Finally, a good, true, professional advice from someone who understands music recoding, producing and playback. Many people who consider themselves as Audiophiles, or Experts, pays little attention if any to their room acoustics. To summarize, a $2K system in room with good acoustics will sound better than a $200K system in bad acoustics room.
Go to Acoustic Fields TH-cam page. They have real education on room acoustics, room treatment. Here's a room that they designed and the customer built. th-cam.com/video/eMLA5h0nh8s/w-d-xo.html Obviously, this is a high end room, but they do have ways to drastically improve the acoustics in your room. Most people don't understand low frequency energy and how to properly treat for it..
@@Oneness100 thanks for sharing this video. It might put some people off because when you first see the room, you think ‘yeh, right that’s for millionaires only but the principles remain and there are some very useful links to the forum where one can learn how to DIY improve our listening areas.
@@PearlAcoustics That's the point. The other thing to take note of is this. I've been searching a lot of different acoustic treatment companies over the years because in my last home, I had the worst dimensions for a room and I was trying to get it to sound right and NOTHING worked from what I did, etc. I stumbled across Acoustic Fields purely by accident one day and I called him up on a problem I was having and he told me there wasn't anything I could do other than tear down a wall and rebuild it. I got invited to check out his demo room, which was kind of funny since it had virtually the same floor dimensions as the room in my last home, so I figured, let me see what he did with it. I went in and what he did was just simply amazing. It was literally the best sounding room I think I've ever been in. And not by a small margin. I honestly believe that they have the best low frequency absorption products on the market and they REALLY understand how to treat low frequencies properly. Hands down, no question I would GLADLY recommend not only using their product, but getting advice from them on low frequency issues. The most expensive part is the activated carbon and he's the only place to go since they use a specific type of activated carbon and they have the patents on using it for acoustic treatment. And yes, he has tested all of their Diaphragmatic Absorption design using every fill material on the market that's used for audio related builds. He simply said the activated carbon outperforms EVERYTHING else. Yes, their foam is more expensive, but they mfg.. it themselves and not in huge quantities because they are still a relatively small company that actually designed and mfg. their own foam.. Many of the other foam companies simply buy the same stuff from one main mfg. OR they are just a bigger company that might have been around longer that does a lot more advertising.. Either way, I learned a lot from watching his videos and talking to him and I think he's a genius for coming up with the designs that he does. eIther way, if you can, check out one of his rooms he's done for a customer.
I am 60 and started listening to music when I was probably 14. My love of music led me into HI-FI, how refreshing to finally have someone talk some sense about room acoustics. It feels like I have just been told, no you're not mad. Moving my head just six inches I found could make such a difference to the sound I was hearing. I have only heard about four systems that sounded really good to me and one of them I gave away because I thought I needed something better. But when I heard it in the room of the person I gave it to I Knew it was not the equipment, because it sounded really good. This is why auditioning HI-FI in a shop is totally pointless. I now have a system costing only two to three hundred pounds and the sound is all you could wish for, It may not be an accurate sound reproduction, what ever that may be, but it is a very nice listening experience without hurting your ears, just because the room by chance is good acoustically.
Just found this video at the same time as I'm working with my room. 8m2 50mm Rockwoll cost around €30 and is a fantastic investment. Three ways I use the Rockwool in my room with Magnepan 1.6 loudspeakers. - Big canvas painting 1,5*1,5m with 50mm Rockwool on the wall behind the listening position. - Record shelfs on the short wall behind the speakers are moved 12cm from the wall and Rockwall wrapped in thin cotton fabric hanging on the backside of the shelf. - I'm also built two screens 60*180cm with 15*69mm wooden frame and filled with 50mm Rockwool. I use a thicker fabric on this screens. They are very easy to move and I use one in front of a large glass door and the other in front of an opening to another room that don't have any door.
So many brilliant observations: I encourage everyone to listen to this multiple times. For example; covering a wooden coffee table (situated parallel with the floor). How often have we. Seen a set of NSM-10 s perched atop the meter bridge on a makeshft ledge. Hmm, got reflections just forward of listening position A.
If it only was that easy. I have been playing around with acoustics in 3 different houses over the past 20 years and yes you can make improvements with some of the things you mention but it is just as easy to make things worse too. And no a sack full of rock wool in a corner will not make an enormous difference. It will make a very small difference. Some panels in the right places with the right thickness is a good idea yes but to get things right is not easy at all. I think getting into sound and it's complexity has been the most difficult thing I have ever tried in my live. It's easy to make a bare room a little more dead. It's also easy to make it too dead. To get things right is extremely difficult and an art that takes a lot of experience.
Thanks for your comment, you might find my video on the building of our new listening room interesting? You can also apply science to try and dolce the problem. GIK have been doing so for decades…
Way back in the day I was with a crew of carpet installers when we did a recording studio in Burbank, Ca. We did floor AND the walls. Long story short, several years later I did the walls in my apartment’s small living. Using just a lot of scrapes and doing a modern art / geometric designs... Starting with just some on the sidewalls. In the long run, did the whole room chasing the reflections. Them came a pair of subs. Just had to rearrange until the standing wave was gone. Then tuned the bass with an Audio Control Richter Scale, that’s using a mic with the worbbel tone thingy...and tone out on the preamp. New house and just bass eq done, sounds as good as ever 30 years on...with Adcom 555 and Audio Control Richter Scale for sub pair and the older Parasound HCA 750 for the mains. PS The old Adcom DAC came in very handy hooking up old school hifi with newer tv.
I really enjoy these videos. Great stories. Down to earth approach. About the panels: Be careful with the fabric you cover the rock-wool with. Prefer not to paint anything on the surface. You might create reflections if the paint is thick and reflective. We want absorption. The fabric have to be thin. You should nearly be able to look through the fabric when you hold it up against the light. Test the fabrics ability to absorb sound by blowing through the fabric. If it's easy, you probably got the right fabric. Just make sure the fabric is dense enough so you don't get any Rockwool dust into your room. That's not healthy. I even don't use wooden frames. Use extra long screws straight through the fabric-covered Rockwool plates. As long as you don't put pressure or weight on them they work fine. In this way you will have sound absorption on all the sides. Even on the short narrow sides. Make also sure to have such long screws so that the panels are hanging two inches out from the walls. Even more absorption on the back sides. Soon you have an over-damped the room like I did... I haven't finished with the acoustics of my room. I probably never will be. It's great fun and you learn a lot about how sound works in a terrible room. Final tip : Have your doors to the listening room open. Let the pressure waves from the woofer escape.....
The first time the whole room acoustics topic made any sense. And very much common sense. About to set up a listening room, so will heed your advice and listen to the room after doing initial set-up.
Thanks very much. One way of getting very close to the studio mix, is to use a decent (not the same necessarily as wildly expensive) pair of headphones. This of course is socially isolating; but living alone, that isn't a problem. As one of those fabled creatures, the State Pensioner, my resources are limited. Still, I've cobbled together a sound/home theater system for around £500; CDs are played as much thru laptop as DVD/CD player. Your suggestions for 'fine tuning' the (single room!) living space are very helpful.
Hi David, thanks for your comment. Indeed headphones are a very good way to listen to music but they can only be close to the original master, if the mixing and mastering engineers worked exclusively on headphones, never intending two channel loudspeaker stereo listening. This is because when listening to headphones none of the sound from the right channel enters your left ear, or vice versa. In ‘real life’ this is not the case. But I totally agree either you, it is very sociable in as much as it does not disturb others, and is a very good way to get high quality for a reasonable investment. Enjoy your music.
People have to accept the room is probably the most important component in their system. Doing what you can to take the room will make a tremendous difference in the sound of your system. i made some absorption panels for the corners of my room, added a couple of panels (2X2 ft) to tame the first reflection points, and those along with a thick rug tames the room right down. I made the 2x4 panels (24"x48"X4") myself so the cost was pretty low. Recently I swapped my component stack (preamp, Dac and Cd transport) with the turntable, all of this sits on a sturdy record cabinet on a side wall. I immediately noticed a harsh glare to the sound and wondered what happened. It turns out the smooth cover of my Music Hall MMF-7 was now bouncing sound around the room. The cure was to store mt Sennheiser HD650's on top of that turntable, that was enough to break up that reflection point and the system sounded right again.
I have just the sort of system mentioned , About £3000 in a converted garage . Instead of upgading equipment i decided to do a bit of room treatment . Using GIK free advice, i installed bass tri traps in the front corners . The difference was amazing in the bass reproduction. I've since upgraded the room treatment several times including, reflection points, back wall and ceiling and I'm in the process of buying some Scopus traps. Now i know how good my system was if I'd given it the chance.. The difference is jaw dropping. It's not cheap ,but don't upgrade your system ,talk to GIK.
