is there any simple rules that one can follow for creating a good listening space?
i have pretty much used trail and error with not so good results, i have built some larger corner absorbers and
using heavy drapes and damping panels and thick carpets, the result is pretty much a dead sounding listening space,
which is understandable because of all the soft materials being used. it is very quite in there and i a like it to
some degree but when listening to music in there there is a very prominent lack of ambience or high frequencies,
so much that i have brought in some reflection surfaces to the back of my room. to me it sounds very annoying and
unnatural not having high frequencies reflections comming from behind.
i really would like to do my room acoustics a little more scientifically, is there any useful simple guides and
rules how to think when setting up a 2 channel system regarding time windows for absorbtion and reflections and
angles of incomming sounds?
i have pretty much used trail and error with not so good results, i have built some larger corner absorbers and
using heavy drapes and damping panels and thick carpets, the result is pretty much a dead sounding listening space,
which is understandable because of all the soft materials being used. it is very quite in there and i a like it to
some degree but when listening to music in there there is a very prominent lack of ambience or high frequencies,
so much that i have brought in some reflection surfaces to the back of my room. to me it sounds very annoying and
unnatural not having high frequencies reflections comming from behind.
i really would like to do my room acoustics a little more scientifically, is there any useful simple guides and
rules how to think when setting up a 2 channel system regarding time windows for absorbtion and reflections and
angles of incomming sounds?
What kind of speakers do you have?
You may want to consider planar speakers. Planars tend to have the opposite problem - too much high frequencies because recordings are often made that way.
Ed
Box speakers have this problem because they are front-firing at high frequencies and omnidirectional at low frequencies.
You may want to consider planar speakers. Planars tend to have the opposite problem - too much high frequencies because recordings are often made that way.
Ed
There is a huge difference between a dead and a controlled room! Thick carpets, drapes, normal pannels ... are not deep enough to control low/mid frequencies but destroy high frequencies -> dead room which still sounds boxy.
2 easy rules:
*) Everything absorbing has to be at least 10cm deep, if you are serious >20cm. So every absorber works broadband, not only for high frequencies. This means no carpets or curtains or 5cm foam panels! I have 16cm absorption on the whole ceiling in my recording room and one complete wall absorbing - the rest is hard surface. Very controlled but a lot of high frequencies for a "modern" recording feeling.
*) No parallel, untreated surfaces. Cause they produce flutter echos. This isn't apparent in an untreted room cause there is SO MUCH echo going on, but the more controlled your room get's the nastier these flutter get's. So get absorption at the opposit position of reflection, get diffusion or don't have parallel surfaces. I put a slanted cabinet in my room to one side and a half cylindrical diffuser on the door -> everything is fine.
In studio building you don't think in panels, you think in surfaces. Keep your corner absorption, get serious absorption at your 1st reflection points (also ceiling! So much surface there!) and have a listen. Use unused space for absorption of low frequencies - there are 8 corners and a lot of edges in a room which are perfect for adding deep absorption. And probably buy a book about studio construction - there is a lot of information how to setup a room for critical listening.
2 easy rules:
*) Everything absorbing has to be at least 10cm deep, if you are serious >20cm. So every absorber works broadband, not only for high frequencies. This means no carpets or curtains or 5cm foam panels! I have 16cm absorption on the whole ceiling in my recording room and one complete wall absorbing - the rest is hard surface. Very controlled but a lot of high frequencies for a "modern" recording feeling.
*) No parallel, untreated surfaces. Cause they produce flutter echos. This isn't apparent in an untreted room cause there is SO MUCH echo going on, but the more controlled your room get's the nastier these flutter get's. So get absorption at the opposit position of reflection, get diffusion or don't have parallel surfaces. I put a slanted cabinet in my room to one side and a half cylindrical diffuser on the door -> everything is fine.
In studio building you don't think in panels, you think in surfaces. Keep your corner absorption, get serious absorption at your 1st reflection points (also ceiling! So much surface there!) and have a listen. Use unused space for absorption of low frequencies - there are 8 corners and a lot of edges in a room which are perfect for adding deep absorption. And probably buy a book about studio construction - there is a lot of information how to setup a room for critical listening.
