How to determine acoustic room treatment 

I am enjoying my copy (hard copy) great stories and awesome story telling.

You are correct. This opinion isnt popular because manufacturers cant make money off of it :(

@@Canadian_Eh_I - Also, it is not an opinion. Which pisses off the mfrs. even more. It is just plain old physics.

@@Canadian_Eh_I #Realtraps check them out on you tube. The guy doesn't like Paul b.t.w. lol.

@@tommyheron464 Did one better and went to a completely headphone system. Now I have $50k+ system equivalent :)

Wow. Thank you! Made my Sunday.

Yes, but what treatment you have need to be dealt with room for room. There is no right solution for every room. That is why it is so difficult.

You can make any room sound sweet without treatment, proper placement comes first.... And that takes more time then people usually are willing to take. Or they just don't know how to do it right.

Oystein Soreide I agree. I had a horrible spring echo at one end of the room and I got in touch with Gik Acoustics who told me exactly what I needed. The room is not dead but all the zinginess has gone. I wish I had discovered acoustic treatment earlier as no room sounds as good without it.

PROJACKED Placement is important but getting the room sound right in the first place is the first thing anyone should do. Otherwise it’s pointless.

@@nespressoman The first thing is to but the furniture into the room, and carpets etc. Because it affects the acoustics. Then further treatment must be done after that. Most people doesn't have dedicated room for audio.

Thanks! Let me know what you think if you get a copy.

This one was not.

@ that's personal

Thanks!

Yeah I built some cheap 1x4 frames and just plopped insulation (still in the plastics!) into the boxes then wrapped them in fabric. Works amazing and only cost me $50 or so each to build. Put 4-8 of those in a room in the corners and your mind will be blown. Problem is most people dopnt use enough accoustic treatment to make a difference. It really does take alot.

Rockwool does make inexpensive and effective absorbers/bass traps.

@@Canadian_Eh_I - Yes, it takes a lot of treatment, or what may seem like a lot of treatment, to get smooth low frequency response. That is why the ceiling and vertical corners are good places for getting acoustic treatment out of the way. Side wall first reflection points usually need some absorption. Yes, it is mind-blowing when the low frequencies are heard and felt with a smooth response curve.

@@rb032682 Yes, my simple and cheap absorber is rockwool (cut to size and depth as needed, and some spray glue to attach cheap fleece sources from Walmart's $2.50 throws. But rockwool alone is not a good bass trapper per se, if not used right it will unevenly remove bass and kill off the sound. Cheers.

Speaking of diffusion, check out Blackbird Studio C: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H1M3oSyVXJ0.html

@Andy - Good points. When it comes to good-sounding audio, the room IS the big picture. The room acoustics affect every sound in the room.

My apartment opens up to a good sized living room and right into the dining area beside it a kitchen. Spacious and my low level speakers on the front dining room wall, about 7 ft. I sit maybe 7..8 feet to listen. Also beside left speaker is a 15 for long row of glass with big blinds. Sounds very good to me and with a couple beers, even better. Heck with all these jargon. If it sounds good to me, that's all I want and I've been listening for at least 65 of my 71 years..

I would have yo agree, I would risk 'over' damping to reflextions any day.

reflection has nothing to do with transparency. if you want transparency, make sure 1. your speakers don't beam (or don't beam too much). by inspecting the upper crossover frequency of each driver. for EXAMPLE, 2 kHz for woofer. for convenience, i'll write down a table for you to look up at which point each (common) driver size starts beaming significantly. 18" --- 750 Hz 15" --- 900 Hz 12" --- 1.1 kHz 10" --- 1.3 kHz 8" --- 1.6 kHz 6.5" --- 2 kHz 6" --- 2.2 kHz 5.5" --- 2.4 kHz 5" --- 2.7 kHz 4" --- 3.3 kHz 3" --- 4.5 kHz 2" --- 6.7 kHz 1" --- 13 kHz 0.75" --- 18 kHz 0.625 (5/8)" --- 21 kHz 0.5" --- 27 kHz make sure they're crossed over below their beaming frequency. 2. again, inspect the crossover frequency of each driver, the bottom end this time, 100 Hz for woofer for example. make sure they're not too low. low frequencies introduce excursion, excursion introduces intermodulation (the wall of sound), intermodulation destroys transparency. the only driver that should handle all the heavy excursion is the subwoofer. there are a few ways you can minimize intermodulation. 1. as i mentioned above, limit low frequency content on the mains. 2. limit the operating bandwidth of each driver. the wider the frequency range a driver has to handle, the higher intermodulation. a high-order crossover network can help you with this. 4th-order Linkwitz-Riley crossover is the most recommended. there are a few more but these are the most important ones.