Great suggestions. It is the one area I have not explored, and my room is a bit bright. I planned on buying some rockwool before the pandemic hit. Things are back to normal, and I have learned to just get stuff delivered so it is time for me to get on with this.
Hello, I whole heartedly agree with you about simple basic room acoustics. I bought two 6x2 feet slabs of 100mm rockwool, covered each in a old cotton sheet which we use when decorating. I simply placed each one on a bucket straddling the two corners behind the main speakers. Wow!!!! Everything opened up. For the first time in 20 years I was hearing my speakers and not the room. The Soundstage was bigger the quality of bass put a smile on my face. But the biggest difference was in the mid and highs which had been suffocated by way too much low-frequency bouncing around the room. I went on to make my own cosmeticly beautiful low energy tri-corner traps for all corners and even my wife and kids say the room sounds much bigger. Room acoustics gives all the different frequencys room to play and be heard. Anyone into quality sound listening isn't doing their equipment or themselves justice if they haven't acousticly treated at least the corners of their listening space🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶👏
I'm glad to hear someone else use the word "dead" without it being a negative thing. I've set up my listening room to be as dead as I could afford and I'd still like to go further. I describe is as quiet and intimate. It's like a library in there. I enjoy just walking into the room with nothing playing. All the things in and outside of your house that make noise suddenly go away. I know that to really flatten out the bass repsonse I'd have to spend lots of money, but I accept that. I am still happy with a large amount of mid and treble being absorbed. For some reason a lot of audiophiles are content to listen in rooms with hard surfaces all over and lots of reverb. That's fine, do whatever makes you happy, but I find it to be a one-trick pony. In a dead room you can really concentrate. Dry recordings sound close and intimate and ones with big room sound are still spacious. I really like absorption, but I have not experienced a wall covered in quadratic diffusors, so maybe that is even better, I don't know.
Just binge watched your videos which I have to say are perfectly authoritive and useful without being too techie. My ambition to hear some Sibelius one day Thanks for your generosity
I think a good resource for room acoustics is Acoustic Fields, who have a very good channel here. Especially their work and advice on treatment for bass management is somewhat different and seems well founded.
Thanks for the tip! As the French say, “there’s more than one way of boiling an egg” - tuned traps can, for example, be very effective when a room has a specific problem at a given frequency, for example.
Thank you so much man! I've followed your advice (and other is true) and now my listening room looks so strange that my wife stay away from this "monstrous sacks, rugs, wood and furniture design" and it became indeed acoustically dead as even if she's coming in and speak to me her voice is so flat and soundless that I barely hear it... You're the man! Happy and health 2021 New Year! Best wishes for your wife either (even if I didn't see her in any of your videos and hope she do not read this comment)!
Dear Gabriel, your secret is safe with me! I hope you enjoy the difference in the sound of your system? Thank you for your kind wishes. A very happy and healthy 2021 too!
This is great and the most value advise in music lovers world. I'm just about making a project of saloon in my flat, where my stereo will be, and all in design is about the acoustics. Good idea with those diy panels. I might give it a go and try to put a painting on it. Thank you so much for this video.
A bang on simple explanation and is something that I'm slowly working on with the wife 😆. She isn't keen on acoustic panels etc, but I'll find something that will be pleasing to her eyes I'm sure of it. Maybe some pictures printed 😋
THIS IS ONE HUNDRED PERECENT GOSPEL TRUTH! I have always tried my best to treat the room first to very good effect. My current room is extensively treated with GIK Acoustic and as stated in the video, the staff at GIK is there to make your room right. My sound designer at GIK James Lindenschmidt has worked with me from day one and is always happy to help. My entire system is around 27K USD and it outperforms systems I've heard in other rooms that are multi 6 figure systems. ROOM FIRST, gear second!
Alas, nigh on impossible for me. I live in a cavernous studio apartment, around 75 square meters and 5 meter high ceilings, two mezzanine platforms, wooden floors, huge skylight spanning the entire ceiling, more or less floor to ceiling windows on two adjacent walls. It doesn't matter what I do to treat this space, sound bounces around it and does its own thing. There quite simply is not a "handful of tricks" that suits ALL spaces. I've tried. Endlessly I've tried. You can't tame it. I've learnt to live with imperfect sound, and really its a money saver, as it's basically pointless investing huge sums of cash anymore on Hifi. Still, the music sounds great and I love this apartment. Swings n roundabouts.
Absolutely! Sometimes large spaces can be fine because the points of reflection are so far away, they are not an issue. Especially if one sits quite close in (+/- 2,5metres / 8 feet) enjoy the music!
Very good video. I love the analysis and the exaplanations. And the little tips you gave are making a difference in my office right now. I added an undepard unde my rug, added a few pillows in the corners and covered 2 angles with thick curtains. I can hear the difference. Love it
Stefan Ifrim thanks for your feedback. So pleased my advice has helped. In an office, another little trick is to fix sound absorbing foam under tables and desks. This too makes a difference without spoiling the appearance.
I love playing around with the room acoustics in my livingroom. I found the best 'upgrade' to my system was a home made diffusor on the wall behind my speakers. The improvement wasn't subtle, vocals are cleaner and easier to understand. They also appear out of nowhere and stay fixed in the centre. I wouldn't be without it now.
@@jeffn1384 I bought a plastic (180cm x 90cm) garden patterned trellis / panel which had irregular holes in it, but a wooden frame and screwed it to the trellis and put packing foam that I get from work for nothing and finally sealed it with some material and hung it on the wall.
🤗 🤩 WOW I JUST TRIED THIS IN MY LIVING ROOM AND I HAVE LESS ECHO THAN IN YOUR ROOM 👏 VERY INTERESTING 🧐 THANKS FOR THE EDUCATION and even better I have the W.A.F. 😉😂😍😍😍
I love the rockwool in hessian bags as bass traps. As I’m currently in the process of convincing my wife about panels and traps, does that hessian bag DIY version do well enough to use instead of buying from GIK? My wife will be happy with the look of those bags versus triangular panels up the wall!
GIK can add scientific reasoning. However, the hessian bags work very well, cost next to nothing and if you are not satisfied, can be very easily recycled.
dear sir your posts are wonderful. experience and good intentions.i hope we meet one day and enjoy sibelius what is what I now look for. all the best for you.
I'm SO with you on this key point. It's just so much easier to sell someone the box with the fancy lights than real acoustic design. In fact, if you didn't know what you know, would you know who to turn to for a well designed listening room? Yeah, me neither. I would disagree that a good mix space is "dead". It is balanced but not overly dead. The RT60 time should be proper but not zero. Spent much time and money to get the room as right as the system. Great points but will be lost on the market.
Thanks. Diagonal walls it not necessarily a bad thing. Try and follow the advice in the video and contact a firm like GIK, if you need more information
Good afternoon. The rock wool bag is interesting. I wanted to know if I can directly put the rock wool on a false ceiling, the kind that has a border around it with lighting. I don't know if that would reduce the echo or if the material is hidden the frequencies would not be eliminated. The material would remain on that open edge, between wall and ceiling. I try to hide it so my wife doesn't get mad, haha. Thank you so much!
Hi, False ceilings are usually not a problem acoustically (unless they buzz) my best advise is to reach out to GIK, send them some photos etc, and see what they suggest. Their service is free and it could inspire a diy solution, if budget was too high.
I see your friends Sonata Studio's and I share the same speakers for mastering. Take care of the room first as you say, the most important first set and you will get the maximum out of your speakers. Cheers from Canada.
my listening room is pretty much neutral bookcases and curtains; nice thick wall-to wall carpets, back wall is plaster-board...................my very modest system sounds superb
Hi great video, like you I’ve made my own acoustic panels, tbh it’s not brain science, just common sense, and the great thing is you can make any size to fit your own requirements, you say about gik acoustics , I’m just wondering how they determine where you need to place the panels, I understand they are very good at selling you their products
Thanks for your kind comments. I think a diy based approach can make a very big difference, however certain standing waves and peaks and nulls at specific frequencies can be very difficult to remove without messing up other valuable improvements. What I learned, working with GIK is the delicate balance between absorption, diffraction, reflection and a combination of both or all, in any given specific panel. Their expertise and software identifies the problem areas and from photos and room dimensions they can very accurately pin point what kind of panel and where. The interesting thing is, that what they charge is extremely reasonable (often no more than the cost of a good quality HiFi component). I am not sponsored by GIK or gain any benefits from them, I was just genuinely impressed with their professionalism, attitude and customer service - and the results they obtained in our listening room in Belgium. (I too was very sceptical at first).
