Sound treating Walls
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Silver Member Username: MordecaiTexas Post Number: 264 Registered: Jan-09 | I just picked up three 24x24 acoustic ceiling tiles at Home Depot. I placed them on three walls in my listening room and I can tell a difference already. I no longer hear ringing when I clap my hands and bass sounds richer. I guess acoustic tiles are good for sound treatment. Much cheaper then stuff that is marketed as sound treatment. Any thoughts or better suggestion then ceiling tiles? I also considered cork and possibly felt. |
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Silver Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 438 Registered: Oct-07 | Reflect, absorb or diffuse, That is the question. Treating 'First Reflection' points is a good first step. Those are where the speakers 'aim'. Dulling those points prevents / mitigates many later problems from too live a room. from your brief comment, the tiles apparently work to absorb or diffuse higher frequencies. LF will be more of a problem and standing waves below say.....200hz, even worse. You have started down a road which will be like buying an entire new rig, for 3x the money, and for only pennies on the dollar. Congrats. |
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Silver Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 439 Registered: Oct-07 | If you are willing to manufacture your own panels, you can do WAY better than acoustic tiles. Google 'OC703'. This is a hard, sort of compressed fiberglass boiler insulation which comes most often in 2'x4' in 1" or 2" thicknesses. Simple frame, some very open weave cloth to hold the stuff in and cover with something more decorative on one side. Space 'em out from the wall an inch or so and go for it. I think u-tube has a construction video on these! There are several companies specializing in fire retardant (per code) cloth for such coverings. WAF is a must unless you are dealing with your own exclusive man cave. |
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Silver Member Username: MordecaiTexas Post Number: 265 Registered: Jan-09 | It is a man cave so I don't have to worry about WAF. I have a 2.0 system and I'm trying to increase the low end some. I think this worked so far. I will take a look at the DIY suggestion and Youtube video. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 13725 Registered: May-04 | . There are several types of "acoustial panels" sold in the home improvement stores. One is pressed cellulose fiber - paper - which has very little value for room treatment - you'd do better to duct tape a pillow to your wall. The other is rigid fiberglass of which there are several manufacturers and several versions available. Rigid fiberglass has very good potential for use as a room treatment device since it has more absorption with less thickness than fiberglass batting - insulation. It's also somewhat easier for the DIY'er to manipulate rigid fiberglass if you aren't interested in having a few rolls of fiberglass insulation in your room. Though I still think dollar for dollar the fiberglass insulation rolled up and stacked in the corners makes the simplest and most effective bass trap. Lowe's has unfaced insulation (R-19/R-25?) with a plastic wrap on one side only for less than $20-25 a roll. Work with gloves and something on your face along with eye protection when working with this sort of fiberglass and remove all but the last few feet of plastic as you roll the insulation into a loosely structured roll the size you want - the larger the roll, the lower the frequency range it absorbs. You'll need at least an 18" diameter roll to get any effective absorption beneath 100Hz. Roll the fiberglass loosely as it is the friction (conversion to heat) of the soundwave travelling through the layers of fiberglass that does the work here. I could get at least two large diameter traps from one roll of insulation. The fiberglass is about 24" wide so two rolls stacked on top of each other gives you a 48" high trap. I have one corner with a doorway close to the corner so I took the fiberglass lengthwise and doubled it on itself to give about a 10-12" trap with a 1X2" piece of pine at the center for stiffness. This runs from floor to ceiling in that particular corner. Stack a few of these 24" wide rolls on top of one another to make your corner traps, one in each corner and two smaller traps at the side of the room at the first reflection point is a typical starting point. If you don't know how to determine the first reflection point, let me know and I'll provide instructions. Alternately you can use rigid fiberglass or rockwool panels as a substitute for loose bales of fiberglass. Unfortunately, a few 24X24X1/2" sheets of acoustic tile won't have sufficient absorption to accomplish much beyond a taste of what room treatment an achieve since an effective rigid fiberglass trap needs about three inches of depth and needs ro run floor to ceiling to begin to work well in the below 120Hz range. However, you might very well be better off with too litlle absorption in this case rather than too much. http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-hptb5&p=diy%20bass%20traps&type= You can get on the both the ASC and the RealTraps web sites