Article: A New Listening Room Part One

[ednaz]

I know it might not be a lot of fun, but it WOULD be interesting and educational to see how things measure with different components of the acoustical system installed. I don't mean putting things in and taking them out... but maybe ask Vicoustic to recommend an installation pattern from what they believe will be most impactful to least impactful, and then measure at a couple of different stages. 

 

For our family room in our new house, I had to negotiate the degree to which I included acoustic treatments with my Decorator in Chief.  I had some discussions with architect friends who often design sound studios and performance spaces, to decide what to push hardest, and get some alternative suggestions where the best solution looked - um - industrial. (That's the nicest word used by the Decorator in Chief about some of the recommendations.) That led to my enthusiasm for some decorative drapes made from specific fabrics that were both acoustically and visually agreeable. And, led to me getting a few of my photographs (my part time profession) printed on acoustic panels of the right specs and sizes. Acoustic absorption was the easiest part of the negotiations.

 

We also came to some agreement on diffusion that were pretty creative. We moved furniture around to create a couple of table top and cabinet top "sculpture gardens". We've got carved wood and cast sculptures, some pretty large, from world travels. Now we've got nice displays, not in ideal locations, but close enough. Also moved a couple large carved masks onto walls in the room for some diffusion help, where originally we were going to hang photos.

 

We measured with ears, and the bass traps and back wall absorption (the acoustic panel photos) made huge improvements. We found one recommended bass trap had near zero value, because of a carpeted stairway right next to where it was supposed to go. The diffusion ideas were harder to notice with music, but when we did them, they DID improve my "hand clap" test results.

 

My basement studio and printing workshop are next - a very long, somewhat narrow room, 9 foot ceiling, carpeted floor. I've got some thick Tibetan and Middle Eastern rugs I'm hanging for absorption, another thick one over the carpet up close to the speakers (carpet on concrete wasn't quite enough) and that leftover bass trap now has a home. All made much easier because the speakers I use down there are pretty insensitive to placement - open baffle (effectively dipole) woofers, cardioid mid and tweeters.

[ednaz]

5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Thanks for all the info. I'm with your Decorator in Chief :~)

 

I'm not a big fan of making a listening room look like a place one would never want to spend time. I'm working with Vicoustic on colors etc... to make things look good for a reasonable price.

 

Back to your original point about measuring differences between different options. I would love to do that and will plan to do that if it isn't too time consuming. But, it's such valuable information I think I have to do it and write about it. 

 

Do take a look at the photo print on acoustic panels options. Looks better than I expected by far. If you're an ambitious DIYer, you can find info on printing and then building your own acoustic panel. I'm not that ambitious. The places I found that did print covers had a library of (decent) art options for those who don't have their own work.