Hi, very nice video. Loved it. I've got a little question, I'm in the same situation as you for my room (#slopedceilingfamily) and I'm planning to treat my room acoustically. Now I see that you didn't put any treatment on the wall behind your speaker (which normally people do). So is there any acoustical/esthetic or other reasons for that? Thx for all the video's they are really eye-opening for me (and plus I learned you do this all in Belgium, so local for my me). Keep up the good work!
Hi Michael. Thank you for your kind words. Sorry for the late reply! Acoustics is such a tricky point. In my case treatment behind the enclosures was not necessary. I ran some REW tests all was clear there. + the Sibelius enclosures are very thick and have no rear ports, so they can be placed to a rear wall, no problem at all. Check out REW testing, GIK will analise your results for you and advise. But you can also experiment with overcoats and quilts and blankets ;-)
Blueglow Electronics recommended this video and I'm glad I gave a watch. Thanks. I will be building a custom home in the next year and I have the opportunity to create a listening room of any shape I choose. In combination with your excellent advice here on sound dampening, is there a particular room shape you would recommend if you had a blank slate as I do? Thanks!
Hmm. Big question! It depends how many people will be listening to music at the same time and if they all want to sit in the ‘sweet spot’. If it’s only you then a rectangle is great but, I am afraid life is complex and sound dispersion, even more so! Look at the shape of concert halls.... sorry it’s too big a question for me to answer in the limited time I have available. But I hope this helps a little
@@PearlAcoustics Great, thanks! As it happens, I am a bit of an introvert and I spend most of my time alone. So perhaps a simple rectangle will suffice. Thanks again!
I have to say, this was the single most enjoyable video on the topic of what a great recording is, as it covers so many other “controversial” topics!! So many so called Audiophiles overlook the fact that there is a very big difference in a Live Recording and one executed in a Studio. So often I hear them describe speakers, or an amp making a Studio recording sound like a live performance, because as you mentioned, the spaces are very different in how they resonate and frequencies overlap in concert halls relative to a very controlled Studio environment. I would love to hear your thoughts on a “Little Known” company founded by Tom Jung in 1983, which was one of the very first to release non-classical recording on Compact Disc, recording in a completely Digital environment, Digital Music Productions (DMP)! They were the pioneer of the Super Audio Compact Disc, issuing the first multichannel SACD, Sacred Feast. The recordings were as, Miles Davis’ recording “Kind of Blue” were….one take, no channel mixing…Like you like it!! My first DMP disc was Thom Rotella’s…”Thom, Rotella Ban”’!! The first time I listened to this CD, I didn’t know what to think as it sounded far, far, far better than anything I had ever heard!! I soon acquired a copy of Bob Mintzer’s big Band Album, “Spectrum”….track number 9, “The Heart of the Matter”, exhibits a dynamic range and reproduction of detail that, even by today’s advancements in technology, is unsurpassed! I can vividly remember in Washington DC, where I grew up and was fortunate to attend the International Stereo Show, which was held at the Washington Hilton, conveniently located on the same block I lived… I had the Thom Rotells band CD with me, and while playing it in the Audio Research room, where ironically NO ONE HAD HEARD OF, the sales rep from Dahlquist commented….”If every CD sounded that good, I WOULDN’T WORK!!” Even today you can obtain many of these Super Audio CD’s, which aren’t labeled as SACD’s, for as little as 5 BUCKS!! I’m sure that once you review any one of them, that’s going to change quickly!! If you haven’t hear them, you will be surely surprised by what was recorded, (fantastic music) almost FORTY YEARS ago! I will look forward to hearing what you think!! Cheers from Athens Alabama, where I live now.
Thank you so much for your kind words and very enlightening comment. I will definitely check out the pieces you mentioned. Sounds intriguing - can’t wait!
@@PearlAcoustics Not sure how my comment was posted on this video, but it was meant for the “What makes for a Great Recording?”, video. But really glad you read it and believe me you won’t be disappointed….those recording are like a “secret” that few really know about, and for the life of me….I DON’T KNOW WHY??? Thank you for the timely response!😊
It’s been 2 months I have trying to get tips on room acoustics and your video and expiation is my top favourite. Would love to see more videos please your huge knowledge to new audio enthusiast like me. I hit the subscribed button Also I liked your explanation of your FR spesker can I purchase plan since I can get Mark audio drivers locally
Dear Anand, sorry but our cabinets are made of 14 year aged French oak and built to very exacting standards. The drive cones are especially made to our specification but you will find other kit builders and diy designs on the Internet if our 3000EUR retail price is too high! Good luck eith everything! More videos coming soon.
Your speakers do intrigue me. I want to get away from all the hype and settle for one amp and one set of speakers and be done with it. A little concerned about shipping speakers from Europe to the USA. However I'll cross that bridge when I'm ready to order. Cheers.
Thank you. We have happy clients in the US. Shipping these days is rather fast, painless and not that expensive. But there’s no rush from our side.! Our production goes at a gentle pace and patience is required anyway ;-)
Wow... you've explained this all in a way that tied everything up in a nice bow and smoothed out the rough edges. Your personal experience through the entire music record/playback chain plus your ability to convey information so clearly was supper accessible, understandable and a treat. I have to ask, I have not experience with Rockwool, but looking at their product online I see that they are semirigid. What preparation did you make to the rockwool in order to fill the burlap bags for the base trap?
Thank you for your very kind remarks. The Rockwall I used came in a roll, held together in a thin plastic wrap. I made the bags just big enough to fit them in (2 in each bag). Then, when the fist one was in the bag, I pulled off the plastic wrap. It’s that easy. I made the bag double thickness hessian (sack cloth). Good luck!
@@PearlAcoustics To be clear, you said "Rockwall"..and I assume "Rockwool". is that the brand? Just want to do some research here in the US for the correct product. Any web link to what you used is much appreciated.
I understand the bass-in-corners concept and have heard bass nodes in my room. But if you're not listening from that point why does it matter. Or are we trying to eliminate bass reflections at the listening position and the corners are the most effective place to do it.
Dear Jef. You make a very good point. You only need to do this if the reflections coming back from the corners are arriving back at the listening position out of phase from those coming from the loudspeakers directly and causing a lack of bass (or in some cases, less frequent) too much of it. Of course, if the sound in your listening position is good, with nice crisp, detailed and sufficiently deep bass (assuming your loudspeakers are capable of producing that) - then you can ignore that part of the video. Hoping that’s the case for you.
@@PearlAcoustics thanks for clarifying. I have some old IMF Reference Standard Professional Monitors (Mark IV)..I enjoyed your video and will used that knowledge to improve my listening space. Thanks for replying.
Very helpful. Perhaps people need to think of stereos more like good furniture -- which benefit from care and placement -- than like appliances, such as microwaves. We live in what philosopher Albert Borgmann calls the "device paradigm" where instant, automatic, and contextless technology does what we command, instantly; but we know that is not appropriate for plants, other people, and, it turns out, audio equipment. An ecological approach to audio results in a well-functioning system, and the "product," if you will, is aesthetic consummation.
Hi Harley, thanks for this video. I was wondering if you have also tried with other materials (e.g. used cloths) for your sacks/bass traps and if they can be effective as well. The reason I’m asking is because I’m personally a little bit worried about rockwool or fiberglass fibers getting out of the back and being inhaled.
Very informative video sir.. couple of questions, if I out put Rockwood/glasswool panels under the sofas, will it help in absorbing some bit of lower frequencies? Also the sacks of rockwool is a superb idea and can be easily removed when guests come over.. Can just placing a couple of them in the two corners behind the speakers be enough or will it be better to place them in the corners facing the speakers so that they don't reflect back in the first place?
Thank you for your kind comments. Absorbing bass is about converting the energy into heat. Many people have problems with bass (or the lack of) in rooms when they have a small room with hard walls and floors. Funnily enough, Gyproc walls can help! But, yes the big sacks work! There is no rule as to where they should be placed. every location is unique. Play some bass heavy tracks and move around the room using your ears crouching down and standing up, as I explain. But you can always reach out to GIK and send them some photos, their first interaction is free of charge. Placing extra under a sofa might not make much difference. It all depends where either the absorption (or diffusion) is needed. Sorry for the rather incomplete answer but I hope it helps a little?
I lucky/unlucky to have a listening room with so much other stuff that it is pretty dead. It also helps to listen in the near field if possible. Though not too practical with floorstanders.