for some pretty decent information about traps and how to implement their placement. I'm not a big fan of RealTraps or of one of the owners but the site does offer some starting points for room treatment. One of the problems I have with RealTraps is their desire to, IMO, overdo the number of traps to the point where the installer - not necessarily the person having the traps installed - is happy with the measured room response. IMO this leads to an overuse of traps and a too dead room for the sake of measurements. Keep in mind any absortive device such as acoustic tiles or fiberglass is broadband and not frequency specific. If you are placing the traps in the room corners for bass treatment and along the walls for first reflections, you will still be affecting (dampening) signals throughout the range up to the highest frequencies. Too much absorption of this type then leads to a room that lacks life and realistic ambience. My experience is most people overdo room treatments and then gradually take out what they have installed until they feel they have a happy medium between absorption and controlled reflections and bass lumps. I would say most rooms need some absorption in the corners - pay attention to the small corner traps that go into the three way junction of the walls and ceiling, this is a critical point for room treatment - and front corners behind the speakers need the most (first) attention. Diffusion behind the listener is not a bad idea in most cases. I would prefer to see diffusion at the first reflection points also to avoid falling into the trap of too much absorption. Or, as I've mentioned in another thread, use some poly batting from the fabric store and roll it into a 8-10" roll with a small diameter cardboard tube placed in the middle for stiffness to faciliatate standing the rolled tube on its end. Place this just at the front corners of your speakers and move it in and out a small amountat a time toward and just beyond the front baffle plane of the speaker to catch the first wave as it leaves the baffle and this will usually not over-damp the room. This early signal absorption at the baffle allows you to skip or minimize any treatment on the wall itself and IMO provides a bit more life to the music while also tightening the imaging from the system. DIY traps are not a substitute for high quality products such as the ASC Tube Traps but they go a long way to solving some basic room problems for not much money. A typical room can have a high degree of success with an investment of about $100 or less and a few hours labor. And by way of comparison the RealTraps product is nothing particularly fancy - mostly just rigid fiberglass panels in wooden frames. The same thing can easily be accomplished by any competent DIY'er for a fraction of the cost. 4X8' rigid fiberglass panels can usually be found at wholesale suppliers with city sales to the public, look for shops that stock insulation and give them a call. If you use the loose fiberglass rolls, don't allow any fiberglass to be unfaced into the room. Any children or animals around the fiberglass should be protected by keeping a facing into the room of the original plastic wrap or some other protective mnterial. I removed all the plastic wrap and then used some of the poly batting to wrap around my traps and a bit of sealing tape keeps the batting in place. You might however consider leaving the original plastic on one side of the roll and using it as a reflective surface that helps when you are trying to tune the room to the right amount of absorption and reflection. (If you don't know what I'm talking about here, get on the ASC Tube Trap website and look at the construction of their traps with half the diameter of the trap covered in a reflective material.) Loose fiberglass will itch like the devil and is dangerous if it is inhaled or gets in your eyes or nose. So work in a well ventilated space and vacuum up any residue. Don't use unfaced bales in a room with a ceiling fan without some protective covering on the bale. The rigid fiberglass panels don't have this concern. Go slowly and after you've had the traps in place for about two weeks pull two or three out of the room to judge whether you went too far with absorption. . |
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Silver Member Username: MordecaiTexas Post Number: 267 Registered: Jan-09 | Thanks Jan. You are way over my head. Fiberglass does concern me health wise. I have actually worked with an around it so I'm very familiar with the itching and health concerns. The problem I have is my Wharfedale Evo2 8's don't produce much low end so I'm not sure I need bass traps. However, I'm not very educated about this so your post is helpful. I decided to try doing some sound treatment and possibly switch to solid core speaker wire (12 awg) like the Speltz anti-cables to see if I can improve bass performance and overall sound performance before buying a different speaker. I can get the wire on Ebay for about $30 (100 feet) more than enough to biwire my speakers and much cheaper than buying the anti cable. I would like to use the same wire for interconnects but I'm not really skilled with soldering so I'm not sure I can do it. |
