Acoustic Treatment / Soundproofing

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by sphinxvc, Feb 14, 2016.

  1. sphinxvc

    sphinxvc Gear Master (retired)

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    Let's talk about room acoustics / soundproofing. Wikipedia page on Room Acoustics / Soundproofing

    Where's the happy medium?

    Personally, I have tried a few simple arrangements and found that bass traps in rear corners and wide-band absorption of first reflection points provide solid results. ​
     
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2017
  2. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    There is one place my wife will let me put together that crazy nearfield soundproofing set up: the street.

    If you got your studio setup I guess it makes sense. But for most home installations, I don't think you need to go that crazy on it. I find my monitors sound pretty good in my bedroom w/o soundproofing. Just a bit of equalization here and there.

    Again, for professional studios, maybe it makes good sense though. But even then, this is what I found in the interwebz:



    There seems to be some sound proofing and stuff in the studio (more so in the recording area, than in the monitoring area). But it didn't seem that crazy.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2016
  3. sphinxvc

    sphinxvc Gear Master (retired)

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    Is that glass behind those monitors?! o_O No wonder dude looks happy monitoring on his 600s and that Grace looking DAC/amp, lol. :p

    Kidding aside, you're right though, odd that they have it set up that way. Or perhaps not.

    That set up is not mine, btw. Found on the interwebz as well.
     
  4. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    LOL! I didn't notice the 600s in that dude's head!

    In my setup I actually have a mirror closet on one side. Over all I had to set the monitors to -4 dB on treble to make things good. I also had to drop quite a few dB around 70 Hz. But things were mostly alright after those corrections. Staying away from walls helps, whenever possible.
     
  5. Chris F

    Chris F Boyz 4 Now Fanatic - Friend

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    My understanding is that a lot of studios have sound have absorption stuff built right into the walls. I see a ton of big floor standing diffusors in the recording area in that Skywalker Sound video so they are definitely on it. The triple BW802 setup for monitoring is pretty interesting. Never seen that before!

    On topic edit: I'm still in the process of setting up a bunch of GIK stuff in my tiny ass room with Event Opal monitors in nearfield. Big improvement already and I only have half the stuff in place. I'll throw up some measurements when it's done but it's really helped with imaging and decay times.
     
  6. Xen

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    Ethan Winer, who own RealTraps (http://realtraps.com/index.htm), says you can't have too much, but there is a practical limit.
    He did a show with Home Theater Geeks (https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks/episodes/289) explaining bass traps and shows off his personal home theater with treatment (). Treatment is pretty much everywhere, but he says that the treatment only cover 18% of the available surface area.

    This matches with the Harmon folks who say that room treatment is extremely important as the room dominates sound from like 300 Hz (200? I forgot the exact frequency) and down.
     
  7. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    Subscribed! I've been doing a lot of reading recently on setting up a room. We're in the progress of looking for a new place and I get to have an office, so I can do some level of selection based on audio considerations. I can tell I have a lot of discovery and learning coming my way.
     
  8. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I dunno, regarding bass, I had problems around 70 Hz. Not 300 or 200 Hz. And a $100 equalizer kind of the size of a credit card took care of things and then some.

    Of course, if I was selling bass traps I would say you need to cover 300% of your room, your patio, the garage, and the dog house.

    Not saying placement and some considerations are not needed (including bass traps or whatever). But you owe it to yourself to set your system, make proper measurements, subjective evaluations, and see what you really need.
     
  9. Xen

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    100% agree. Naturally, optimizing placement of speakers first and doing some measurements is to see what else is needed is the most prudent course. Next would be dealing with primary reflections off the ceiling and the side walls about midway from speaker to listener as those seem to be the most important. Placing some bass traps at those locations would probably give most correction for the buck, depending on the rest of the room of course.
     
  10. firev1

    firev1 Friend

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    On the slightly more technical side, what you really want with room treatment is to bring down the T60 reverb times to as low as you possibly can but keep in mind, with very even decay times across the frequency range.

    Regarding room acoustics considerations, have a look at this, though it concerns more of soundproofing than room treatment.

     
  11. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    When it becomes critically important to prevent sound from passing through walls (ie: a recording studio), then building up the walls properly is great. Get your lead liner framed up, whatever other fluffy stuff in between, and "float" the soft wall over top.
     
  12. sphinxvc

    sphinxvc Gear Master (retired)

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    Changed thread title to better reflect what we're talking about (more acoustic treatment than sound proofing)

    Check out this 5 part article on acoustic treatment: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul98/articles/acoustics1.html, covers a lot. I haven't gotten through all of it yet, but the section on T60 in part 3 makes this important point: "you can easily make the listening environment much worse by trying to do too much."

    @ultrabike have you tried any kind of absorption/breaking up of reflections or only EQ?

    Side note: digital room correction is another popular solution that I know too little about.

    @Chris F I use GIK traps as well. 4 wideband and 2 bass traps, that was a package they had a while ago. In hindsight the 2 extra widebanders were a waste.