Oh that’s a very good point indeed! Chairs with ‘wings’ or any construction behind the head or shoulders can cause a big problem with unwanted short echos or colouration.
Hi Thanks for the video. Do you have measurements with Room EQ Wizard for example? Can you put them? What kind of wool have you put in the burlap sack? Written with translator Greetings
Dear Juan José, thanks for your comment. I am using Rockwall insulation in the sacks. I did make some tests but that was long ago! Typically we found the decay rate improved - but the improvements were so massive that testing became rather theoretical. It’s a good idea to test to start with and see where you have problems, but you have to use your ears too! Ie most tests will tell you that you have a problem but not what’s causing it. The great thing about panels snd sacks is that you can experiment at low cost! + if you get some rugs and if you empty your wardrobe of all the clothes your family owns, you can Cary out some interesting experiments! Good luck!
@@PearlAcoustics Thanks for the clarification of the Rockwall insulation wool, it was simply the stuffing of the burlap sack. I am well served as tests, in my case I use padding, a material more effective in deep bass than wool and for first reflection panels whose thickness is at least 30 cm, I also use padding. The yarn that people I know use is Knauf Tabyk-p or TP-116, perfect for 25 cm thick panels and 40 to 60 cm corner panels. My comment was to see the burlap sack. Greetings and thanks for the deference in answering my question.
@@JuanJose-wt5yj hi by burlap sack, I guess you mean the big hessian sacks in the corner of the room? In this case it is Rockwall insulation. I use two complete rolls.
@@PearlAcoustics Yes, my mention was for the big sacks of arpillera and their Rockwall insulation filling, I'll be attentive to your channel just in case he makes a video with room eq wizard
Interesting video, thank you. I have been listening to my Quad 2 and 22 for over 40 years and one of the features of the quad i love is the open sound stage combined with great detail. I do not have the wealth of experience that you obviously have but to date i have never heard the width and presence from other amps. Currently I am on the verge of having them refurbished ( possibly following Mr Snook's suggestions) due to noticeable issues due to tired highly original components. Do you have any opinions or advice regarding such refurbishment?? incidentally I 100% concur about the room acoustics having conducted many experiments. My thanks for your attention.
Hi. Thanks for the comments. Personally, I would send them back to Quad. They do a great job and are not too expensive. + that protects their intrinsic value. Good luck
My room is 22 feet long, 18 feet wide, 8 feet high, is open plan with a 12 feet by 7 feet kitchen annex. The flooring is a mix of wood and tiling laid over concrete. My walls are plasterboard and one long wall is all window from 3 feet up. I am on the ground floor of a city centre apartment block. The exterior is brick work against a steel frame, the under floor is block and beam over a 5 feet cavern. I guess there is about 2 feet of concrete between my apartment and the one above. I am at the end of the building so I only have one neighbouring apartment separated by a hallway and stairway. I’ve loosely studied room acoustics. My listening room, which is also the family open plan lounge, technically doing everything wrong. I have no specific room treatment. I have placed a large, plush rug, in front of, and between the speakers. Other than that, the only other sound absorption is my large leather 2-seater sofa in the listening position and a matching 3-seater settee along the long wall, under the window. As you will gather, far from ideal. I have spent the equivalent of a decent car on my hifi rig. I’ve achieved a good sound reproduction. Whilst I appreciate that acoustic treatment would potentially massively augment my listening pleasure, I have to balance it agains the practicalities of family living. I don’t have the luxury of a separate listening room, my hifi rig has to fight for it’s right to be in our family lounge. If anyone within a mile of Bristol city centre can offer me a good listening room? I’d snap their hand off!
Good afternoon sir. I'm planing purchasing a pair of Sibelius with Sugden A21SE . I want your honest opinion on how good is the sound at low volume a maximum of 60 db in a small bedroom. is the sound stage still gorgeous? THANK YOU.
Hi Sebastian, many of ours customers comment on how the sound of our Sibelius loudspeakers is the same at low listening levels as louder. But if you reach out to us via our website, we will be happy to put you in touch with a customer or two with a Sibelius paired with the Sugden A21SE. I am sure they will give you some valuable insight. + I would be happy to speak with you on the topic. Hope this helps?
In my new house, I had a reverbe time of 2,1. Nice, isn‘t it. An average Cathedral has about 1,8. So I had installed a acoustic ceilling. Now I have an RT of 3,8. And I have the fealing, I did too much. 😉 Absolutly no echos. But, as you said. It is acousticly dead.
A small addition: Books on open shelves randomly placed... as a diffuser; different surfaces of different depths and shapes and materials etc. Normally, Mark Rothko on the wall! Happy listening to all lovers of sound and music!
Hello!, thanks for your info. I built some hi fi speakers and then I noticed how acoustically poor my room is. I have a lot of problems with canceling bass. I think that if I use sandbags in the middle of the room it could absorb some of the energy and improve this aspect, is that right?. Thanks in advance.
Hi. I would check with GIK. But generally I would suggest in the corners is the best place to start. And Rockwool would probably be better or special bass traps. Have you followed all my tips about listening with a bass heavy track on? Good luck!
@@PearlAcoustics Yes I did, but I still have no chance of placing anything in the corners today. If I can place bags with sand or other material inside the drawer of the sofa. There is a large empty place inside it but it only justifies if it will produce some absorption in the room.
Rockwool is a known and measured quantity that works. Acoustic solutions are very much about the materials used. This study indicates hay is a poor sound absorber. www.researchgate.net/publication/318792609_STRAW_AS_AN_ACOUSTIC_MATERIAL
Unfortunately in a marriage the wife ain't having all of that lol. I was wondering, would wallpaper instead of painted walls make any difference. Great videos I'll keep watching.
Any mixing engineer worth their salt will mix their productions to sound good IN REALISTIC LISTENING SCENARIOS. Aka: people's kitchens, living rooms, cars, ... No mixing engineer with a brain will expect normal listeners to have an acoustical listening environment similar to the music studios acoustically treated near-field listening environment. That said: I do agree with your fundamental premise in/of this video. I myself cringe when I see people who proudly show their gear / music setup - with appalling speaker placement. And it happens even when I've been to the homes of audiophiles and music producers - "bedroom" as well as established, pro producer studios. Proper, custom acoustic treatment (that solves the problems it is supposed to - vs just being put up blindly, based on TH-cam videos etc) and proper, fine-tuned speaker setup: makes a world of difference. Music becomes IMMERSIVE and yes: sounds true, to what the producer and mixing engineer intended. The emotion in/of the music will translate properly - the music becomes way more enjoyable. TRULY enjoyable. All of a sudden, one can FEEL inside what the singer is conveying emotionally, the timbres of the instruments get more meaning, the rhythm makes you want to rock/tap your feet, or dance even:)
With all respects Steve, I would like to reassure you that it certainly can and does. A double bass can fill a concert hall and it’s bridge moves it’s front play, only a fraction of a millimeter, The Sibelius’ drive cone has a similar column of air behind it. But it can more 6mm in each direction. A Bass clarinet produces incredibly loud low notes from a reed that’s only an inch wide. Our loudspeakers can produce way more bass than many other multi driver floor standers. Perhaps check out Thomas & Stereo’s video review? th-cam.com/video/rNRwtIJPtzQ/w-d-xo.html
observation: I live in a decent home with a sort-of great room living room. It is NOT a dedicated listening room. Not like the high dollar boys. I violate lots of his rules. I do have $34k of equipment. Yes I have carpet. No there's no acoustic panels/ or sound deadening on the walls. Sofa and twin recliners. Just be rest assured that if you get great gear you'll be very pleased. As long as the amps & speakers get along per his other videos. Turn up old rock cd's to 5 watts so your neighbor enjoys it too. Wango Tango.
Thanks for your comment. In fact you hit on a very important point. Sometimes big rooms are just fine without any treatments because the delay in the echo coming back is rather long and can give a natural ‘concert hall’ type effect, and when it comes back, it is much quieter than the original source. Causing no disturbance. The big problem is in lively small, enclosed spaces. I should have mentioned that.
If you can spend a whole evening with three friends, having diner, talk, discuss, laugh and can listen to background music while the guests prepare for leaving, than everything is fine with your room. That’s my experience.
The room can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Most audiophiles try to fight the room, nullify its effects. That is why the overwhelming majority of speakers beam their high frequencies in a narrow solid angle, a cone which gets tighter as frequency increases. By killing off the room, a hopeless battle they struggle to obtain the goal of great imaging, soundstage or whatever you call it at a narrowly defined sweet spot after adjusting their speakers exact position and angle with a micrometer. This is exactly the opposite of how all acoustic instruments and human voices propagate sound. The engineering challenge for me therefore was to create reflections by incorporating the room as an integral part of the system.