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Silver Member Username: MordecaiTexas Post Number: 268 Registered: Jan-09 | Jan, I'm curious. Are you male or female? |
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Gold Member Username: Mike3Wylie, Tx USA Post Number: 2058 Registered: May-06 | Modecai, I do not even know how to begin to say this. Your OP was about moving into room treatments which I covered with you on another thread. Your reply to JV's post would be akin to someone saying they craved good Italian food and asked for a good recipe, then having someone provide a gourmet chef's recipe for award winning lasagne where you then decide to go out for a beer instead. Instead of working on the issue you yourself acknowledge that you have with your room your decision is to go back to cable swapping in essence trading off you do not know what to gain maybe nothing. I guess it's just me and it matters not, but I really do not understand you Mordecai. It's your money, throw it at what you want, however whatever you purchase will still be left wanting until you fix the problem. |
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Gold Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 3702 Registered: Sep-04 | I'm confused - if you're not getting much bass why are you talking about trapping what little bass you have? |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 13729 Registered: May-04 | . I would encourage both Mordecai and Frank to read up on what bass "traps" do and how they affect the room acoustics. You are both in apparent error when you think bass traps are there to enclose, ensnare and maim any wild "bass" that wanders into their path or allow the bass to be transferred to a frying pan. If that were the case - and since I am not against more violent actions against "basses" than I am against wild animals - I would have suggested bass leg snapping claw toothed traps and wished those basses a horrible, lingering death. The problem is without bass traps, you already have basses that linger far too long. Your speakers, Modecia, are capable of bass response down into what? the 50Hz range? Bass problems (not just quantity) due to room dimensions begins beneath approximately 300Hz. Midbass pitch definition lies largely in the 80-200 Hz range Midrange smearing occurs just above that frequency. High frequency hardness and timbral ambiguity are above that. Why don't you begin with this page; http://www.tubetrap.com/tube-trap-setup.htm If you don't find an explanation that makes sense, try a few of the articles in the same site. Quite often a lack of bass response is due to the room dimensions cancelling the soundwave due to too short dimensions to fit a 20-36' wavefront. There are pressure areas that serve to "congregate" and amplify bass frequencies and corners are the most likely to serve this function - that's why you normally treat corners first when "trapping" a room. Soundwaves obviously cannot remain locked in a single position or they wouldn't be called soundwaves, would they? It is the additive and subtractive effects of the reflected waves movinh through the room that creates the "room response". Thinking this through logically, which takes a bit of work when you first begin, tells you that diminishing the wave front will mean less reflected energy into the room which equates to less additive and subtractive waves front effect added by the room and more direct signal from the speakers themself. One way to affect this diminished wave front is through the correct use of bass "traps". Depending on the device you use (or build) you are also woking with the reflected energy present in the room throughout the frequency range. Therefore the judicious use of bass traps as selective frequency absorbers, reflectors or diffusors becomes important to proper room acoustics. Traps are hardly the only way to accomplish a good sounding room (and therefore a good sounding system) and, as I have stated, traps can easily be overdone to the point of killing off too much reflected energy within a room. But traps and diffusors are a good starting point in virtually any room used for high quality audio reproduction. Do some reading and, if the sites don't answer your questions, give me a shot and I'll see what I can explain. But the first thing to realize is too little bass is often the result of too much bass reflection into nondesirable locations within the room. Complaints of too little bass can often be resolved by the correct use well of designed bass traps. Of course, if you haven't paid attention to speaker placement and listening chair location, then the addition of traps will not change much if you have ignored the basics. . |