    Ethan Winer has one fugly living room.
     
  13. Chris F

    Chris F Boyz 4 Now Fanatic - Friend

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    Finally got around to re-organizing my room this weekend.

    I moved my audio rack into a nook behind the my freestanding panels on the right with the turntable sitting on a separate shelf that was already built into the room. This gets rid of the speaker boundary issue I had. Next step will be to get myself a much smaller desk to minimize comb filtering and from there it's a matter of fine tuning to get it as good as it can possibly be for a tiny space.

    I have panels for the ceiling but it's solid concrete and I need to hire a contractor to drill into that stuff because I have no idea how to do it properly. In the meantime I took the extra panels and built a little fortress on the left side of the room :p
     

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  14. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I don't have a lot of experience with room acoustic treathmetn, other than moving things around which does have an effect on frequency response.

    However, there are a couple of problems IMO with bass traps and stuff:

    1) They tend to be big. Bigger the lower the frequency. Therefore, in a small room, they are somewhat impractical.
    2) They do little for high frequencies, and a room can have an effect on such ranges.
    3) They are somewhat expensive. A T70 24"x24"x4.25" is about $200. One may need to spend more if one needs more than one of those T70 gadgets and if one needs one of those diffusor thingies. An equalizer is about $100 or so.
    4) They are an eye-sore depending on where you have to put them to be effective. If you have a window, well, there goes the view.

    Here is what I used: https://www.minidsp.com/products/minidsp-in-a-box/minidsp-2x4

    It worked, and it's sitting somewhere where I don't see it.

    If you have a dedicated hometheater room that sort of looks like a mini movie theater, then it sort of makes sense. But not sure it works well in a living room or a bedroom in most cases, which is where most people spend their time.

    I also wander about the size of the bass trap if one wanted to fix something around 20 or 25 Hz ...
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2016
  15. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Since you went down that path, did you consider these for your corners:

    http://www.gikacoustics.com/product/gik-acoustics-tri-trap/

    They are $270 a pair though.

    These are said to be very effective also (by the vendor):

    http://www.gikacoustics.com/product/gik-acoustics-soffit-bass-trap/
     
  16. Chris F

    Chris F Boyz 4 Now Fanatic - Friend

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    Bryan Pape (GIK Acoustician) gave me some suggestions after I sent in pics of my room and REW measurements. I'll put up a few pics of my room when I get home so you can see where I am at.

    For the initial order I went with 3 monster bass traps (with range limiter) on the rear wall. 2 freestanding 244 traps on the right (first reflection) and then 2 regular 244 traps for the left wall (first reflection) and 2 more for the ceiling (first reflection).

    Now that I have things sort of organized in the room I'm going to be taking a bunch of measurements but I suspect I will be placing a second order for some tri traps front left/right + 2 more 244 + 1 monster trap so I can go wall to ceiling on the left and back walls. Not sure what I will do for the front wall...

    A space like mine which is the size of a shoebox (effectively 10x7.5x8) will never sound super great but I'm willing to accept a bit of "dead room" sound if I can mostly nail the frequency response and get really solid imaging and decay times.

    Currently the priority is to get rid of a +5 peak just below 1Khz. Makes the sound too forward. The rest of the frequency band is OK. 1-10K is essentially flat with gentle roll off above that. Hopefully experimenting with speaker placement can minimize or get rid of it at my listening position.
     
  17. Rex Aeterna

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    i go for all absorption and close to an anechoic chamber as possible. panels for bass traps should be no thinner than 9" thick in order to deal with complete absorption to at around 50-100hz. 18" thick for complete low bass absoption. and as much panels for standing waves and reflection points thick as possible. i even use 9" thick fiberglass panels for relection points on my part. never bothered with diffusors or anything. dont really believe in them since my thing is to make room as dead as possible...
     
  18. Rex Aeterna

    Rex Aeterna Friend

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    bass traps will absorb the mids and highs as well. the absorption material for bass is just thicker to absorb more heat friction. for complete absorption down to 20hz it is recommended for superchunk 18" thick fiberglass from ceiling to floor panels. people try say you need as much space for panels from away from wall as to how thick it is to trap air but, coeffiecient data shows no difference spacing the panels or placing againist walls. i always made it againist the wall.
     
  19. Rex Aeterna

    Rex Aeterna Friend

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    if ever plan on future monitor purchasing...never use b&w802d's...was my dream speaker till i heard them on 100k system and giant treated room...they do not live up to their sound and actually were really bright and boomy. i was very disappointed in them. they were meh at best and heard better sound with pro audio and commercial gear.
     
  20. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Those B&W were proly compensated. Otherwise I agree. B&W are not my sound. Though some say their newer offerings are better. Dunno what their newer offerings are though.

    BTW, 18" of absorbing material sounds like quite a bit IMO.

    I would have gone the acoustic treatment way. But it was not practical for me. That does not mean it's not practical for other folks.
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2016

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