Is this acoustician correct?

[MJH]

Hi, 

 

We had an acoustician visit to look at treating a small ish room. It's around 9ft x 9ft. 

 

They seem good, I'm happy to go with them, but they said that "it will be hard to get frequencies below 70Hz in here."

 

Is it this simple? It's a big investment for us. I have to place a lot of trust in whoever takes on the job. 

 

I came across a discussion on stereophile.com from 2014, on bass in small rooms. One of the members, a guy called Michael Green, posted this:

 

My one listening room is 9 X 9 and easily goes into the twenties no problem.

Keep in mind sound is vibration, and if the room is not able to reproduce vibrations your not going to hear them. Also if you dampen the room to the point where you are only hearing what's coming off of the cone that's exactly what the music will sound like, "a cone" and the body of the musical notes will not be fully developed.

For many years I have had to go in and rebuild rooms that were extremely over built. It's an embarrassment for the client to spend all that money to only find that what they ended up with was frequencies and not music reproduction.

 

 

[MJH]

I feel emotional reading through all this. Thank you for the kindness and patience.

 

It's a topic that can seem totally overwhelming approached online, but you have broken it down into an ethos (step by step) and some practical starting points. 

 

I will take apart this information and put it to good use. And, yes, maybe find a new acoustician, if one is needed.

 

For a few years I worked as a tutor. I was always struck by how parents trusted I was an expert, and didn't question me. I think the modern service economy has a lot of mis-information and practitioners who are not necessarily the best for the job. If it wasn't for forums like this, we could have just sunk a lot of money into something for no reason. 

[MJH]

This is all fantastic advice. A real treasure trove, enough to get going on.

 

M 

 

[MJH]

Thanks, I've spent the last couple of days going through all these leads and taking notes. 

I'll be sure to get back once things start getting somewhere. 

[MJH]

On 6/22/2021 at 8:51 PM, ASRMichael said:

With a lot of patience and careful placement acoustic panels & DSP. This has been my journey. 9x15f

 

Bottom is before & above is after. 
 

 

 

 

Would it be possible to see some pictures of your space? Or stages that you went through? 

I'm interested to see what kind of treatment you have, where it's placed etc. 

It's interesting, I've seen quite a few people start with more treatment and then slowly remove it and focus on speaker placement etc. 

[MJH]

Hello,

 

I posted here back in June, because some acousticians said 'you'll find it hard to get frequencies below 70Hz in this room.' 

 

Following the great feedback from this forum, I didn't follow up with the acoustician. Got a Umik instead, started measuring the room. Feels like a gauntlet has been thrown down. 

 

I wonder if anyone could be so kind as to glance over these sketches and see if they are fundamentally acceptable?

 

The tube traps would be 16 - 20" diameter, good for 40 - 55Hz. 

 

Rear wall a built in, diaphragmatic absorption panel, perhaps filled with charcoal. Maybe angled, maybe flat. 

 

Monitors built into the tubes. 

 

I can add a few more tubes, take some out, change their size. Add standard bass traps to the walls etc.  Add a subwoofer or two. 

 

At this point I'm looking at the fundamental concept, wondering what you might change. 

 

The room is not totally symmetrical. You can see from the sketches, the ceiling, a doorway, window etc. Partly why I don't want to set it up in the conventional 'face the short wall' way. 

 

I'll keep it simple for now, happy to include anything if anyone has questions. 

 

Rough footprint is 3.57m x 2.93m (11.7' x 9.6').  

[MJH]

Hi,

Yes, tube traps are reflective on one half, and can be angled to maintain liveliness in the room in interesting ways. 

 

The recommended distance from Focal Be6 Solos is 3-5 feet. The sketches I've done are not exact, but they're around that range. 

 

It's not usually a good idea to sit close to the back wall, but in this room, it seems to be where the lower end works best. With the absorbers, and the right position, it should deal with the suck.

 

I agree that less is more, and that working step by step is the best approach, starting with a little bit and seeing how it works.

 

Thanks guys, 

 

Happy to hear any more thoughts / criticisms / observations.

 

 

 

 

 

[MJH]

They're actually pretty easy to make, and not very expensive at all. 

 

Monitors I already own. 

[MJH]

Hi all,

 

Have made some good progress over here. Re-organised the room, built some big treatment panels, and finally there is a good bass response happening.

 

Still quite a few tweaks to do before I share anything. 

 

In particular, I'm looking for a DSP programme. I have a UMIK-1 microphone. 

 

Ideally the DSP works through a Macbook connected to Scarlett audio interface. I'd like to be able to play music via e.g. Spotify as well as from within a DAW like Ableton.

 

As far as I can tell, Dirac only works from within Ableton. Sonarworks doesn't accept the UMIK 1. Are there any other programmes you know of that offer flexibility? 

 

It's the end of a long day and I'm tired, sorry if this is an annoying question. 

 

Mikey