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Silver Member Username: HawkbillyNova Scotia Canada Post Number: 620 Registered: Jul-07 | I don't want to mess with Mordicai's thread, but since I've been on a bit of a bass hunt myself, maybe a selfish question here can help us both. I'm in a smallish room as well and was expecting when I moved into the new listening space that I'd have a bass issue, but was expecting too much of it. In fact, I've been adjusting to get more. I've had the speakers oriented and placed just about anywhere you can possibly put them, and have found that the best place is about 44" off of the front wall and 22" off of the sides. With them there, things are actually quite good. Pushing them closer to the front wall didn't help at all, but pulling them out did....presumably until some of the cancellation effects were removed. I had been assuming that the front wall was to blame for the bass absorption, since between the gyproc and the basement wall is 6" of fiberglass insulation. The side and back walls are not insulated (not on outside wall). Perhaps this assumption is incorrect, and should be tested. If my issue is that I have too much bass which is cancelling itself out, rather than too little, the addition of a bass trap would bear that out. Is there something else I can do to test which issue I have, or is construction of a bass trap or two the only way ? |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 13733 Registered: May-04 | . The insulation within the wall has nothing to do with the room effects. Bass waves cannot pass through the solid gypsum wallboard - they are reflected off the wallboard back into the room. What you hear outside of the room is mostly the resonance of the surfaces responding to the bass soundwaves. Air leaks around windows and doors and HVAC vents allows bass waves to pass largely unaffected but the stiffness and solidity of room surfaces are typically what you hear inside the room. If the walls are not solidly supported by framing, then you can expect them to flex with the bass wave and the bass quality would suffer. But that would be quite unusual for home construction and very unlikely in a basement set up. I can't determine much about your system or your situation over the forum. If you have just placed the speakers everywhere without a plan in mind, then you need to approach speaker placement and listening chair placement with a but more of a plan. I usually suggest you begin with the WASP set up and go from there. However, realizing how the room interacts with the speakers and where you position both the speakers and yourself are the starting points for good system set up. After that I would suggest you also do some reading of the web sites I've mentioned. I've yet to hear a pre-existing room construction that didn't have some problems which could be assisted by well thought out treatments. Bass traps and diffusion panels are only one way to go about the process. Speaker placement is free and one of the most effective tools available. . . |
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Silver Member Username: HawkbillyNova Scotia Canada Post Number: 621 Registered: Jul-07 | I've tried several speaker placement methods....WASP included. I have done what I thought was reasonable from an acoustic treatment perspective, from what I had read on the subject. Skyline diffusors at the primary reflection points on the sidewalls, and to my left and right on the back walls. Acoustic tile at the primary reflection points on the ceiling and forward from the diffusors. Heavy curtains on the window, the front wall to the top of the pony wall, and on the side walls in an area between the front wall and the diffusors. Carpeted floors. I think what I missed in the stuff I read was the possibility of too much bass causing too little. I knew about "dead zones", but in walking around the room with music playing there really wasn't ANY area where you could hear a bass boost. It was largely absent everywhere. Where the speakers are now is much improved, and in fact having the speakers that far out into the room has done wonders for the soundstage, so it's a win all way around. I don't recall reading anything about addition by subtraction with regards to bass tuning, until your comments above JV. I've read a heck of a lot about removing bass, and about dividing the room into fractions to place your speakers to optimize bass, diagonal room placement, master set placement, and many other articles in and around speaker placement and room acoustics. Just hadn't clued into the idea that I might still have too much bass even when I hear very little. I might throw a few sleeping bags into the corners just to see what changes, if anything. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 13734 Registered: May-04 | . Yep, or try the bales of fiberglass insulation I described above. Here's a site that has some DIY information; http://home.comcast.net/~jtgale01/diy2.htm You can also try boxes stuffed with loosely wadded up newspaper as an experiment. The corners and particularly the tri-corners (two walls and ceiling/floor) are the most important starting positions. If you'll look at the RealTraps page here; http://www.realtraps.com/placing_mt.htm, you'll see a typical installation for their product. As I said, I tend to think RealTraps overdo the use of traps to arrive at a measured performance that often times overlooks the actual sound quality of the room but the diagram at the bottom of the page shows just how and how many traps might be required in a room to arrive at roughly flat frequency response. The addition and subtraction effects result from the reflected waves colliding in the room. When the wave fronts bounce between the walls and floor/ceiling they will meet either in phase or out of phase. In phase gives a boost to the level as they add to each other. When the waves meet out of phase it is similar to