Fabulous! Finally a good representation of the actual ability of the sound treatments that a novice noob like myself can benefit from. Thank you Paul for all of the education you have provided me. My house was recently rebuilt from the Marshall Wildfire and I am looking forward to filling our new home with some of your products.
Great video Paul, much appreciated! Hailing from STL myself, I can tell you that the name of the suburban community where the questioner resides is phonetically pronounced Creeve-Core. Thanks again!
I love you Paul. A subject that baffles a lot of people and you break it down to something that makes a lot of sense. Thanks mate Keep up the great content
I've already got carpet, curtains drapes and plus 2 huge plants in my 13 x 11.5ft (4 x 3.5 m) living room but not only did i wish to spread the dampening throughout the whole of the room but i also wished to eliminate the reflections coming from my rear, so i went halfway and purchased a gik absorber/diffuser panel for the rear wall and omg i couldn't believe what one panel is able to accomplish! 🥳 So my advice to anyone who is looking to improve their acoustics... don't go crazy, try one acoustic panel at the time but more importantly give yourself time for you're ears to adjust to the new room acoustics before deciding on the next step! Good luck
Remember in old house, we set up not so new system, not so high end as what you have. Sound was first terrible.. My wife reacted saying this was bad and boxy. So i started googling, and this topic popped up, and with photos. Wife just say no fu... way. that is not going in our home. But she did read on what it was and how it worked. Next day she told me, we go buy plants. And we did. And she started in the music room. experiment with plants. ofc with sound on. Plants on sides of front wall, tall and many leafs. Did impressive good to the sound. center or almost center of front wall, she used some other plants. To fit her design. This in total must have acted like diffusers. I had no idea that that system could perform like that. And that my wife be doing good on system setup :O
Wow that was the first time i have seen anybody give a physical demo and one can hear the difference . Thanks Paul , you listen to music the way i like to .
life-front vs. back-end is related to sound and listening position. In recording studios, the distance between speaker and listener is normally 1/3 of room depth. There you will see life end with absorbers at the back wall. At a listening distance of 10 feet the room has to be 30 feet deep, thats large. The most of the home hifi rooms and PS Audio are smaller, there is a 2/3 distance common. The back wall is here nearer and so their reflections appear louder and from the back, that distors the sound. With absorbers at the side, absorbers in the front will decrease the reverb time of the room too much. At PS Audio room the edges in the front are shaped, otherwise you would prefer bass traps. The acoustical disapearing of the speakers depends mostly on the recording. When an instrument is panned hard to one side with nearly no stereo reverb in the recording, the speaker will apper where it stands.
Depends on the off axis behaviour of the speaker, directivity and dispersion vs the room. Ive seen many speakers that actually need reflection from the back wall to help neutralize its FR. Most people also prefer a lot of lateral reflection, over absorbing on the side walls will kill soundstage, big time. Im more concerned about floor and ceiling bounce, thats where usually you need to absorb. Im good with just absorbing first point reflections on the side wall and ceiling, leaving my back wall empty and a carpet covering the first reflection points on the floor. Tried absorbing second reflection points, stared to dislike it in my case. I also once tried putting thick curtains along the side walls, covering 2/3rds of it. Sounded like crap.
An older house I lived in some years ago had the walls curve up to the ceiling about 4-6" in a quarter arc. Other rooms were normal 90 degree corners and when you clapped your hands there would be a sound delay (echo). In the curved to ceiling room this slap-back was eliminated. Something to consider although difficult to achieve. I also had floor to top of the 2 windows curtains on the front wall and an over-stuffed couch on the back wall with carpet. During a jam session, the other musicians commented on the good acoustics.
This topic also depends on what sort of room acoustics you are seeking. I prefer a more silent studio ambience room with less concert hall ambience (most of my favorite music was mastered in a studio) and thus a bigger room will need a more absorbers to get the decays reduced.
Greeting from (don't hold it against me!) Massachusetts - - As in gloss paint, It's pronounced "Glosster", spelled, omg - Gloucester! Worcester, another MA city, is just as bad - pronounced: "Wister" as in twister. Btw, thanks for the insight about diffusers vs absorbers!
Paul... In a system like the one you are demonstrating in the video above, is it mandatory to have a good air conditioning system? Should the room always be cooled to a specific temperature? If so, what would that temperature be? Can the air conditioning system in the room negatively affect the audio quality?
glost er sher ....lol. one of these times paul. i heard from a chap aty one of our hifi shows at the weekend that your over to the uk later this year for a hifi show down south. if thats still on ,im looking forward to meeting you.