There are simple rules but you are still doing it more or less blindly if you're not measuring your Room Response with R.E.W.:
Tame first and second reflections. For Tweeter reflections, cork boards can be useful, for mid you can use DIY Panels with fabric, frame and fill it with absorbing materials, leaving a gap behind it at the back wall. For bass, you'll want more absorbing material in corners. Listeners rarely tame reflections on the ceiling, but good studio owners do. a carpet on the floor helps. If you have things like windows, you will want to cover those. Speaker placement is crucial.
There is no need to make a completely dead space. When viewing the response in R.E.W., try to tame the biggest peaks as much as possible.
These are the passive, acoustic methods. There are alternate methods but they rely on DSP.
Tame first and second reflections. For Tweeter reflections, cork boards can be useful, for mid you can use DIY Panels with fabric, frame and fill it with absorbing materials, leaving a gap behind it at the back wall. For bass, you'll want more absorbing material in corners. Listeners rarely tame reflections on the ceiling, but good studio owners do. a carpet on the floor helps. If you have things like windows, you will want to cover those. Speaker placement is crucial.
There is no need to make a completely dead space. When viewing the response in R.E.W., try to tame the biggest peaks as much as possible.
These are the passive, acoustic methods. There are alternate methods but they rely on DSP.
IME, different requirements for Music practise rooms, recording rooms, music playback rooms. All over the map for concert halls and sometimes with excessive ambience and other venues direct sound from the stage.
Small music playback rooms, full broadband absorption solves issues in one swoop without a lot of fussing on how to go about getting a very specific and particular type of acoustics.
I built and installed 6 inch deep diffusers in a piano practise room. Joy to hear the piano in this room. my low-ish basement ceiling will have 12" deep of rockboard.
Small music playback rooms, full broadband absorption solves issues in one swoop without a lot of fussing on how to go about getting a very specific and particular type of acoustics.
I built and installed 6 inch deep diffusers in a piano practise room. Joy to hear the piano in this room. my low-ish basement ceiling will have 12" deep of rockboard.
Attachments
Yes, there's that too, preferably at the front wall, i.e. behind the usual location of the amps and other gear.
Very initial article https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/sos-guide-control-room-design
In "B.Petrovic, Z.Davidovic, Acoustical Design of Control Room for Stereo and Multichannel Production and Reproduction — A Novel Approach" Fig. 4 IMO is useful for disputes about absorption and reflections
I know that's just a hand drawn quick graph - but when you REALLY would do that to a room like it's shown there it would be a very bass light and unnatural sounding room! You need FREQUENCY NEUTRAL absorption!
Of course in a real room you very often have overdampened high frequencies - ADDING treatment like shown in this graph would help to balance that.
But when building/planing a room from scratch that's way to much.
And be careful - there's a difference between a large room (where all the theory is based on) and a small room (what we are talking about here). A diffusor needs some distance to work properly, otherwise it's comb filters.
p.s.: We are used to rooms which have higher dampening at high frequencies. I built a neutral room with linear absorption - it already sounds bass light and fresh. Adding high frequencies to that wouldn't be a good idea.
Of course in a real room you very often have overdampened high frequencies - ADDING treatment like shown in this graph would help to balance that.
But when building/planing a room from scratch that's way to much.
And be careful - there's a difference between a large room (where all the theory is based on) and a small room (what we are talking about here). A diffusor needs some distance to work properly, otherwise it's comb filters.
p.s.: We are used to rooms which have higher dampening at high frequencies. I built a neutral room with linear absorption - it already sounds bass light and fresh. Adding high frequencies to that wouldn't be a good idea.
Bare minimum for practical living room acoustic treatment is to make sure flutter echo is not too bad, which contributes to poor intelligibility and listening fatique. Normal furnishing like sofas, carpets, plants, bookshelves and such seem to be able to make quite nice acoustic environment already, bass problems and flutter echo remain.
Flutter echo is early reflections between two adjacent boundaries, so between front and back wall, between sidewalls, between floor and ceiling. These can be tamed with thinner acoustic material already, like some acoustic panels. Rug on the floor is not very effective to singular first reflection, like "floor bounce", but it helps flutter between floor and ceiling as it is multiple reflections. Position acoustic panels on the walls, perhaps on ceiling, between you and each speaker.