your speakers being connected out of phase, the bass level drops as the two waves cancel each other. Walking through a long room it is not uncommon to hear the point(s) where the "standing waves" drop the level by as much as -30dB and then a few feet further into the room the bass returns only to be boosted by additive waves. If you aren't hearing this up and down frequency response in your room you might be very lucky but more likely you simply have a room too small to make such changes evident. The cheapest and typically most effective treatment would then be traps. (You might try the method used for subwoofer placement - place your speaker(s) at your listening position and then crawl the room with your ears at woofer level for a normal speaker position listening for peaks and nulls.) Since the size of the bass frequency wave is typically very large, the frequency band where this addition and subtraction occur is normally rather narrow - a few Hz either side depending on which frequency we are discussing. However, since the room is also acting as a resonator and the resonance is determined by the dimensions of the room, the response is affected at all multiples of those frequencies. Therefore if you have a peak at 40Hz, you'll also have peaks at 80, 120, 160, etc. The same goes for valleys in response, every multiple is affected to some extent though the amount of boost or cut normally diminishes as the frequencies rise. The idea is to cut the boost caused at, say, 40Hz which then reduces the multiples also. To accomplish a cut at 80Hz will require a fairly large bass trap - about 24" in diameter. Reducing bass reflections beneath that frequency becomes a matter of increasing the diameter of the trap to correspond to the increasing length of the bass wavefront. Beneath about 80Hz, the size almost becomes improbably large unless you are truly committed to traps taking over your room. You work with what you can mange in any specific room and somethings just cannot be controlled only mitigated. Bass energy is often times stronger at the earliest harmonics - 80/120 Hz rather than 40Hz. Therefore, reducing the upper harmonics brings tautness and pitch definition to the lowast octaves also. Consider that unlike traps, curtains are frequency selective absorbers. They tend to damp mid and high frequency reflections while allowing bass wave fronts to pass with little to no effect. . |
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Silver Member Username: MordecaiTexas Post Number: 272 Registered: Jan-09 | Michael - Why are you busting my chops? I guess I don't keep up with my posts. Have patients, I am learning and I guess I am all over the place. I'm not investing as much time or money as you I guess. I appreciate yours and Jan's advice. However, most of it is over my head. It is way to technical for me in most cases and I've not done enough of my own reading to absorb what you are saying. I'm experimenting with room treatment, speaker placement and possibly speaker wire. I am making prgress and learning what sounds good and doesn't. Bass has improved as a result. Most of it is DIY so I'm not spending much as I experiement. |
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Gold Member Username: Mike3Wylie, Tx USA Post Number: 2059 Registered: May-06 | Mordecai, it's my way of saying I and others are willing to help but when you get the advice above and instead of coming back with further questions, like Chris did above, you find it simpler to go down a different path. I do invest a lot of time in my system for sure, much less now that I have maxed out what the room and auxiallary (wires / isolation / equipment dampening) performance. I am spending more time just listening. I know what my next step will be because I have a plan. It will not be a while if at all as it is not inexpensive and will require me off-loading other gear. It gets frustrating to work with someone to have them ignore your advice without explanation, which I note you have provided in your most recent post. I can be patient with you. The most important thing I wanted to convey to you is not to waste money. Do not waste it on the Evo 10s at this time. Do now wast money on wire at this time. Fix one thing at a time, change one thing at time. You were part way there with your acknowledgment that the room is an issue. Work on that part of your set up until you find that you no longer have the enthusiasm to stay on that path or you find that you have made your room be the best it is capable of. The logic behind my telling you to keep your focus on the room is that if you can get that right then whatever other changes or upgrades you make to speakers, components, or wire will be more easily recognizable as to the effect of those changes because your room will no longer be suppressing what you have. Sure you may have to again fine tune some room treatments if you change speakers but that is with at least knowing that you are really hearing the speakers and what the change or upgrade has provided you. I wish I had followed others advice about this earlier or I had this thread when I begin my upgraditis. P.S. I just have to say this again, is there anyway you can replace that computer, desk chair, and desk with a sofa and a laptop? You would also have to lower your stands like Christopher and Art expressed in one of your other threads. That desk is your white elephant in the room IMO. |