🤗👍 THANKS PAUL …for the example of the difference between the two …VERY GOOD 👍 …AND for those who can take advantage of this 😎 …I have been able to achieve this in my listening room without these things THANKFULLY 😁…but for many this is not possible because of cost $ and the WAF 🤦♀️😁😍😍😍
@@Harald_Reindl 🤔 INTERESTING … In my experience …a chain is only as strong as the weakest link… If you have a good quality subwoofer I like the sound stream that I had in my truck and then you have a good amplifier I like my sound stream amp … The only time I had a problem was when the quality of music was lacking 🤷♂️ and I had a top Alpine head unit
@@budgetaudiophilelife-long5461 and your weakest link is your room - until you have heard are really clean and dry bass you have no clue how it sounds and electronics can help but not fix the issue
The answer is - It depends on your room size and more specifically, the distance from the speakers to the predominant reflection points versus the direct sound. If the distance is relatively minimal (
The only time you need diffusion on the front wall is if you have rear firing speakers 🔊 if you don’t they are unnecessary,I have been writing Paul ever since he started this site telling him to treat his room with the infinity’s and how that room was way to small for them,obviously he has been listening 👂 to my feedback,now he’s a teacher 🥴
Interesting topic, but without knowing what every person has for kind of ceiling/wall/floor/lay-out/speaker design construction the answers will vary a lot and on top of that you also have your preference. Everybody must know that everybody´s story is different so these kind of videos does not have a certain answer to all variations out there. You must trust your ears. You don´t get it from another "expert" that does not know anything about your setup... I have a concrete basement dedicated room and has the freedom to do anything I want and I have went banana with absorbers to get my sound preference. Adding 250 kg / 35 pieces of 100 - 300 mm absorbers, both free standing and behind new added walls on some of my concrete walls has given me a quite tuneful dry bass / mid bass. I have run measurements and I can tell you that absorbers really shortens the water fall between 50-500-ish hz and you cannot dampen bass too much, IMO. However, you should probably mount some hard surfaces on some absorbers to keep a balance through the spectrum. Experiment, this is fun but not easy to understand. You need to measure.
I think people need to realize that diffusion has to meet certain criteria for it to be utilized properly. One is distance, and another is to treat the modal issues in the room by using absorption that can contain ~30-100hz cycles. You have to treat the fundamental frequencies first otherwise, you're just avoiding the biggest issue at hand.
thank you sooooo much !!! is it necessary to know the "response" of the room by mesuring the frequences, before placing that kind of Helmholtz Resonator ( knowing the exact surface of the holes to be made ) ?? I would like to make some, ( DIY ) but don't know any professional who can come with the good software, and perhaps expensive
I agree with the use of diffusion. However, I use diffusion on the front *and* side walls and absorption on the back wall. The result? Speakers completely disappear. The sound is as if the room is producing the sound (front and side walls) as opposed to the speakers themselves. Most of the time my listening room is like sitting in a giant headphone and being immersed in the original recording
@@connorduke4619 nothing on the ceiling. Comb filtering by the ear seems to do the job. Thunder claps can be heard to move across the Soundspace clearly overhead
I thought that the norm is to have a dry end / wet end - absorption a the front, and diffusion in the back, because to get a clean soundscape at the front the reflections needs to be eliminated from behind the soundscape. Diffusion is needed to eliminate room modes - the resonant frequencies of the room - caused by reflection paths. Absorption is needed in order to eliminate early reflections from the area that is the soundscape so that the direct sound from the loudspeaker to the ear is not competing with indirect sound reflected from the walls behind the speakers too soon. Reflections from the back of the room don't interfere with the soundscape because they arrive late-enough to the ear and as a result the ear/brain can work out that they're reflections and not the original sound event.
I agree and I had to scroll down the comments to see if someone thinks the same as me. All the studio solutions I've seen do exactly that. They pretty much exclusively absorb everything in front and on first reflections to isolate the speakers for proper soundstage and stereo image, and if space allows it they put diffusers in the back (often combining diffusion front on regular absorption panels to diffuse the mids and highs and absorb the lows) in order to bring back some "liveliness" into the room. As you've said those are late reflections from the back of the room so they don't really smear the soundstage and stereo image like early reflections and brain recognizes them as spatial elements without effecting too much of direct sound. I guess both you and I are looking at this from perspective of control/mixing room and situation for hi-fi listening room might be different where you might sit in the back of room and not do critical listening sitting relatively close to the nearfield or midfield studio monitors.
I’m a follower of Acoustic Fields here on RU-vid - they are acoustic engineers and rely on physics. Some day I’ll build a new room and rely on their theories and some of the products. Then I’ll report back :)
What arrangement of absorbers and diffusers would you suggest for Martin Logan speakers that have as much sound going toward the front wall as going toward the listener?
Question. I own a small live music venue. We have small square diffusers around the room. The bass seems controllable, but what do you recommend generally? I have a QSC speaker sound system, by the way. K12.2s and an 18-inch KS118 sub. Looking for more headroom in vocals and guitar specifically. Thanks!
"No Echo in here" so what are you comparing it to? Have you actually tried experimenting with an acoustic panel within your small room, one would be surprised what 1 panel placed correctly is able to achieve!
