Terry J,
Those look great. Can you explain the materials and construction technique?
Tom
Well hello Tom and thankyou muchly!!
Can I explain?? Well I sorta can but not really!! In words that is.
Basically it is a continuous extrusion process...boy that explains a lot..NOT!
It is an old plasterers trick actually, I learnt this old technique as it is required to repair the plaster work in the very old house I am renovating..so of course (years later actually) at some point the gears in the hampster cage meshed and voila...'hmm, I wonder if I marry that centuries old technique with my interest in audio...' type thing. I mean, what are the odds that someone has an old place that needs
proper, traditional renovating, stumbles across 'lost skills' AND has not only an interest in audio, but also in room treatment?? (what % of audiophiles pay more than lip service to the room?)
(apologies for the long story, just hope it is not a long
and boring story ha ha)
So ultimately, it is a very easy, quick, cheap and simple method, but unfortunately not one that can be described in words...or less than a 'thousand' pictures with words.... and even then you'd be forever answering the many 'what about this'es and what about that's'...
So, to be totally frank about it, I am wondering whether or not I should make, sell and distribute a dvd that shows it all. As I am not a greedy bugger it would have to be a reasonable cost for all concerned. All that is required is a small tool/pattern to make the finished shape desired.
Anyone handy with metalwork can knock one up, or even I can supply the tool for $80-90 or whatever...guess the smart thing to do is 'make it cheap enough that it is not worth a guy making their own' type thing.
This is all 'pipe dreams' or vague wondering at the moment, based on basically being unable to explain in words.
So call this a first market survey I guess! I am also kinda coming clean because it was very rude of me to post those pics and 'refuse' to answer the inevitable and reasonable responses to it! (only realised that after I hit 'send')
What I see as the beauty is that it is so quick, easy and cheap to experiment with diffusion with my method! Worst comes to worst and you don't like it, you have not sunk a lot of time or money into it.
And ultimately, it's a bit like bass trapping or reflection control, you simply can't just throw 'one' batt on the wall and think you have properly trapped your room, same with this, you can't just throw 'one' diffusor panel in and expect much result...so back to the big gamble either buying or making (esp the 'old' way) enough to make a difference.
Anyway, if you all come back with 'you're a bloody idiot to even think along those lines' then I guess my market survey has produced the answer required...and save me upset down the road!!
Max, yeah for sure I have tried just absorption. The room is very large (as you might make out from the photos) and very solid, walls are about two feet thick of solid masonry. So LOTS of echo yada yada. I always had rugs on the walls to help with that a small amount. For the last few years I have been finalising/building my speakers, and once they were done I then, just as an experiment, hung a few raw batts on the walls (I could hang them on thin string from the cornice all around the room.
I picked that photo for a few reasons, it gives an impression of the height of the ceiling (5.4 m, or seventeen feet if you are behind the times hahaha) and, apropos to our earlier explanation, you can see the missing bits of cornice that I need to repair...using the old timer trick I have adapted to qrd building!! A neat closing of the
circle (oops, another little joke there haha)
Oops, another brag, another angle of the experimental bass traps (raw batts) AND the speakers that I have finished.
I have always maintained 'fix the speakers, then the room' ie the speaker/room interaction, and it was only after I had done the speakers that one day I decided 'bugger, just hang batts and see what results'.
I was stunned. I am NOT a guy in audio that spends a lot of money on these 'stupid' expensive tiny little upgrades that audiophiles prattle on about, so veils lifted blah blah blah just does not feature in my vocabulary.
So the word stunned was chosen deliberately. I mean I always 'knew' I needed room treatments, after all 'everybody' said so right?
Nahh, you
don't KNOW until you do it properly.
(and see what I mean about just throwing 'one' batt up and saying you have treated your room? A bit like those guys that have a totally untreated room...and throw a rug over the tv screen thinking they can hear a difference!! The number of times guys have demo'd that to me in a completely untreated room and I say 'nope, cannot hear a difference' and they
swear by it you know??? Reflections everywhere and they think that one little 'batt' makes the world of difference)
But equally, I realised that it CAN and SHOULD help...once the room is properly treated. I started at the front wall with batts, and gradually added as I went. The more had treated, the more able I was to work out where to put the next...a few in that blank spot there, one over there etc etc.
It even got to the stage that whilst listening, I would hear something from the left (say), look over, and spot what/where the reflection was coming from! And sure enough, throw a rug over it and it would disappear!! (see now what I mean about the rug over the tele?)
Stunning amazing stuff.
Now I start to add diffusion to the mix!! Soundstage and ambience (MY thing in audio, maybe not other peoples) bingo, expands and envelops. wonderful.
So, experimenting with 'what and where' and when I know all that then I can reno the room finally and incorporate it all into the final build, all done in a way which complements that architectural integrity of this (historic) house.