@@ped-away-g1396 Rather well put, nephew. I don't believe I've seen that table before. Thanks :-)

@@ped-away-g1396 - Cool stuff. Thanks much for the info.

@Dor - Agreed. Well said. That has also been my experience.

I don't think playing music while you are trying to adjust the room is the best way to do it. Music is dynamic and can change from one second to the next making it very difficult to figure out. You have to find the peaks and voids in your room first. To do this you need to do frequency sweeps, once you find those, then apply the room treatment until you are satisfied with the sound.

@@JuanLega Yes and no. First, I wasn't trying to write a book, which I could on this subject, if I was giving an in depth answer for the serious folks it would include much in the way of measuring etc., but I think you miss or gloss over the reason for my point. First, not just random music, but something you have been listening to for testing, second, as you put it in place you can hear the change happening in real time, put in place, remove it repeat, point is you NEED to know what each piece is doing or you will get hopelessly lost when you have put up 35 pieces and the sound sucks, now what? So you need to hear every piece, especially if it's your first Rodeo.

www.psaudio.com/products/99-true/

Most rooms need acoustic treatment.

he has room treatment there ...

@Rob - The "truth" is what a scientific measurement says. We're not discussing snake oil, we're discussing physics. Any bias is baseless.

@@rb032682 Scientific evidence is brought and paid for all the time.

@@robw1031 - What you're describing is called "fraud", which is irrelevant.

@Marten Dekker - The topic is "acoustic treatment", not speaker design. In 99.9% of consumer audio systems, what is the one component which has *not* been designed to produce the best, most accurate sound at a given price point? The room. I have confirmed this in more than one room, without bias. 🤣

The leftist media, does promote a leftist narrative!

@William - When you experience a good room you will understand. Given a proper demonstration, most humans can discern a difference in room acoustics, both consciously and sub-consciously.

I had a place in my early years that when the music was playing and you walked by the door which was in the corner of the room the bass was super heavy! That's when I learned about what a bass trap could do for you. I wasn't then nor am I now an audiophile.

Before you move into a new house or apartment and go visit it when it's empty, you see immediately the difference in sound from when it will be when you move in. (Lot of echo there) When you have moved in; hard floor of the living room/dinner room of a condo with plastic vertical blinds in the patio door/s vs thick rugs in the living room/dinner room and thick full length curtains in the patio door/s, if to a lesser extent, will be noticeable by a person with reasonably normal hearing, I think. The sound of the audio system should be then significantly more neutral. I have not made a direct comparison of the two situations in my condo, but the sound of my system is excellent with the thick rugs at my place and I have had compliments about it. I will not remove the rugs to test and confirm the differences (to much hard work...) So I think that simple basic room treatment is worthwhile. The Pareto law says: ''80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes'' Meaning that in anything 20% of the work or means will yield 80% of the results.

i am pretty sure Paul want enough echo to provide the disappearing speaker trick. i only like echo for music but anything else going on in the room i want dead as a coffin.

I have the impression that that Paul is not a fan of room acoustic treatments. I've seen his videos of his music room, I don't even remember seeing any diffusers or bass traps, and I remember reading that he's avoiding all kinds of room correction softwares like a plague. To each their own I guess.

@@nabildanial00 You haven't been watching carefully enough. Look at the videos he made when preparing for the recent shift in premises. What Paul is not a fan of is _excessive_ use of room treatment (the more is better approach). It's all too easy to go overboard and create a listening environment that's dead rather than alive. Read _99% True_ for some of Paul's stories during the Genesis Speakers era. Room correction software creates the illusion that there's only one correct solution. That doesn't account for psycho-acoustic effects. One of those is that for _most of us_ sounds that arrive at the ear later are perceived as quieter than sounds that arrive first. Microphones make no such distinction.

he said seek balance in all things, don't over deaden the room.

Ruins accoustics, improves sex life 😁

@@nasskhan4543 Back in the 1970s I had a mirror over my waterbed (the only one in Hobart, Tasmania). These days I have a mirror over the dining table [sigh].

@@jonathansturm4163 - LOL! 🤣👍😎

Carnival mirrors are best for acoustics! (sarc)

Caution: Wife Acceptance Factor may vary.

how did you know ?

