DIY - Room Acoustics..

[elangoas]

Hope you are content with your treatments now with the amount of traps you have added in ur living room. Eagerly waiting for your measurements.

Ha ha.. Not being content.. I had no place/ didn't prefer adding panels on the walls.. Only choice was to look at unused space in the room and make the best of it, especially coz of living room..

 

[elangoas]

It has been a month since i installed absorption material in the room.. So, how much has been the improvement in the room?..

- Room resonance / room boom has been largely contained, compared to how it was with no absorption material (mineral wool) in the room..
- Mids are more evident than before..
- I have 5 identical speakers in the room, all at ear level (L-C-R-SL-SR).. The way sound transitions from each speaker to other feels just great, even with lossless streaming content..
- Able to distinguish the transition from bed layer to height speaker and sometimes difference between the pair of height speakers too..
- Center speaker dialogue clarity has improved much better than before..
- Separation of L-C-R feels good.. ( i think this is due to some absorption besides center channel)..
- For stereo, bass seems just good.. Imaging isn't dead center, kind of half-hearted but still acceptable ( i think if am able to add some absorption in between L/R, it would improve, but i just don't have the option to add)..

All the above observations is without any room correction applied.. Feeling lazy to do measurement (or) i must say, i have been feeling more content than before..

Am happy / will live the improvements in the room for now and think abt fine tweaks as time progresses.. Will measure the response and share at a later time.. Until then, it is movie / web-series marathon ..

I owe thanks to the members for pitching in with ideas / suggestions.. I learnt something from each post / discussion..

 

[RajithKumar]

It has been a month since i installed absorption material in the room.. So, how much has been the improvement in the room?..

- Room resonance / room boom has been largely contained, compared to how it was with no absorption material (mineral wool) in the room..
- Mids are more evident than before..
- I have 5 identical speakers in the room, all at ear level (L-C-R-SL-SR).. The way sound transitions from each speaker to other feels just great, even with lossless streaming content..
- Able to distinguish the transition from bed layer to height speaker and sometimes difference between the pair of height speakers too..
- Center speaker dialogue clarity has improved much better than before..
- Separation of L-C-R feels good.. ( i think this is due to some absorption besides center channel)..
- For stereo, bass seems just good.. Imaging isn't dead center, kind of half-hearted but still acceptable ( i think if am able to add some absorption in between L/R, it would improve, but i just don't have the option to add)..

All the above observations is without any room correction applied.. Feeling lazy to do measurement (or) i must say, i have been feeling more content than before..

Am happy / will live the improvements in the room for now and think abt fine tweaks as time progresses.. Will measure the response and share at a later time.. Until then, it is movie / web-series marathon ..

I owe thanks to the members for pitching in with ideas / suggestions.. I learnt something from each post / discussion..

Congratulations Elangoas!!! u have put great patience and effort ...it will be helpful if you put the pre and post REW measurements graphs...

 

[elangoas]

Congratulations Elangoas!!! u have put great patience and effort ...it will be helpful if you put the pre and post REW measurements graphs...

Thanks.. Pre-absorption you can take it worse without any doubt .. Post absorption measurements, will share..

 

[liverpool_for_life]

Feeling lazy to do measurement (or) i must say, i have been feeling more content than before..

Ha ha. That's always a good place to be in. It's the unhappiness with the sound based on subjective impressions that should drive the measurements, not the other way around.

 

[elangoas]

As a next step in room acoustics post adding of absorption to high room corners to contain room resonance, am considering to treat frontwall in the next few months..

Am in no position to accomodate rockwool on the front-wall, for the inconvenience of being in a accessible location in the living room.. So considering alternate materials (thinner)..

Idea is to catch/cut the reflections from surrounds and height speakers which may deteriorate the L-C-R.. (My set-up is 5.4.2)..

Here is a picture of living room

There is enough rockwool on most part of ceiling, which should help catch ceiling reflections from all the speakers..

There is a dark mat on the floor, actually used to cut projection screen light reflecting back to screen.. But i guess, that should also help catch speaker reflections of the glossy floor..

Side walls are bare and i prefer it that way..

Would acoustic foams, felt fabric do the job ?.. These are much thinner materials and i hope should help catch reflections of other speakers without messing front speakers..

