Accoustic wall treatments? What's best

My listening room has a cement floor with a large rug, a couch, long bookcase on one wall, and nasty bare paneling on the other wall. The speakers are at the short end of the room and the bare walls run the long sides. I'm getting what I believe are standing high frequency waves on the paneled side which make my right ear ring... and not at excessive volumes.

I wonder what is the best way to defeat the waves. I was thinking about putting echo deadening material on the bare wall. Something like acoustic tile. Does anyone else have (had) the same problem? If so, how did you correct the problem?

 

I used GIK Acoustics. Not sure if they are the best, but they have a solution for just about every problem and they are reasonably priced.

 

+1 for GIK treatments.

 

Sounds like what you're describing is either flutter echo or some kind of reonance from the panelling itself. When you clap your hands and walk around the room do you get a kind of "ping" or "boing" echo? That's flutter echo, it results from sound bouncing back and forth betweeen parallel reflective surfaces. You need to break up the areas of parallel reflective walls. You can do this with a combination of absorption and diffusion.

The conventional thing to do is use something like 2" insulating panels of fiber glass, rockwool or similar acoustic damping material (like the above mentioned panesl from GIK or similar panels from ATS or Acoustimac) to damp first reflection points. Then use some mix of damping or diffusion elsewhere in room to combat the flutter echo -- the trick is to make sure you're absorbing more or less equally across all frequencies so that you'd not just deading all the high end (which will make the sound dull and muddy) and to not overly damp the whole room -- you're not creating an anechoic chamber. Diffusion can be a great way to both spread sound through the room and combat flutter echo for areas that are six feet or more away from your listening position without deadening the room. Corner bass traps will probably also be necessary both to deal with low frequency standing waves and to balance the room once you've started adding mid and high frequency absorption.

There might also be some things you can do with changes to the positions of the room furnishings, speakers, listening position, etc to mitigate problems, but it sounds like you'll need to kill the flutter echoes and make sure the overall room reverb time is not too long, and damp first reflection points without tilting the frequency balance out of whack.

 

Thats what I have, cheaper than DIY believe it or not and they look great and they work>

sean

 

Gik with scatter plates, cover at least 48 In by 48 in along the paneled wall, Corner bass traps. Then go for the ceiling first reflection point. That should get you going. Very few people pay enough attention to room treatment. Those scatter plates keep the room from becoming too dead.

 

I have more than 70% coverage to a depth of 3 feet in places. As long as you apply slats or whatever to stop it from absorbing the mid/highs (except at first reflection points!), you can NEVER have too much.

 

Another vote for GIK Acoustics......I use their corner bass traps to great effect in my room. Customer service is excellent as well....I've visited their Atlanta HQ when I picked up my traps.....very nice and knowledgeable people there.

- Buck

 

I used Ready Acoustics and built my own. 2 man job, messy, but worth it in the end..

http://www.readyacoustics.com/produ...oadband-bass-trap-do-it-yourself-acoustic-bag