Room treatment change made a very audible difference

BmWr75

BmWr75

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My listening room is 27’ deep and the speakers are 9’ out into the room. The soundstage has been way behind the speakers for quite a while. It sounded good, but just seemed strange to me that the vocal seemed to be coming about 1/2 way back to the front wall.

Moved two GIK Acoustics treatments about that are about 2’ wide by 4’ tall to approximately the 1/3 and 2/3s points on the front wall. The soundstage moved forward about 2-3’, got taller and wider. The change was not subtle. Sounds more natural now.
 
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Treating the room is something that most audio enthusiasts do last, if they do it at all. I've found room treatments make a bigger difference than sources and amps! In the past, I've received pushback from men, after recommending treating the room, claiming that it's "decorating" and somehow, unmanly... :dunno:
 
Gigantic said:
Treating the room is something that most audio enthusiasts do last, if they do it at all. I've found room treatments make a bigger difference than sources and amps! In the past, I've received pushback from men, after recommending treating the room, claiming that it's "decorating" and somehow, unmanly... :dunno:
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I agree that it usually is not at the top of the list but I have not encountered the "unmanly" argument. I also agree that there is potential for fairly big improvements possible. Unfortunately there is only so much you can do if the space is being used for things other than just listening.

I'm sure my space would respond to some treatments. Changing layout much is out of the question as the room was "designed" with the TV and furniture placement in mind. One wall is dominated by the front door and two large windows. None of that is moving and the Mrs. has final say on window treatment. A ceiling fan and lights limit what could be done with the ceiling. I could probably add something to the back wall but that is where our chairs are and there is artwork as well.

In a perfect world, I would have retired with enough money to have added a dedicated listen room/office to the house but the harsh realities of economics prevented that.
 
My listening room is in a finished basement area, about 430 sq ft. No windows, just drywall walls, and carpeted. On one end I have a push/pull tube amp, pushing some large organ cabinets, with Altec model 19 components in them. Problem is when I am standing up maybe 15 ft in front of the speakers, they sound terrific, very full and excellent bass.
but when I pull up a chair and sit down in that same listening position, the bottom end of the music is cut way down. So is it the carpeting that is sucking up the bass down low?
Thinking I might cover the carpet with plastic out about as far as my listening area as an experiment to see if it improves the sound. Any thoughts/suggestions?
 
wlgrant6 said:
My listening room is in a finished basement area, about 430 sq ft. No windows, just drywall walls, and carpeted. On one end I have a push/pull tube amp, pushing some large organ cabinets, with Altec model 19 components in them. Problem is when I am standing up maybe 15 ft in front of the speakers, they sound terrific, very full and excellent bass.
but when I pull up a chair and sit down in that same listening position, the bottom end of the music is cut way down. So is it the carpeting that is sucking up the bass down low?
Thinking I might cover the carpet with plastic out about as far as my listening area as an experiment to see if it improves the sound. Any thoughts/suggestions?
Click to expand...
Walk around your room with a bass test tone playing. You will hear the bass get louder and softer by a very noticeable amount probably. This is peaks and nulls in the bass frequencies. Think about a rectangular pond, if you will, and imagine a stone thrown in one end. The waves will travel away from the point where the stone hit and then hit walls and reflect back reinforcing the waves in places and attenuating the waves in other places.

How high is the ceiling in your basement? Could be some ceiling reflections to be dealt with in addition to floor and wall reflections.
 
wlgrant6 said:
My listening room is in a finished basement area, about 430 sq ft. No windows, just drywall walls, and carpeted. On one end I have a push/pull tube amp, pushing some large organ cabinets, with Altec model 19 components in them. Problem is when I am standing up maybe 15 ft in front of the speakers, they sound terrific, very full and excellent bass.
but when I pull up a chair and sit down in that same listening position, the bottom end of the music is cut way down. So is it the carpeting that is sucking up the bass down low?
Thinking I might cover the carpet with plastic out about as far as my listening area as an experiment to see if it improves the sound. Any thoughts/suggestions?
Click to expand...
it seems like you may have a bass node in your room. what is your room dimension? I guarantee that it's not the carpet, no carpet is thick enough to absorb bass frequencies as you've described.
 
Here are the room dimensions. Sorry, but I'm not familiar with the term "Bass Node".

Don't know what's going on, but unable to attach the sketch of room dimensions. Just comes up as a link to my download file.

OK, took a pic of the sketch, was able to attach that. Hope it's legible.
 

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Gigantic said:
Treating the room is something that most audio enthusiasts do last, if they do it at all. I've found room treatments make a bigger difference than sources and amps! In the past, I've received pushback from men, after recommending treating the room, claiming that it's "decorating" and somehow, unmanly... :dunno:
Click to expand...
At least the cable haters didn't post and ask you for a DBT because you can't trust your own hearing. :rolleyes:
 
BmWr75 said:
My listening room is 27’ deep and the speakers are 9’ out into the room. The soundstage has been way behind the speakers for quite a while. It sounded good, but just seemed strange to me that the vocal seemed to be coming about 1/2 way back to the front wall.