Hi there. What u don't mention here, and as i think is pretty important, is the fact that you don't wanna have a completely dead room, as in a mixing studio. That is really not the goal for higher fidelity at home. In a mixing situation, i get it, but not in a living room. You have to involve the room somehow, to get the best out of it, and that doesen't mean u goal is 100% dead room. Cheers from Denmark
Hi Thomas, thanks for your comment and indeed, I see your point. I have the luxury of having more than one listening room, so when I listen to certain kinds of music, (for example, complex string quartets) I might tend to go into a more damped room than another. I also didn’t mention, room acoustics to reject external noise. I hope though, that I raise the topic and get people to decide for themselves the level of room effect - as far as nature and budget allows? Headphone lovers (and I am not one of them - only for work in location) have no effect at all. Thanks again!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the vast majority of audiophiles, music lovers, don’t have the luxury of a dedicated listening room. My hifi has to fight for it’s right to be in our family lounge. Like most family lounges mine has rugs on the floor, curtains at the windows and an array of assorted soft furnishings which without additional help, ensure the room is not excessively live. A dead room can be as detrimental to musical reproduction as ane excessively bright room. I’m not denying that acoustic treatment can substantially alter the ambiance of the room, but whether that difference represents an improvement to musical reproduction has to come down to personal taste. I guess that like many other like minded audiophiles, I have to strike the balance between pleasing my auditory system and pleasing the aesthetics committee, AKA the wife. Acoustic treatment like defuser panels, bass traps and absorption panels would probably be a step too far, resulting in a costly divorce. There are many difficult choices in life. Non more so than the hifi or the wife. I would never put myself in a situation where I had to make that choice, particularly as my room’s acoustic properties with our current level of soft furnishings, drapes and rugs, is sufficient to satisfy my listening preference. Interestingly enough, a highly respected TH-cam hifi reviewer has recently substantially upgraded his reference system. He used to employ DSP and EQ to enhance his previous reference system. He found this of absolutely no benefit to his upgraded system. That speaks volumes for higher quality gear, making a significant improvement without additional help.
Absolutely, listening to and appreciating music does not need always to be in perfect conditions. Indeed, I am very lucky in this regard. But then again it is my job. So I suppose that’s ‘normal’
Although your videos are not to bad I continue to get frustrated with the many videos I see about room acoustics and the approach to room treatment. First in previous videos you talk about the importance of speaker placement. I couldn’t agree more that speaker placement is critical and essential in getting good sound. I could talk a while about what you’re trying to achieve with speaker placement. It’s a process and takes time and patience. I also want to note YOU CANNOT find the optimal speaker placement with any acoustically treatment in the room. To often people blame poor room acoustics when in fact it is poor speaker placement. And once your speakers are placed correctly you will have addressed approx 90 percent of the rooms issues. If not even 100. I have found that with meticulous speaker placement I would need little to no room treatment. The concept that you want an acoustically dead or damped room is absolutely incorrect ! You want a live room but controlled. This cannot be achieved with heavy absorption period ! Absorption creates more problems than it helps. Not only are you creating live and dead areas with in the sound field absorption is not linear in its absorption coefficients. It creates comb filtering issues where it absorbs sound and certain frequency’s and reflects others. If anything defusers are a significantly more effective approach if it is needed. Yes room echos are a problem but you need to understand how this happens. Room echos are caused when you have two parallel reflective surfaces. Sound bounces back and forth between these two surfaces. To address this you “technically” only need to address one side of the reflective surface ! Now the only time and place I 😢are that approach of treating one side of two parallel surfaces is between the floor and ceiling. With floor treatment being the correct treatment. Other than that you either want to use defusion or very light acoustical material that slightly delays the sound wave but does not absorb it. This is ideal for only rear and or side wall reflections. But very careful choice of the material being used and its placement must be careful done. You want a live room with about 1 to 1.4 mil s delay time. This creates a more natural and acoustical dynamic and live listening space that is much more accurate and enjoyable to listen to music in.
These Jokers, Then after every recording is perfect then the guys push up brightness ,take away depth, Fatigue sets in . Push VU meters . So now you have to go play JAZZ to get ears right Not all rock but 80%
I disagree. I made a lot of diy speakers and made countless speaker measurements in 30 years of this hobby and this explanation is total misleading and nonsense that larger bass units in the room give less bass than smaller ones each larger 10" bass unit or larger measured with nerfield position goes linearly usually at least up to 50 hz which smaller up to 6" bass/midrage unit speakers can only dream of.
Dear Boris, thanks for your comment. Maybe I was not clear, or you misheard me. What I said was that if you are getting standing waves that are counteracting each other (ie the bass is being reflected back out of phase to the bass driver producing it, then it does not matter how big the driver will be it will react just the same. Meaning: some people complain because they don’t have enough bass and they go out snd buy bigger speakers but fail to realise that the problem is the room, not the speakers. Hoping this is clearer?
@@PearlAcoustics I agree, space is one of the most important hi-fi components. Standing waves are a problem as well as sound reflections both in space and speaker housing this is a complex problem that involves compromises that include room acoustics and placing speakers in a fairly ideal place but there is no end to it this fun crazy hobby. Thanks,
Finally, a good, true, professional advice from someone who understands music recoding, producing and playback.
Many people who consider themselves as Audiophiles, or Experts, pays little attention if any to their room acoustics.
To summarize, a $2K system in room with good acoustics will sound better than a $200K system in bad acoustics room.
Shlomo Peter thanks for your feedback.
Go to Acoustic Fields TH-cam page. They have real education on room acoustics, room treatment.
Here's a room that they designed and the customer built. th-cam.com/video/eMLA5h0nh8s/w-d-xo.html
Obviously, this is a high end room, but they do have ways to drastically improve the acoustics in your room. Most people don't understand low frequency energy and how to properly treat for it..
@@Oneness100 thanks for sharing this video. It might put some people off because when you first see the room, you think ‘yeh, right that’s for millionaires only but the principles remain and there are some very useful links to the forum where one can learn how to DIY improve our listening areas.
@@PearlAcoustics That's the point. The other thing to take note of is this.
I've been searching a lot of different acoustic treatment companies over the years because in my last home, I had the worst dimensions for a room and I was trying to get it to sound right and NOTHING worked from what I did, etc.
I stumbled across Acoustic Fields purely by accident one day and I called him up on a problem I was having and he told me there wasn't anything I could do other than tear down a wall and rebuild it.
I got invited to check out his demo room, which was kind of funny since it had virtually the same floor dimensions as the room in my last home, so I figured, let me see what he did with it.
I went in and what he did was just simply amazing. It was literally the best sounding room I think I've ever been in. And not by a small margin.
I honestly believe that they have the best low frequency absorption products on the market and they REALLY understand how to treat low frequencies properly. Hands down, no question I would GLADLY recommend not only using their product, but getting advice from them on low frequency issues.
The most expensive part is the activated carbon and he's the only place to go since they use a specific type of activated carbon and they have the patents on using it for acoustic treatment. And yes, he has tested all of their Diaphragmatic Absorption design using every fill material on the market that's used for audio related builds. He simply said the activated carbon outperforms EVERYTHING else.
Yes, their foam is more expensive, but they mfg.. it themselves and not in huge quantities because they are still a relatively small company that actually designed and mfg. their own foam.. Many of the other foam companies simply buy the same stuff from one main mfg. OR they are just a bigger company that might have been around longer that does a lot more advertising..
Either way, I learned a lot from watching his videos and talking to him and I think he's a genius for coming up with the designs that he does. eIther way, if you can, check out one of his rooms he's done for a customer.
@@Oneness100 thanks. I am sure your reply will help many of my viewers.
I am 60 and started listening to music when I was probably 14. My love of music led me into HI-FI, how refreshing to finally
have someone talk some sense about room acoustics. It feels like I have just been told, no you're not mad. Moving my head just six inches I found could make such a difference to the sound I was hearing. I have only heard about four systems that sounded really good to me and one of them I gave away because I thought I needed something better. But when I heard it in the room of the person I gave it to I Knew it was not the equipment, because it sounded really good. This is why auditioning HI-FI in a shop is totally pointless. I now have a system costing only two to three hundred pounds and the sound is all you could wish for, It may not be an accurate sound reproduction, what ever that may be, but it is a very nice listening experience without hurting your ears, just because the room by chance is good acoustically.
Thanks for your feedback and interesting comment. Glad you found the right system for you and your room.