Appreciate your help, ideas, thoughts..

 

[argentum246]

You might like to put absorbers in room corners and side walls (using mirror method) to avoid reflections of LCR happening on the side wall.
Also a dark paint in the room shall help in reducing light reflections as well.

 

[elangoas]

You might like to put absorbers in room corners and side walls (using mirror method) to avoid reflections of LCR happening on the side wall.

Thank you.. I stacked more of absorption in the room on high corners of the rooms and most of ceiling.. Don't have much liberty to do on side walls / corners.. Just for the ease of moving around the living room and not knocking one of them quite often..

Also a dark paint in the room shall help in reducing light reflections as well.

Difficult to do black paint on walls in a living room.. So far have managed to get the floor covered in matt black and most part of ceiling in black..

 

[argentum246]

In that case you can have 2 rectangular frames (with print if you like) like panels on each side that would add aesthetics to room and also absorb reflections.

 

[elangoas]

In that case you can have 2 rectangular frames (with print if you like) like panels on each side that would add aesthetics to room and also absorb reflections.

Thank you.. To the left of the room is the main door and to the right of the room is opening to kitchen.. hard to have rectangular panels on side walls as it would be protruding on the wall when moving around..

Am trying to catch the reflections from the surround speakers and height speakers hitting the front wall, which has L-C-R which would help cleaner front sound-stage.. Hence thought of covering the front wall with thinner material..

 

[argentum246]

Ok. The Panels can be just 2 inch thick made with rockwool. Or you can try the curtains method like PVR.

 

[elangoas]

Ok. The Panels can be just 2 inch thick made with rockwool. Or you can try the curtains method like PVR.

An other concern, assumption and hesitation of placing absorption on side walls is that it may eat away highs as the absorption is directly in the path of speaker reflection.. From reading posts / discussion from here and other forums, bare side walls seem to help widen sound-stage (or) at-least from the research that Toole or others have been quoted many times.. For now, am not very convinced to try absorption on side walls.. Will try someday..

What is curtain method of PVR?.. Haven't heard off.. But curtain being fabric and on side walls might dampen the high freq..

 

[argentum246]

They are curtains of little more thickness but air still can pass through. The DDecor one type ads value and function to the room and sound absorbtion here. You can toe in the LCR speaker little more towards MSP than side wall and use Diffuser Panel in the rear wall to open up the sound stage

 

[elangoas]

They are curtains of little more thickness but air still can pass through. The DDecor one type ads value and function to the room and sound absorbtion here. You can toe in the LCR speaker little more towards MSP than side wall and use Diffuser Panel in the rear wall to open up the sound stage

Ok. Thanks for the info.. My MLP is against the backwall.. Hardly any space to put diffusion.. Not considering diffusion at this moment, for i don't know much abt it..

The speakers have been toed-in.. The distance between the L & R is bet 9 ~ 10ft and my MLP is abt 10ft or slightly from the center channel.. Fairly forming equilateral triangle or MLP just outside it..

 

[elangoas]

Front wall is 14ft wide x 10ft high, making it 140Sq.ft area.. Subtracting the screen & windows area, makes it approx 100 Sq.ft..

Would it be better if to cover the full 100 Sq.ft of area with foams / felt fabric or equivalent material (or) doing partially is better ?.. If partial, which area should be prioritized?..

 

[argentum246]

The free area above and besides speakers .

 

[elangoas]

The free area above and besides speakers .

Great thanks.. If i were to use foams (1ft x 1ft), how do i stick them to walls? Using glue spray? (or) should i consider some other easier DIY route?..

 

[argentum246]

Use glue available from Auralexchange or amazon

 

[elangoas]

Will try to evaluate the cost between Acoustic Foams Vs Felt fabric for a rough 100 Sq.ft area over the next few weekends and update here..

 

[arunlouie]

Front wall is 14ft wide x 10ft high, making it 140Sq.ft area.. Subtracting the screen & windows area, makes it approx 100 Sq.ft..

Would it be better if to cover the full 100 Sq.ft of area with foams / felt fabric or equivalent material (or) doing partially is better ?.. If partial, which area should be prioritized?..

I doubt if it is really your living room