Moved two GIK Acoustics treatments about that are about 2’ wide by 4’ tall to approximately the 1/3 and 2/3s points on the front wall. The soundstage moved forward about 2-3’, got taller and wider. The change was not subtle. Sounds more natural now.
Click to expand...

I've heard multiple systems in well treated rooms that have speakers pulled out six feet or more from the front wall, including my own, and what you describe about vocal placement in the sound stage (about 1/2 way between wall and speakers) is common...but not with all recordings. I've heard some recordings that put the vocal on the front wall, some that bring it forward almost even with the speakers, and all points in between. But for certain, about 1/2 way between wall and speakers is the most common.
Taking into consideration that all spatial information in the recording resides in the highs and mids, there's no good explanation for why locating absorption panels on the front wall had the effect you experienced since very little mid and high frequency energy makes its way to the front wall except for via reflections from the other boundaries that are in front of the speakers where mid and high frequency energy is strongest (unless speakers are dipoles or omnidirectional). If the panels are thick enough, they could be cleaning up some excess decay in the mid/upper or even deep bass region which will have an overall net positive effect on resolution across the spectral range (since distorted bass also blurs resolution in the mids and highs).
When you create a reflection free zone at the main listening position and get room decay times in a favorable range across the audible frequency range, and have speakers positioned so that their interaction with boundaries is minimized, that's when you can rest assured that you're getting an accurate representation of spatial cues (image placement) in the sound stage.
 
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tomlinmgt said:
I've heard multiple systems in well treated rooms that have speakers pulled out six feet or more from the front wall, including my own, and what you describe about vocal placement in the sound stage (about 1/2 way between wall and speakers) is common...but not with all recordings. I've heard some recordings that put the vocal on the front wall, some that being it forward almost even with the speakers and all points in between. But for certain, about 1/2 way between wall and speakers is the most common.
Since all spatial information in the recording resides in the highs and mids, there's no good explanation for why locating absorption panels on the front wall had the effect you experienced since very little mid and high frequency energy makes its way to the front wall except for via reflections from the other boundaries that are in front of the speakers where mid and high frequency energy is strongest (unless speakers are dipoles or omnidirectional). When you create a reflection free zone at the main listening position and get room decay times in a favorable range across the audible frequency range, and have speakers positioned so that their interaction with boundaries is minimized, that's when you can rest assured that you're getting an accurate representation of spatial cues (image placement) in the sound stage.
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The pair of speakers being used when this observation was made are DIY TOID Epics. Each speaker has a passive radiator in the left and ride side panels. Would not have thought any mid range tones were being generated by them, but that might be possible and help explain the observed depth change. Build thread is here.

BmWr75

Thread 'Toid’s Epic Speaker Build'

Just finished these up this weekend. Most complicated speaker project I’ve ever taken on. Uses Parts Express 5.5” woofers and 8” passive radiators, and CSS LD25X tweeters. No subs needed with these. Just lots of power. These are 5" taller to adjust for the cabinets being 1.25" less deep than Toid's build and wanting to keep the same internal volume.

Just remembered I'd posted an in process build update in DIY that shows some internal photos. https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...g-cut-down-p-e-cabinet.1079350/#post-17628771
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BmWr75 said:
The pair of speakers being used when this observation was made are DIY TOID Epics. Each speaker has a passive radiator in the left and ride side panels. Would not have thought any mid range tones were being generated by them, but that might be possible and help explain the observed depth change. Build thread is here.

BmWr75

Thread 'Toid’s Epic Speaker Build'

Just finished these up this weekend. Most complicated speaker project I’ve ever taken on. Uses Parts Express 5.5” woofers and 8” passive radiators, and CSS LD25X tweeters. No subs needed with these. Just lots of power. These are 5" taller to adjust for the cabinets being 1.25" less deep than Toid's build and wanting to keep the same internal volume.

Just remembered I'd posted an in process build update in DIY that shows some internal photos. https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...g-cut-down-p-e-cabinet.1079350/#post-17628771
  • Like
  • Love
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I edited my comment just before your reply to include how the front wall panels may have had the effect they did if they are absorbing any bass freqencies. How thick are the panels? Is there an air gap?
 
tomlinmgt said:
I edited my comment just before your reply to include how the front wall panels may have had the effect they did if they are absorbing any bass freqencies. How thick are the panels? Is there an air gap?
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They are about 12” thick and sit about 12” away from the front wall.
 
BmWr75 said:
They are about 12” thick and sit about 12” away from the front wall.
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Oh yeah, that panel thickness and air gap is going to provide some meaningful low frequency absorption...and, in your case, it seems it may have cleaned up some distortions that were compromising image resolution. I don't think you would have experienced the same result with a panel less than 4" or 6" thick.
 
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