Your content is extremely useful. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge. I have learned a lot.
That’s very nice to hear. Thank you! 🙏
Really hope more audiophiles and hifi enthusiasts discover your channel. This is another great video!
Thank you
Just found this video at the same time as I'm working with my room. 8m2 50mm Rockwoll cost around €30 and is a fantastic investment. Three ways I use the Rockwool in my room with Magnepan 1.6 loudspeakers.
- Big canvas painting 1,5*1,5m with 50mm Rockwool on the wall behind the listening position.
- Record shelfs on the short wall behind the speakers are moved 12cm from the wall and Rockwall wrapped in thin cotton fabric hanging on the backside of the shelf.
- I'm also built two screens 60*180cm with 15*69mm wooden frame and filled with 50mm Rockwool. I use a thicker fabric on this screens. They are very easy to move and I use one in front of a large glass door and the other in front of an opening to another room that don't have any door.
Thanks for sharing
So many brilliant observations: I encourage everyone to listen to this multiple times. For example; covering a wooden coffee table (situated parallel with the floor). How often have we. Seen a set of NSM-10 s perched atop the meter bridge on a makeshft ledge. Hmm, got reflections just forward of listening position A.
If it only was that easy. I have been playing around with acoustics in 3 different houses over the past 20 years and yes you can make improvements with some of the things you mention but it is just as easy to make things worse too. And no a sack full of rock wool in a corner will not make an enormous difference. It will make a very small difference. Some panels in the right places with the right thickness is a good idea yes but to get things right is not easy at all. I think getting into sound and it's complexity has been the most difficult thing I have ever tried in my live. It's easy to make a bare room a little more dead. It's also easy to make it too dead. To get things right is extremely difficult and an art that takes a lot of experience.
Thanks for your comment, you might find my video on the building of our new listening room interesting? You can also apply science to try and dolce the problem. GIK have been doing so for decades…
Way back in the day I was with a crew of carpet installers when we did a recording studio in Burbank, Ca. We did floor AND the walls. Long story short, several years later I did the walls in my apartment’s small living. Using just a lot of scrapes and doing a modern art / geometric designs...
Starting with just some on the sidewalls. In the long run, did the whole room chasing the reflections.
Them came a pair of subs. Just had to rearrange until the standing wave was gone. Then tuned the bass with an Audio Control Richter Scale, that’s using a mic with the worbbel tone thingy...and tone out on the preamp.
New house and just bass eq done, sounds as good as ever 30 years on...with Adcom 555 and Audio Control Richter Scale for sub pair and the older Parasound HCA 750 for the mains.
PS
The old Adcom DAC came in very handy hooking up old school hifi with newer tv.
Thanks for sharing your story
I really enjoy these videos. Great stories. Down to earth approach.
About the panels: Be careful with the fabric you cover the rock-wool with. Prefer not to paint anything on the surface. You might create reflections if the paint is thick and reflective. We want absorption. The fabric have to be thin. You should nearly be able to look through the fabric when you hold it up against the light. Test the fabrics ability to absorb sound by blowing through the fabric. If it's easy, you probably got the right fabric. Just make sure the fabric is dense enough so you don't get any Rockwool dust into your room. That's not healthy. I even don't use wooden frames. Use extra long screws straight through the fabric-covered Rockwool plates. As long as you don't put pressure or weight on them they work fine. In this way you will have sound absorption on all the sides. Even on the short narrow sides. Make also sure to have such long screws so that the panels are hanging two inches out from the walls. Even more absorption on the back sides. Soon you have an over-damped the room like I did... I haven't finished with the acoustics of my room. I probably never will be. It's great fun and you learn a lot about how sound works in a terrible room. Final tip : Have your doors to the listening room open. Let the pressure waves from the woofer escape.....
The first time the whole room acoustics topic made any sense. And very much common sense. About to set up a listening room, so will heed your advice and listen to the room after doing initial set-up.
Thanks very much. One way of getting very close to the studio mix, is to use a decent (not the same necessarily as wildly expensive) pair of headphones. This of course is socially isolating; but living alone, that isn't a problem. As one of those fabled creatures, the State Pensioner, my resources are limited. Still, I've cobbled together a sound/home theater system for around £500; CDs are played as much thru laptop as DVD/CD player. Your suggestions for 'fine tuning' the (single room!) living space are very helpful.
Hi David, thanks for your comment. Indeed headphones are a very good way to listen to music but they can only be close to the original master, if the mixing and mastering engineers worked exclusively on headphones, never intending two channel loudspeaker stereo listening. This is because when listening to headphones none of the sound from the right channel enters your left ear, or vice versa. In ‘real life’ this is not the case. But I totally agree either you, it is very sociable in as much as it does not disturb others, and is a very good way to get high quality for a reasonable investment. Enjoy your music.
Great videos as usual. I’d love to see a video on speaker and equipment feet.
Thanks! Are now that’s a tricky topic! 😉
Perfect and honest explanation of the subject. 🤩
Thank you
People have to accept the room is probably the most important component in their system. Doing what you can to take the room will make a tremendous difference in the sound of your system.
i made some absorption panels for the corners of my room, added a couple of panels (2X2 ft) to tame the first reflection points, and those along with a thick rug tames the room right down. I made the 2x4 panels (24"x48"X4") myself so the cost was pretty low. Recently I swapped my component stack (preamp, Dac and Cd transport) with the turntable, all of this sits on a sturdy record cabinet on a side wall. I immediately noticed a harsh glare to the sound and wondered what happened.
It turns out the smooth cover of my Music Hall MMF-7 was now bouncing sound around the room. The cure was to store mt Sennheiser HD650's on top of that turntable, that was enough to break up that reflection point and the system sounded right again.
Thanks for your contribution to the topic. Very welcome and relevant
I have just the sort of system mentioned , About £3000 in a converted garage . Instead of upgading equipment i decided to do a bit of room treatment . Using GIK free advice, i installed bass tri traps in the front corners . The difference was amazing in the bass reproduction. I've since upgraded the room treatment several times including, reflection points, back wall and ceiling and I'm in the process of buying some Scopus traps. Now i know how good my system was if I'd given it the chance.. The difference is jaw dropping. It's not cheap ,but don't upgrade your system ,talk to GIK.
Great suggestions. It is the one area I have not explored, and my room is a bit bright. I planned on buying some rockwool before the pandemic hit. Things are back to normal, and I have learned to just get stuff delivered so it is time for me to get on with this.
Enjoy!
Thanks Harley, very useful!
Glad it was helpful!
I totally agree, at some point the upgrade has to be made in the room not in the hardware.
A really informative video!
Thank you!
Hello, I whole heartedly agree with you about simple basic room acoustics.
I bought two 6x2 feet slabs of 100mm rockwool, covered each in a old cotton sheet which we use when decorating. I simply placed each one on a bucket straddling the two corners behind the main speakers.
Wow!!!!
Everything opened up. For the first time in 20 years I was hearing my speakers and not the room. The Soundstage was bigger the quality of bass put a smile on my face. But the biggest difference was in the mid and highs which had been suffocated by way too much low-frequency bouncing around the room.
I went on to make my own cosmeticly beautiful low energy tri-corner traps for all corners and even my wife and kids say the room sounds much bigger. Room acoustics gives all the different frequencys room to play and be heard.
Anyone into quality sound listening isn't doing their equipment or themselves justice if they haven't acousticly treated at least the corners of their listening space🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶👏
Thankyou for sharing your experience and for your kind words.
Could you please show us a few pictures or do a small vid showing ur DIY set up ?
This was meant for okcyurwin
Love love love your videos. You make such a complex topic so easy to understand...very nicely done.
Thanks Marty! So glad you appreciate them.
@@PearlAcoustics Your welcome.
I'm glad to hear someone else use the word "dead" without it being a negative thing. I've set up my listening room to be as dead as I could afford and I'd still like to go further. I describe is as quiet and intimate. It's like a library in there. I enjoy just walking into the room with nothing playing. All the things in and outside of your house that make noise suddenly go away. I know that to really flatten out the bass repsonse I'd have to spend lots of money, but I accept that. I am still happy with a large amount of mid and treble being absorbed. For some reason a lot of audiophiles are content to listen in rooms with hard surfaces all over and lots of reverb. That's fine, do whatever makes you happy, but I find it to be a one-trick pony. In a dead room you can really concentrate. Dry recordings sound close and intimate and ones with big room sound are still spacious. I really like absorption, but I have not experienced a wall covered in quadratic diffusors, so maybe that is even better, I don't know.
