Room treatment advice needed

Evening all

Some fellow members may have read a thread I posted a few days ago mentioning that I was moving into a new listening room in the next few weeks or so. Unfortunately the new room will be more or less the dreaded square shape, so acoustic’s are going to be a case of “suck it n see”!

I’ve taken my time and drawn to scale a plan, hoping some fellow members can through me a little glimmer of hope with their wisdom to make the most of the room l’ll soon be listening in.

I’ve read and trawled the internet and the conclusion I’ve drawn is that perhaps placing bass traps can improve what I’ve got to work with.

The dimensions are a little over 9ft square, and as My plan show I’ve a window on one wall. This been the case any kind of acoustic panel is a no go, could I possibly hang a heavy weight curtain on this wall to dampen unwanted issues I may hear?

Also regarding some sort of acoustic bass trap where would I be advised to place them? Is it a case of more the better. As you can see I do have free wall space where they could be situated.

Thanks in advance

 

Wait to you move in and listen before doing anything - you might actually like what you hear

 

You really won't know what you need until you listen to the room.

 

That's not entirely true. You ALWAYS are going to need some kind of bass trapping because in these small rooms you're going to have substantial bass reinforcement and cancellations, unbalanced room pressurization and big time decay differences between HF and LF without bass trapping and it's going to make the sound very different all around the room and its going to mask detail, etc. You are pretty likely always going to need to do something to break up flutter echo from parallel flat wall areas, whether that's absorption or diffusion or something you can actually pull off with furnishings (though a lot of the parallel surfaces up high in a room aren't always reached by furnishing, even in a small room like the OPs HF diffusion up high in a room can work). And if you're sitting as close to the wall behind you as the diagram suggests the OP will need to sit, you're going to have to do broad band absorption behind the listening position or reflected sound from that wall are going to arrive at the listener's ears pretty much at exactly the same time as direct sound and it's going to cause problematic frequency response peaks and nulls and it's totally going to mess up imaging. First reflection point absorption is also usually pretty much always indicated.

If I were the OP I'd pull the sitting area off the wall to the extent possible, do as thick porous absorption as I could behind the listening position, put a heavy acoustic curtain up that I could pull in front of the window or use a stand mounted gobo style 4" or thicker acoustic panel there and at the first reflection point on the opposite wall. I'd put bass traps in the corners behind the speakers, and I'd use the ceiling area for bass trapping putting in something like a GIK Monster Trap (which also will damp first ceiling reflections).

The big problem the OP is going to have however is that the room is almost a cube, and even with effective bass trapping you're going to have room mode related peaks and nulls that are going to present frequency response problems. The second big problem is that the room is small so putting in all this absorption one has to be careful to not overdamp high frequencies -- I'd suggest using bass trapping panels behind the speakers and even perhaps on the ceiling monster trap that have a HF limiting membrane. But you can't use those on the first reflection point or behind the listening position absorbers.

That said, I do think the best thing to do is set the room up, listen to is -- more importantly measure it with a frequency sweep and some RTA software and a calibrated mic -- then start moving speaker and listening positions around to try to get the T60 down to 2-5 ms across the whole frequency range, and to try to get the biggest peaks an null up to frequencies above 200 Hz where they can be more easily dealt with. Then do all the room treatments. Though, in truth, I think you can pretty much never go wrong with bass trapping, first reflection point absorption, and dealing with the wall behind the listening position with absorption (or diffusion if you're sitting 6, 8, or 10 feet away from that wall).

 

You can get absorbent panels on feet so they could be used in front of the window when needed and stored elsewhere when not.

You may also get issues of reflections from the rack/gear.

I have my gear on the side wall and in order to prevent reflections off that and the side walls I've placed panels on the outside of each speaker.

 

As someone who just got through dealing with a setup in a small room (slightly more rectangular at 8 x 11), +1 to everything chervokas said. The biggest two things that made a difference for me is:

1) Move up about 1/3 of the way from that back wall when listening.

2) Corner bass traps on the front walls. Don't have to spend a ton. These were inexpensive and worked for me. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071XNPW6G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

The problem is those foam corner absorbers are that they aren't really going to be effective in the bass. They're not going to do much below middle C and really not much below the A above it. Something like these -- http://www.gikacoustics.com/product...YOypmo3Dw8bDI99vope4Bh3lS5dBbfeBoCrCsQAvD_BwE -- will be much more effective actual into bass frequencies

 

Sure, understood. It was one of those things where I didn't want to take the plunge on an expense for something that I couldn't try out first to see if it made a real tangible difference. The product I linked I'm sure isn't nearly as effective, but the price reflects that and it did kill enough of that mid bass boominess I was experiencing to make me satisfied at that price point. My quick and dirty methodology was simply to play some pink noise through my speakers while walking around with an phone app SPL meter to see where the bass was spiking. Big surprise, front wall corners. Functional stopgap solution for the time being.

 

I'll second the Tri Traps from GIK. Bought 4 for my front wall corners a few years back and they made a big difference. Also recommend the Owens Corning 703/704 if you want to DIY (albeit, fairly messy).

 

I would also recommend checking out GIK's products.

I did my own DIY absorbers many years ago, GIK wasn't around then, and it still cost me just a little less than what GIK asks for their products now.

 

Chevrokas is da man. Ive treated my entire room, and consider my self pretty knowedgable when it comes to acoustics. I always agree with what Chevrokas say about room treatment... this is rare.
lots of myht and folklore in this section of the hobby

 

oh, youll be floored by the improvements. putting in real big bass traps will tighten your bass like you never thought possible

then, if you put in early treatment panels on ceiling, side walls and back wall and ideally the floor, your jaw will drop.. literally.

this is not like comparing DAC or Amps which make in comparison small increasing improvements, good acoustics vs poor acoustic is like trying to compare a V4 to a V8

 

just for the record, I'm not necessarily personally recommending those GIKs, though I have GIK diffusors and GIK seems like a very good company and I'm sure the traps do precise what they say they do; I just don't own them so I'm not saying buy those and other others. There are other vendors of substantially similar designs. I think those tri-corner trap designs maybe represent the best value in terms of price-performance ratio in a common commercial design with respect to actually absorption from 100 Hz and down. You can do better in terms of dealing with bass with much thicker but much less dense porous absorbers and bigger air gaps behind them; you can target problematic low frequencies more exactly and effectively with tune resonators. But if you're talking about an untreated room to begin with, so one where you need broadband absorption that's effective at least part of the way into the real bass, and you don't have an unlimited budget, that design and the way the ship 'em two in a box, etc. seems to be a good mix of performance and value.

 

if budget is limited
start by treating the early reflection points
then build diy bas traps or add later on more bass traps

 

Just been sourcing materials to have a go at building some acoustic panels, I plan on using Rockwool slabs in a simple frame covered in a cloth colour that will compliment the room colour.

 

best value for money by far.
I use roxul comforboard!

 

I guess it depends on how seriously you want to treat the space. You can fairly easily calculate the bass nodes so you could purchase traps in advance.
I like to think that if it was my room I'd wait until everything is in place where I want it and then measure the room, but.........
history has shown that I will do nothing.