DIY Treatment results

Entry posted by wgb113 June 19, 2012

This past January I was given carte blanche to convert the home office to my music room. It's the smallest room in the house at roughly 10'W x 11.5'L x 9'H with hardwood floors and drywall walls and ceiling. More detailed background on the room can be found in my previous blog entries but in general I felt the biggest problems were in the bass so that's where I've focused all effort to date. Basically, even after experimenting and measuring for best listening position placement and speaker placement I still had some "bass boost" type of sound going on as a result of room modes. I'm happy to say that the treatments I made resulted in both measurable differences and clear differences that you can hear.

Here is a Frequency Response comparison, from 20Hz to 400Hz, before and after I added the traps and smoothed to 1/3 octave:

The SPL for both measurements was calibrated at 70dB in REW before carrying them out and you can see the treatments reduced the overall levels by @ 5dB on average, with a real impact on that hump @ 125Hz. I still have some excess @ 245Hz that I plan to pull down with careful parametric EQ.

Decay times are down significantly as well. Here is a shot of the waterfall plots before and after as well:

Before:

And after:

The difference in sound is quite profound. It sounds as if everything is now in focus. Not only is bass controlled, allowing me to hear the varying notes much more clearly, but even the mids and highs now sound much more present. I'm getting a depth and height to the soundstage that I've never had before with the type of clarity that you usually only get with good headphones.

Here are some shots of the treatments and room in different stages of completion:

I covered frames in speaker cloth and attached them with velcro and put the room back together:

I'm very pleased with the results but still plan to tackle first reflection points to the side and behind the speakers.

Bill<a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/D12.jpg.6efb0335d3c5820ec8077f5eb68071f1.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28100" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/D12.jpg.6efb0335d3c5820ec8077f5eb68071f1.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/58cd9bc9b730c_beforeaftercomparison3rdoctavebassonly.jpg.c999a45faacefd70855b883561fecf89.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28343" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/58cd9bc9b730c_beforeaftercomparison3rdoctavebassonly.jpg.c999a45faacefd70855b883561fecf89.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/58cd9bc9be076_aftertreatments.jpg.b01fc1b3c8b4079f91d87b552800774d.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28344" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/58cd9bc9be076_aftertreatments.jpg.b01fc1b3c8b4079f91d87b552800774d.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/58cd9bc9c3c5e_waterfalllrnotreatment.jpg.5b0922c9018d4f94dd9f1fc5a8442e64.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28345" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/58cd9bc9c3c5e_waterfalllrnotreatment.jpg.5b0922c9018d4f94dd9f1fc5a8442e64.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/After4.jpg.4b815da843d2acfe1474b7968cbb4cf9.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28346" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/After4.jpg.4b815da843d2acfe1474b7968cbb4cf9.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/After3.jpg.23222abdbc1ee6cca993965daef6ecd0.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28347" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/After3.jpg.23222abdbc1ee6cca993965daef6ecd0.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/After2.jpg.3b5c424c2023ee8c58af9a50bd9e1e33.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28348" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/After2.jpg.3b5c424c2023ee8c58af9a50bd9e1e33.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/After1.jpg.e2f6b7d8498fa8ea78f283202258c8ea.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28349" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/After1.jpg.e2f6b7d8498fa8ea78f283202258c8ea.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/D12.jpg.235c06d863c22d289b4796518f7d7bd1.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28350" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/D12.jpg.235c06d863c22d289b4796518f7d7bd1.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/D13.jpg.329031c172acec2bac50b37e01eea5ae.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28351" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/D13.jpg.329031c172acec2bac50b37e01eea5ae.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/D16.jpg.d4eb4588d3c1ecd439131c983690af8d.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28352" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/D16.jpg.d4eb4588d3c1ecd439131c983690af8d.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/P1020800.jpg.6a268738bd016c2a7a8b6ae1adcfd3d2.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28353" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/P1020800.jpg.6a268738bd016c2a7a8b6ae1adcfd3d2.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a><a href="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/P1020801.jpg.ec081490c809686d8231a6ac33a5551f.jpg" class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image"><img data-fileid="28354" src="https://audiophilestyle.com/uploads/monthly_2012_06/P1020801.jpg.ec081490c809686d8231a6ac33a5551f.jpg" class="ipsImage ipsImage_thumbnailed" alt=""></a>

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