Like www.roomeqwizard.com/ With a name like "Acoustic Fields" one is led to believe that there is some "meat" there..... Sadly all i see is a dude flogging activated charcoal ( at highly inflated prices ) as a panacea to all acoustic problems..... A bit like a magic pill that will solve all your health problems - yeah - right ;-)

@@BogdanWeiss - If it works well, I have no problem with charcoal or foam or cotton wool or mineral wool or glass wool. The effectiveness of any treatment can be measured and compared to others. I have never heard Acoustic Fields make a claim that their products are a "panacea to all acoustic problems".

@@rb032682 Room resonance modes will be energised at multiple locations, depending on where your speakers are & where the listener will be located - the only effective way of absorbing selective frequencies & bandwidth is with tuned Helmholtz resonators ( that are tuned & located accordingly ) there is no material known to man that can magically absorb multiple room nodes from the one absorber location. Can you now see the absurdity of the proposed activated carbon in the one box in one location to treat a whole room ???

I used to do that all the time, except when with a hot female, then the balcony became the sweeter spot. lol

OTOH not all music is suited. I'm thoroughly enjoying my "new" Stax earspeakers. Unfortunately, the first piece I played, a perennial favourite "Ein Deutsche Requiem", was severely distorted in the crescendoes. Happily I have replaced that recording with Klemperer's 1962 recording that has recently been remastered and I'm once more a happy camper. I cried with joy during the crescendoes rather than grimacing in pain! I listened to the first two movements last night while SWMBO was out in the garden so I have yet to listen to the soloists through the Stax. They sound great through the speakers. Gotta love Schwartzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau...

@@jonathansturm4163 You should try the RAAL Requisit sr1a. They are as close to a perfect sound transducer as Ive ever seen. Theyre still under the radar but 10 years of R&D went into them and they will be making a big splash eventually

Jonathan Sturm, where can I find the remastered album you are speaking of?

@@motorradmike I purchased mine on 2nd hand on fleabay. It's on the EMI label: EMI Classics ‎- 7243 5 66903 2 5. I just now noticed that "recent" was 20 years ago. Is it really that long ago that it was reviewed in The Gramophone? It is much superior sonically compared to the original vinyl release. As numerous reviewers on Amazon remark, it's a remarkable recording and much better than many made with the technology of 1962. The flaws are minor compared with my more modern digital recording that theoretically was capable of being much better. The remastering is _not_ compression thankfully. The Brahms Requiem is all about dynamic range after all.

@@Canadian_Eh_I - I checked out those headphones on the RAAL website. From their description, they look impressive. Then I saw the price tag............😨😨

Banana Splitbrain lol yup

"For best results you need a 14ft ceiling and 27ftx18ft optimally." There are plenty who would disagree. 27:18 is 3:2 and that means reinforcement of frequencies in that ratio. The more usual recommendation is the golden ratio ~1.6:1 for minimal reinforcement of particular frequencies.

@@jonathansturm4163 Yes sorry correct. so thats 27x17ish. . pretty close any how.

@@jonathansturm4163 I would say having a space with an extremely low noise floor is also very important. Most dont realize the reason they lose accuracy and imaging is simply due to ambient noise which is often around 30db or higher in most cities, even indoors. Basements sound better :)

@@Canadian_Eh_I Living in a rural area in a house with double-glazing is even better :-)

@@jonathansturm4163 - That seems like a pleasant environment for more than just audio. 😎

It is absolutely true I am not a degreed engineer and I have proudly made that clear to anyone interested. You don't need a degree to call yourself an engineer, you need to make a living at engineering. I am not sure where this myth about degrees came from but it's something I've fought about for years. Over the past 4 decades I have personally engineered/designed from the ground up some of the best audio gear in the world. I teach a few classes in analog engineering at the School of Mines in Golden Colorado on occasion as well, I lecture there on entrepreneurship. And no, I don't have a degree as an entrepreneur either. :)

@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio So you aren't an engineer, degreed or otherwise, but you call yourself one.

If you were an engineer, you would know that you don't need a degree in engineering to call yourself an engineer. You need a license. Passing yourself off as an engineer to the public without a license is illegal. Your words; "You don't need a degree to call yourself an engineer, you need to make a living at engineering." That's not what the law says.

@@michaelakamatsu I do not have a degree in engineering but I am by definition an engineer. Yes.

@@michaelakamatsu Sorry, not sure what you're talking about. There is no such thing as a "license" for a EE. Maybe you're thinking of a different kind of engineer. I have 4 EE's on staff, none have a "license". For EE's that's just plain incorrect.