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Gold Member Username: Mike3Wylie, Tx USA Post Number: 2060 Registered: May-06 | FWIW I have 6 ASC Tube traps of various diameters, 7 ASC diffusion / absorbtion panels, 5 "24 x 48" Auralex panels, 3 fiberglass batt rolls, and 2 ~60" x 60" IKEA cabinets filled with scattered records (for diffusion outside of my speakers), two 2" rolled foam mattress pads, and 1 molded 12" x 36" foam column, about 300 lbs of sand in bins under gear, and a small stack of cutting boards under my speakers in my room. At this point there are probably some things I could move here or there or maybe take out some of the experimental stuff but I am satisfied with how it sounds so that can wait until I get my next bug up my butt to mess with the room. Addition by subtraction would be my next foray. I was able to get all the ASC stuff from one dealer who was moving and another who had all but put it in storage and the cost for the products was relevant to the circumstances. If you are patient the deals will find you. Except for the Auralex everything else is DIY at DIY costs. |
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Silver Member Username: MagfanUSA Post Number: 445 Registered: Oct-07 | The 2 main sources for the compressed fiberglass are Owens Corning for the 'OC' line of products and Granville Phillips who make a similar product which I understand to be continuous fiber and so sheds less. The OC product is available in bundles at discount. If you live urban, there may be a local source for this stuff. Use your imagination. |
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Silver Member Username: HawkbillyNova Scotia Canada Post Number: 622 Registered: Jul-07 | So I went home last night and pulled out a couple of the kids sleeping bags and plopped them in the front corners behind each speaker. Sure enough, a bit more bass. More noticeable than that was the apparent overall increase in volume, so I turned the amp down from the usual 12:30 position, to 11:30. I figured I might as well keep going, but I was out of sleeping bags, however I found 2 oversized quilts and rolled them up and leaned them in the same corners on top of the sleeping bags. More bass again, this time quite a bit more. And again, an apparent volume increase so I turned the amp down to about 10:30. I listened to a few familiar LP's and the energy level has definitely increased in the lower frequencies. Kick drums and bass lines are quite a bit more prevalent, but it was the pure sound pressure increase that struck me the most. I'll have to spend a bit more time listening to get used to the new balance, to decide whether I need to back it off a bit. With the lower frequency energy boosted, the higher frequencies appeared further down in the mix than normal, but I'll listen for a few days before deciding whether that's just my ears adjusting, or whether I've overdone it. The sleeping bags and quilts can't stay there either, so I'll have to construct something a little more eye friendly than that. Thanks for getting me onto this JV. I probably should have tuned into that long ago, but it just never dawned on me to trap bass I didn't have. |
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Silver Member Username: MordecaiTexas Post Number: 273 Registered: Jan-09 | I did what Chris did and I also heard more and better bass. I'm not to concerned about looks since this in my office. I'm not crazy about using fibreglass or rock wool since they both are not good to enhale. I have grandchildren that come into my office so I don't to risk it. Why can't I use cotton batting or batting of some material like is used for stuffing pillows? I was thinking of buying enough to create tubes to place behind my speakers and in athird corner. I have a door that is in the fourth corner but I have coats hanging on the back of the door. |
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Platinum Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 13744 Registered: May-04 | . Good going, Chris. Take your time and just listen as you move forward. What you are lacking in this simple DIY trap is a (mid-high frequency) reflective surface. Look at the ASC site for an idea of how they go about this. Mordecai, the various materials have different coefficients of absorption which means one type of material will require more or less than another to achieve the same effect. Rigid fiberglass is the most effective for a given thickness, polyfill the least. Poly batting is rather inefficient and even a large roll will not absorb sufficient energy to be effective in the low to mid bass frequencies where room problems are most in need of help. You will need roughly twice as much polyfill as you would fiberglass bales to achieve the same effect. If you're rolling this into tubes, that will be a four foot diameter tube (using polyfill) just to get down around 100Hz. If you want to get serious about this, try either the DIY tube (constructed from air vent covering) that I linked to or you might consider covering the fiberglass bales with the poly batting to protect from any wandering strands of fiberglass. Another alternative is the rigid fberglass sheets which don't actually require any covering though with small children in the house you might want to consider something porous as a covering - poly batting or speaker grill cloth which can be purchased at any fabric store. Another way to make the treatments more effective is to position them so the wave front must pass through the material more than once. This means placing the trap slightly away from the wall by a few inches so there is a reflection from the corner back into the trap. The issue here is once you move away from the corner itself, you loose some of the intial effectiveness of the trap. It takes a lot of playing around to make this work right and does best with the rigid fiberglass panels. . |