Just binge watched your videos which I have to say are perfectly authoritive and useful without being too techie. My ambition to hear some Sibelius one day Thanks for your generosity
Dear Mark. Thank you very much for your kind words. They are much appreciated.
I think a good resource for room acoustics is Acoustic Fields, who have a very good channel here. Especially their work and advice on treatment for bass management is somewhat different and seems well founded.
Thanks for the tip! As the French say, “there’s more than one way of boiling an egg” - tuned traps can, for example, be very effective when a room has a specific problem at a given frequency, for example.
@@PearlAcoustics Yes, the frequency that needs to be managed is important. The lower the frequency the less effective traps of this type are.
Love the sacs great idea, I will make some 👍🙏🙏🇨🇦🇨🇦
Thank you so much man!
I've followed your advice (and other is true) and now my listening room looks so strange that my wife stay away from this "monstrous sacks, rugs, wood and furniture design" and it became indeed acoustically dead as even if she's coming in and speak to me her voice is so flat and soundless that I barely hear it...
You're the man! Happy and health 2021 New Year!
Best wishes for your wife either (even if I didn't see her in any of your videos and hope she do not read this comment)!
Dear Gabriel, your secret is safe with me! I hope you enjoy the difference in the sound of your system? Thank you for your kind wishes. A very happy and healthy 2021 too!
Solid advice! Completely agree with you.
Thank you Sjoerd! Very kind
This is great and the most value advise in music lovers world. I'm just about making a project of saloon in my flat, where my stereo will be, and all in design is about the acoustics.
Good idea with those diy panels. I might give it a go and try to put a painting on it.
Thank you so much for this video.
You are very, very welcome. Good luck with your project!
Love your name John!!!
A bang on simple explanation and is something that I'm slowly working on with the wife 😆. She isn't keen on acoustic panels etc, but I'll find something that will be pleasing to her eyes I'm sure of it. Maybe some pictures printed 😋
Thanks!
THIS IS ONE HUNDRED PERECENT GOSPEL TRUTH! I have always tried my best to treat the room first to very good effect. My current room is extensively treated with GIK Acoustic and as stated in the video, the staff at GIK is there to make your room right. My sound designer at GIK James Lindenschmidt has worked with me from day one and is always happy to help.
My entire system is around 27K USD and it outperforms systems I've heard in other rooms that are multi 6 figure systems. ROOM FIRST, gear second!
Thanks for sharing…
😂😂😂shure
That was an extremely informative and thought provoking video. Thank you so much.
You’re very welcome, Don. Glad you enjoyed it.
Alas, nigh on impossible for me. I live in a cavernous studio apartment, around 75 square meters and 5 meter high ceilings, two mezzanine platforms, wooden floors, huge skylight spanning the entire ceiling, more or less floor to ceiling windows on two adjacent walls. It doesn't matter what I do to treat this space, sound bounces around it and does its own thing. There quite simply is not a "handful of tricks" that suits ALL spaces. I've tried. Endlessly I've tried. You can't tame it. I've learnt to live with imperfect sound, and really its a money saver, as it's basically pointless investing huge sums of cash anymore on Hifi. Still, the music sounds great and I love this apartment. Swings n roundabouts.
Absolutely! Sometimes large spaces can be fine because the points of reflection are so far away, they are not an issue. Especially if one sits quite close in (+/- 2,5metres / 8 feet) enjoy the music!
Very good video. I love the analysis and the exaplanations. And the little tips you gave are making a difference in my office right now. I added an undepard unde my rug, added a few pillows in the corners and covered 2 angles with thick curtains. I can hear the difference. Love it
Stefan Ifrim thanks for your feedback. So pleased my advice has helped. In an office, another little trick is to fix sound absorbing foam under tables and desks. This too makes a difference without spoiling the appearance.
@@PearlAcoustics wow never thought of that
Superb idea
Sensible gentlemanly advice!
I love playing around with the room acoustics in my livingroom. I found the best 'upgrade' to my system was a home made diffusor on the wall behind my speakers. The improvement wasn't subtle, vocals are cleaner and easier to understand. They also appear out of nowhere and stay fixed in the centre. I wouldn't be without it now.
How did you make your diffuser?
@@jeffn1384 I bought a plastic (180cm x 90cm) garden patterned trellis / panel which had irregular holes in it, but a wooden frame and screwed it to the trellis and put packing foam that I get from work for nothing and finally sealed it with some material and hung it on the wall.
Lovely video, and yes, fully agree!
Thank you!
🤗 🤩 WOW I JUST TRIED THIS IN MY LIVING ROOM AND I HAVE LESS ECHO THAN IN YOUR ROOM 👏
VERY INTERESTING 🧐 THANKS FOR THE EDUCATION and even better I have the W.A.F. 😉😂😍😍😍
Great!
Wow, wonderful video!
Thank you :-)
Thank you for your very kind words. They are much appreciated
I love the rockwool in hessian bags as bass traps. As I’m currently in the process of convincing my wife about panels and traps, does that hessian bag DIY version do well enough to use instead of buying from GIK? My wife will be happy with the look of those bags versus triangular panels up the wall!
GIK can add scientific reasoning. However, the hessian bags work very well, cost next to nothing and if you are not satisfied, can be very easily recycled.
Very useful information, thank you.
Thank you Jonas. You’re welcome
Excellent , very enjoyable!!!!
Thank you!
Loving the videos.
dear sir
your posts are wonderful. experience and good intentions.i hope we meet one day and enjoy sibelius what is what I now look for.
all the best for you.
Thank you very much. You are so kind. Glad you enjoy them.
I'm SO with you on this key point. It's just so much easier to sell someone the box with the fancy lights than real acoustic design. In fact, if you didn't know what you know, would you know who to turn to for a well designed listening room? Yeah, me neither. I would disagree that a good mix space is "dead". It is balanced but not overly dead. The RT60 time should be proper but not zero. Spent much time and money to get the room as right as the system. Great points but will be lost on the market.
Thanks for your comment.
That is very interesting. My music system is in a room with several diagonal walls. What is the best way of dealing with that?
Thanks. Diagonal walls it not necessarily a bad thing. Try and follow the advice in the video and contact a firm like GIK, if you need more information
@@PearlAcoustics Thank you for the helpful advice. :)
Good afternoon. The rock wool bag is interesting. I wanted to know if I can directly put the rock wool on a false ceiling, the kind that has a border around it with lighting. I don't know if that would reduce the echo or if the material is hidden the frequencies would not be eliminated. The material would remain on that open edge, between wall and ceiling. I try to hide it so my wife doesn't get mad, haha. Thank you so much!
Hi, False ceilings are usually not a problem acoustically (unless they buzz) my best advise is to reach out to GIK, send them some photos etc, and see what they suggest. Their service is free and it could inspire a diy solution, if budget was too high.
Thank´s!@@PearlAcoustics
Thank you so much
You're most welcome
I see your friends Sonata Studio's and I share the same speakers for mastering. Take care of the room first as you say, the most important first set and you will get the maximum out of your speakers. Cheers from Canada.
😀👍
my listening room is pretty much neutral bookcases and curtains; nice thick wall-to wall carpets, back wall is plaster-board...................my very modest system sounds superb
Hi great video, like you I’ve made my own acoustic panels, tbh it’s not brain science, just common sense, and the great thing is you can make any size to fit your own requirements, you say about gik acoustics , I’m just wondering how they determine where you need to place the panels, I understand they are very good at selling you their products
Thanks for your kind comments. I think a diy based approach can make a very big difference, however certain standing waves and peaks and nulls at specific frequencies can be very difficult to remove without messing up other valuable improvements. What I learned, working with GIK is the delicate balance between absorption, diffraction, reflection and a combination of both or all, in any given specific panel. Their expertise and software identifies the problem areas and from photos and room dimensions they can very accurately pin point what kind of panel and where.
The interesting thing is, that what they charge is extremely reasonable (often no more than the cost of a good quality HiFi component).
I am not sponsored by GIK or gain any benefits from them, I was just genuinely impressed with their professionalism, attitude and customer service - and the results they obtained in our listening room in Belgium. (I too was very sceptical at first).
What exactly are you putting in the sacks and panels? Thank you in advance for your assistance
Hi - in the panels I put 6cm of glass wool insulation. In the sacks ‘Rockwall’ insulation. Hoping this helps?
Thank You, Sir!
You are welcome!
Hi, very nice video. Loved it. I've got a little question, I'm in the same situation as you for my room (#slopedceilingfamily) and I'm planning to treat my room acoustically. Now I see that you didn't put any treatment on the wall behind your speaker (which normally people do). So is there any acoustical/esthetic or other reasons for that?
