects combined with experience as acoustician and musician in thousands of various rooms...that part was actually pretty simple (the floating wall engineering).

So the wall is "basically" 2x8 framing, set off wall with the center section faced with Durock cement board and the outer 4' sections drywall.  The center portion of the outer areas has no insulation.  These three systems address the axial modes and the speaker boundary null.  Then a scrimmed section of 2" 705 is covering the whole wall with finish layer of 1/4" drywall.  It's unlikely that any specific section has absorption coefficient above .6 ...but even .5 at 40Hz is powerful.

The whole concept began when Art shared a pic of a modern floating wall in a bedroom that had these three rectangular cut outs...he asked if we could do something like this and I jumped at chance.  So the cut-outs are just that...open areas through whole assembly.  I had them located in center to retain symmetry.

[arthurs]

Glad you could make it by Jeff!    

Quick plug, I cannot say enough about what a great experience it is to work with Jeff.  We'll get to measuring the room someday soon, we are still tweaking a bit and have a last bit of treatment to put in place, but my (our) main focus so far has been on how it sounds versus how it measures, knowing we'll have measurement eventually.  Long story short, the overall look and sound of the project has exceeded all my expectations.  It also didn't hurt we had a pretty creative and flexible contractor to work with as we came up with these ideas.  As soon as Jeff is ready to publish the case study of the project that takes in all the aspects of what we changed and treated, I'll be sure and post it here.

Jeff, as an aside, I would encourage you to post in the Industry Ads section to let people here know a little more about yourself and your company.

P.S. Ted has it, those are battery powered candles in the "shelves" in the acoustic wall....I'll have to look into upgrading their battery power supplies...   

[arthurs]

Hi Art,

Man that room looks incredible and the system too! I hope to come over sometime for a listen I could bring over some fun stuff, elrod power cord, playback designs cd player

Scott

Hi Scott, thanks much!  Let me know if you're going to be out our way and we can set up some time.  I've had the playback player here before, but not the ASR Emitter (hint, hint) and you know I lust after the Elrod cords, why tempt me that way? 

[arthurs]

Jeff,
Welcome to AC!  

Guys, I'm next, so wish us luck (more luck needed for Jeff, as he works with me.    ).  With Jeff's direction, and the already great sound I'm getting from Ethan's traps (which are being used heavily again in this setup), I'm very excited as to the final sound. 

Those are candles, btw.  Art and I chatted a bit before I moved on to step two with Jeff.  Art, thanks much for the great referral. 

No worries Ted, can't wait to hear more about your project as it progresses!  Ted brings up an interesting point, one thing I liked about Jeff's approach is he works to "reappropriate" your existing treatments (in my case my diy tube traps and Ethan's diffusors) versus tossing it all and having to buy everything new....

[Jeffrey Hedback]

Picking up the details on Art's room make-over, a detailed case study has just been completed and posted on my website:
http://www.hdacoustics.net/er-u-di-tion.html

Again, feel free to ask questions.

[Jason Brent]

Nice write up.  One of these days I've gotta make it down there to listen.

Congrats Art, beautiful room.

[Se7en]

Wow! That's really nice!

[HAL]

Art and Jeff,
A truly magnificent facility to listen to music! 

[Hoots]

Impressive!  Congrats.

I have always wanted to make over my room with it's pitched side walls.....