Sound bounces "specularly" from surfaces at midrange so think each boundary as mirror, you'd see both your speakers to infinity. If this candle was your speaker between two walls, you'd hear the mirror images as well, this is the flutter echo. If there was absorbing panel left of the candle, between camera and the candle, it would attenuate everyone of those mirror images helping a lot. This is not actually very good example image, if there was a loudspeaker instead of the candle every other reflection would show backside of the speaker, so, every other reflection would sound different (if we could perceive the reflections separately). Anyway, nice food for imagination where to put acoustic panels, sound is invisible, images aren't. Also something why directivity would matter.
Addressing flutter will clean up sound considerably, without making all the surfaces absorbing. There should be plenty of reflective surface area still to leave overall comfortable acoustic environment, only the worst offender needs to be knocked out.
Bass problems would still remain. In domestic environment bass traps get obtrusive fast, as they need to be big. Better leave them out and spend time to find good positioning on speakers and listening position. Then use additional bass sources, if necessary, to even out modes.
Disclaimer, I haven't done any of it to my listening space (family livingroom). Plan is to lower speakers a bit to get them from between bare walls to furniture level, between furniture, to reduce flutter echo. Also plan is to try multiple subs since practical listening position makes great dip around ~30-40Hz.
Flutter echo is early reflections between two adjacent boundaries, so between front and back wall, between sidewalls, between floor and ceiling. These can be tamed with thinner acoustic material already, like some acoustic panels. Rug on the floor is not very effective to singular first reflection, like "floor bounce", but it helps flutter between floor and ceiling as it is multiple reflections. Position acoustic panels on the walls, perhaps on ceiling, between you and each speaker.
Sound bounces "specularly" from surfaces at midrange so think each boundary as mirror, you'd see both your speakers to infinity. If this candle was your speaker between two walls, you'd hear the mirror images as well, this is the flutter echo. If there was absorbing panel left of the candle, between camera and the candle, it would attenuate everyone of those mirror images helping a lot. This is not actually very good example image, if there was a loudspeaker instead of the candle every other reflection would show backside of the speaker, so, every other reflection would sound different (if we could perceive the reflections separately). Anyway, nice food for imagination where to put acoustic panels, sound is invisible, images aren't. Also something why directivity would matter.
Addressing flutter will clean up sound considerably, without making all the surfaces absorbing. There should be plenty of reflective surface area still to leave overall comfortable acoustic environment, only the worst offender needs to be knocked out.
Bass problems would still remain. In domestic environment bass traps get obtrusive fast, as they need to be big. Better leave them out and spend time to find good positioning on speakers and listening position. Then use additional bass sources, if necessary, to even out modes.
Disclaimer, I haven't done any of it to my listening space (family livingroom). Plan is to lower speakers a bit to get them from between bare walls to furniture level, between furniture, to reduce flutter echo. Also plan is to try multiple subs since practical listening position makes great dip around ~30-40Hz.
Last edited:
Extensive broadband absorption, ie complete surface coverage with as much thickness as possible provides 2 advantages.
Less critical speaker placement to find the position where bass is not boomy, and it will be less boomy in all seating positions within the room. Number 2, mids and highs will not be offensive if there is seating against a wall.
In my old room after the room was completed with extensive absorption, the bass became punchy and tight but thin sounding. The speakers were Nautilus 801 but turns out to be the rolled off bass alignment. It was speaker design choice/issue and not a room problem.
Less critical speaker placement to find the position where bass is not boomy, and it will be less boomy in all seating positions within the room. Number 2, mids and highs will not be offensive if there is seating against a wall.
In my old room after the room was completed with extensive absorption, the bass became punchy and tight but thin sounding. The speakers were Nautilus 801 but turns out to be the rolled off bass alignment. It was speaker design choice/issue and not a room problem.
since many years i build my own speakers and i keep on changing drivers and crossovers and so on. many systems impresses in short time but in the long run i find faults and then trying something new or old things once more. at the moment i have come back to small coaxials and changed from dayton/jbl horn with celestion compression driver and 10" seas mids partnered with four 12" subs distributed in the room for flat bass response.
i have no experience with planar speakers but i will try to hear some, magies do look nice
the most disturbing part is when i turn my head, when i move my head to look to the right and the to the left, the far ear hears a very muted sound compared to my nearest ear, to the speakers that is, this difference drives me crazy, this sounds very unnatural, my conclusion is that my room is to dead in the back of the room, maybe the old live-end-dead-end approch can be something for me?