@@ChristophMarius dead is great, it sound free and outdoors. like in the middle of a field or in the woods. also talking and noise you make in a dead room sound much better
@@ChristophMarius I yet need to see enough absorption to make a room really dead - there is ZERO need for room reverb because it's already on the record
If anyone can help me, I have a particular situation which I feel is to my benefit. I have an exposed ceiling in my studio and instead of mounting/drilling my diffusion / absorption panels to the wall, I would like to hang them about 3 inches off said wall with eye hooks, with my limited knowledge wouldn't that help with the air coefficient in the lower end realms as an air gap behind the panel. My room is about w x l x h , 13 x 12 x 8 , and I'm doing about 42 square feet of 4 x 2 panels, anyways if this sounds like a good idea, I'm going with it
The only smooth surfaces in my 17•14.8 room is the ceiling and three doors. It was constructed in 1951 with dual layering wood paneling so about every four inches it varies about a 1/4”. The floor is wood textured tile over cork(it used to be carpeted originally) with an area rug and below that is a firm wood foundation. 2/3 of the front wall is a brick fireplace with a hearth that makes a nice foundation for a turntable and electronics(no more fires but how would a sub sound in a fireplace?). There’s a built in bookcase behind one speaker and brick behind the other. The speakers are about 3ft out and 4 and 5ft from side walls. There’s a couch on one side wall and an armoire with a tv on the other. No home theater. Two comfortable listening chairs so the room is relatively full of furniture. My treatment consisted of hanging shirts over the tv in the armoire but I didn’t care for that at all. One thing I did like is stacking clothes or pillows about a foot high near the base of stand mount Heco Revolution 3’s. But I’d rather listen to my floorstanding Canton 7’s with wood cutting boards underneath because this room seems to absorb bass due to it’s construction. I like the sound I get listening to LP’s and CD’s. It also sounds great in the dining room while we’re eating as well, like there’s musicians nearby. Thanks for your entertaining video Paul!
@@Harald_Reindl "It needs absorption - that's with the ceiling" My fault for not explicitly pointing my question at Paul. @Harald Reidnl, if I want your opinion, I will give it to you.
@@Harald_Reindl "with some education and knowledge about audio you wouldn't need to ask" I guess that you have an alternate camera angle that the rest of us do not have, where you know what Paul has on his ceiling? Please tell us. Describe the panels he has on his ceiling. First: Does Paul have panels on his ceiling? That is a "Yes, he has panels on his ceiling", or "No, he does not have panels on his ceiling" answer. Next: Which panels does Paul have on his ceiling. I will settle for a description of the design and the color. You might just guess that what Paul has on his ceiling is the same as we see in this video on camera-left. So when you tell us what he has on his ceiling, a guess does not count. Like a teacher tells us in school "Show your work". In your case, tell us how you know which panels Paul has on his ceiling. Not how you reasoned it out. Tell us how you know. For example, did Paul tell you? Did Paul show you. Describe Paul's ceiling panels (assuming he has any) and explain how you know what we do not see in the video. You claim to know what Paul has, without seeing what Paul has. So provide the answers. You routinely claim to know what gear sounds like, without ever hearing the gear. Now you claim to know what ceilings look like, without ever seeing the ceiling. Which educational institution gives you crystal-ball knowledge? Before you answer, check Vicoustic's web site for studios and home cinema. Why? The brand of panels that Paul is using is Vicoustic. Vicoustic's web site has photos of many rooms. Of the ones where we can see the ceiling, approximately 75% of them have diffusers on the ceiling (not absorbers, as you assert should be there, based on "some education and knowledge"). Do you see how you constantly chime in with BS. You just make things up as if you are an authority; as if you really know, when you do not know, when you are guessing. Why do you do that?
@@NoEgg4u how does it matter what Paul has on his ceiling? the ceiling needs absorption - it's that easy! which? the best one you can afford - Basotect for mids/heights and mebrane absorbers for bass - like any other parallel wall
Gloucester is pronounced Gloss-ter, Worcester is pronounced Wuss-ter, Leicester is pronounced Less-ter. They're in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Leicestershire.
I'm "baffled"...should I run around my hifi room, talking to my walls?...if my wife catches me doing so, will she think I'm certifiably insane?...and what if the walls start talking back?...just a humourous thought, LOL!
So much miss information on acoustical treatment and goals. I think a majority of people think you want a acoustically damped room. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. First and foremost it’s important to get speaker placement right. This CANNOT be done with any acoustical treatment in the room. You will know when you have ideal speaker placement when you have good bass extension, good bass detail, proper size and tone of vocals and center imaging, open and tuneful high frequency’s. When speaker placement is right you will notice little to no coloration of the room to the point were the room seems to disappear. Then and only then can you add any acoustical treatment to “fine tune” the overall sound. It is important to understand you want a live room, you just want reflections to be slightly delayed. Delusion is fine and carefully positioned and selected absorption. Any absorption must be very carefully chosen. I like very light weight even see through materials. The problem with absorption as well is that they absorb at certain frequency’s and reflect at others creating large comb filtering. Peaks and valleys in the frequency’s response. No absorption on the front wall is absolutely correct and very light weight absorption on the back wall. Delusion on sides walls is ok if needed.