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Silver Member Username: HawkbillyNova Scotia Canada Post Number: 628 Registered: Jul-07 | It was far more difficult than I thought to locate some affordable rigid fiberglass. Nothing in the usual spots (Home Depot, Kent, Home Hardware, etc), and the shipping to buy it online was more than the product itself. I was finally able to locate a commercial supplier that carried it, had it in stock, and sold it by the sheet.....and at a really good price ($7 a sheet). I'll stop by on the way home and pick up some and try them in the corners (doubled up) and at the key reflection points. I'll even remove the diffusors and see if absorption is more effective on the back wall. Doesn't hurt to try it. Once I figure out best locations (and quantity) I'll frame them up and wrap them in some gaudy colored fabric that will drive my wife crazy. I've read in different places that you can't have too many bass traps. I'm not sure if that's a truism or not, but I guess I'll find out. |
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Platinum Member Username: NuckPost Number: 12969 Registered: Dec-04 | Yes you can, quite easily. |
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Silver Member Username: MordecaiTexas Post Number: 278 Registered: Jan-09 | I ordered three 24x48 2in acoustic foam for direct reflection and 4 bass traps to start. I'm gonna move my bookcase to the back wall to act as a diffuser and place the reflective foam on the side walls. I'm gonna put two bass traps behind my speakers and two in the ceiling corners. I will have one of the deflection foam left and I'm not sure where to place it. I may pickup some more bass traps after I hear how the room sounds. |
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Silver Member Username: HawkbillyNova Scotia Canada Post Number: 629 Registered: Jul-07 | What sort of bass traps did you order Mordicai ? I'm a tad confused with my setup. I got the oc703 home tonight and doubled it up (4") in the front corners, and put two sheets at the primary and secondary reflection points on the sidewalls. The bass continues to improve, but what I find odd is that despite a number of large areas of curtains (hanging over acoustic tiles), the oc703, four diffusors, and misc. furniture, the upper mids and high frequencies remain peaked at certain frequencies. I would have thought these were the easiest to tame yet the room is still a bit hot to my ears. And I'm detecting resonances that I didn't notice before....perhaps the added absorption is eliminating some of the nulling effect in more than just the bass frequencies. I'm thinking I need to try two things. I'll pickup another 12 sheets of oc703 and build 4 more sets of 4" traps and place them along the ceiling/wall joints. And I think I'll replace the diffusors with oc703 panels. I may use the curtain material for the covers for the oc703. The panels will look better than the curtains hanging there anyway, and will undoubtedly be more effective with less square footage. If that ends up as too much, no harm done. I'll add the insulation to the attic and save money next winter. |
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Silver Member Username: MordecaiTexas Post Number: 279 Registered: Jan-09 | This is what I purchased. http://www.foambymail.com/CornerSolutions.html I'm going slow. I may add more bass traps. I got the three 24x48 reflectors and 4 bass traps for $113 shipped. What material is the OC703? I'm really concerned about anything that can impact health like fiberglass. |
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Silver Member Username: HawkbillyNova Scotia Canada Post Number: 630 Registered: Jul-07 | The OC703 is rigid fibreglass. It'll be contained in cotton material and mounted on the wall, so I'm not concerned about it at all. But I understand that others would be, particularly if its in a family room where it might get disturbed from time to time. Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen that outfit before. |
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Platinum Member Username: NuckPost Number: 12979 Registered: Dec-04 | I wonder what kind of material I could find to cover panels in my place here... hmmm... |
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Silver Member Username: HawkbillyNova Scotia Canada Post Number: 631 Registered: Jul-07 | You could go for the Don Cherry look Nuck ! Just go to your local drapery supply store. |
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