Thx for all the video's they are really eye-opening for me (and plus I learned you do this all in Belgium, so local for my me). Keep up the good work!
Hi Michael. Thank you for your kind words. Sorry for the late reply! Acoustics is such a tricky point. In my case treatment behind the enclosures was not necessary. I ran some REW tests all was clear there. + the Sibelius enclosures are very thick and have no rear ports, so they can be placed to a rear wall, no problem at all. Check out REW testing, GIK will analise your results for you and advise. But you can also experiment with overcoats and quilts and blankets ;-)
Blueglow Electronics recommended this video and I'm glad I gave a watch. Thanks. I will be building a custom home in the next year and I have the opportunity to create a listening room of any shape I choose. In combination with your excellent advice here on sound dampening, is there a particular room shape you would recommend if you had a blank slate as I do? Thanks!
Hmm. Big question! It depends how many people will be listening to music at the same time and if they all want to sit in the ‘sweet spot’. If it’s only you then a rectangle is great but, I am afraid life is complex and sound dispersion, even more so! Look at the shape of concert halls.... sorry it’s too big a question for me to answer in the limited time I have available. But I hope this helps a little
@@PearlAcoustics Great, thanks! As it happens, I am a bit of an introvert and I spend most of my time alone. So perhaps a simple rectangle will suffice. Thanks again!
@@PearlAcoustics Maybe a video on this?
I have to say, this was the single most enjoyable video on the topic of what a great recording is, as it covers so many other “controversial” topics!! So many so called Audiophiles overlook the fact that there is a very big difference in a Live Recording and one executed in a Studio. So often I hear them describe speakers, or an amp making a Studio recording sound like a live performance, because as you mentioned, the spaces are very different in how they resonate and frequencies overlap in concert halls relative to a very controlled Studio environment. I would love to hear your thoughts on a “Little Known” company founded by Tom Jung in 1983, which was one of the very first to release non-classical recording on Compact Disc, recording in a completely Digital environment, Digital Music Productions (DMP)! They were the pioneer of the Super Audio Compact Disc, issuing the first multichannel SACD, Sacred Feast. The recordings were as, Miles Davis’ recording “Kind of Blue” were….one take, no channel mixing…Like you like it!! My first DMP disc was Thom Rotella’s…”Thom, Rotella Ban”’!! The first time I listened to this CD, I didn’t know what to think as it sounded far, far, far better than anything I had ever heard!! I soon acquired a copy of Bob Mintzer’s big Band Album, “Spectrum”….track number 9, “The Heart of the Matter”, exhibits a dynamic range and reproduction of detail that, even by today’s advancements in technology, is unsurpassed! I can vividly remember in Washington DC, where I grew up and was fortunate to attend the International Stereo Show, which was held at the Washington Hilton, conveniently located on the same block I lived… I had the Thom Rotells band CD with me, and while playing it in the Audio Research room, where ironically NO ONE HAD HEARD OF, the sales rep from Dahlquist commented….”If every CD sounded that good, I WOULDN’T WORK!!” Even today you can obtain many of these Super Audio CD’s, which aren’t labeled as SACD’s, for as little as 5 BUCKS!! I’m sure that once you review any one of them, that’s going to change quickly!! If you haven’t hear them, you will be surely surprised by what was recorded, (fantastic music) almost FORTY YEARS ago! I will look forward to hearing what you think!! Cheers from Athens Alabama, where I live now.
Thank you so much for your kind words and very enlightening comment. I will definitely check out the pieces you mentioned. Sounds intriguing - can’t wait!
@@PearlAcoustics Not sure how my comment was posted on this video, but it was meant for the “What makes for a Great Recording?”, video. But really glad you read it and believe me you won’t be disappointed….those recording are like a “secret” that few really know about, and for the life of me….I DON’T KNOW WHY??? Thank you for the timely response!😊
@@Csnumber1 Interesting!
Great comment!
It’s been 2 months I have trying to get tips on room acoustics and your video and expiation is my top favourite. Would love to see more videos please your huge knowledge to new audio enthusiast like me. I hit the subscribed button
Also I liked your explanation of your FR spesker can I purchase plan since I can get Mark audio drivers locally
Dear Anand, sorry but our cabinets are made of 14 year aged French oak and built to very exacting standards. The drive cones are especially made to our specification but you will find other kit builders and diy designs on the Internet if our 3000EUR retail price is too high! Good luck eith everything! More videos coming soon.
Your speakers do intrigue me. I want to get away from all the hype and settle for one amp and one set of speakers and be done with it. A little concerned about shipping speakers from Europe to the USA. However I'll cross that bridge when I'm ready to order. Cheers.
Thank you. We have happy clients in the US. Shipping these days is rather fast, painless and not that expensive. But there’s no rush from our side.! Our production goes at a gentle pace and patience is required anyway ;-)
Wow... you've explained this all in a way that tied everything up in a nice bow and smoothed out the rough edges. Your personal experience through the entire music record/playback chain plus your ability to convey information so clearly was supper accessible, understandable and a treat. I have to ask, I have not experience with Rockwool, but looking at their product online I see that they are semirigid. What preparation did you make to the rockwool in order to fill the burlap bags for the base trap?
Thank you for your very kind remarks. The Rockwall I used came in a roll, held together in a thin plastic wrap. I made the bags just big enough to fit them in (2 in each bag). Then, when the fist one was in the bag, I pulled off the plastic wrap. It’s that easy. I made the bag double thickness hessian (sack cloth). Good luck!
@@PearlAcoustics To be clear, you said "Rockwall"..and I assume "Rockwool". is that the brand? Just want to do some research here in the US for the correct product. Any web link to what you used is much appreciated.
@@HoomanR17 yes you are right! Didn’t check my spelling. Insulation material.
I understand the bass-in-corners concept and have heard bass nodes in my room. But if you're not listening from that point why does it matter. Or are we trying to eliminate bass reflections at the listening position and the corners are the most effective place to do it.
Dear Jef. You make a very good point. You only need to do this if the reflections coming back from the corners are arriving back at the listening position out of phase from those coming from the loudspeakers directly and causing a lack of bass (or in some cases, less frequent) too much of it. Of course, if the sound in your listening position is good, with nice crisp, detailed and sufficiently deep bass (assuming your loudspeakers are capable of producing that) - then you can ignore that part of the video. Hoping that’s the case for you.
@@PearlAcoustics thanks for clarifying. I have some old IMF Reference Standard Professional Monitors (Mark IV)..I enjoyed your video and will used that knowledge to improve my listening space. Thanks for replying.
@@jeffn1384 you’re welcome.
Very helpful. Perhaps people need to think of stereos more like good furniture -- which benefit from care and placement -- than like appliances, such as microwaves. We live in what philosopher Albert Borgmann calls the "device paradigm" where instant, automatic, and contextless technology does what we command, instantly; but we know that is not appropriate for plants, other people, and, it turns out, audio equipment. An ecological approach to audio results in a well-functioning system, and the "product," if you will, is aesthetic consummation.
Hi Harley, thanks for this video. I was wondering if you have also tried with other materials (e.g. used cloths) for your sacks/bass traps and if they can be effective as well. The reason I’m asking is because I’m personally a little bit worried about rockwool or fiberglass fibers getting out of the back and being inhaled.
Hi Saverio, you’re welcome! Sure the sacks can be replaced with other material - no problem at all! Totally understand your reasoning
Did you use GIK's 2 inch deep panels for the side reflections? Thanks.
I have heard them in action and they are very good. In our case we built them ourselves
Very informative video sir.. couple of questions, if I out put Rockwood/glasswool panels under the sofas, will it help in absorbing some bit of lower frequencies? Also the sacks of rockwool is a superb idea and can be easily removed when guests come over.. Can just placing a couple of them in the two corners behind the speakers be enough or will it be better to place them in the corners facing the speakers so that they don't reflect back in the first place?
Thank you for your kind comments. Absorbing bass is about converting the energy into heat. Many people have problems with bass (or the lack of) in rooms when they have a small room with hard walls and floors. Funnily enough, Gyproc walls can help! But, yes the big sacks work! There is no rule as to where they should be placed. every location is unique. Play some bass heavy tracks and move around the room using your ears crouching down and standing up, as I explain. But you can always reach out to GIK and send them some photos, their first interaction is free of charge. Placing extra under a sofa might not make much difference. It all depends where either the absorption (or diffusion) is needed. Sorry for the rather incomplete answer but I hope it helps a little?
I lucky/unlucky to have a listening room with so much other stuff that it is pretty dead.
It also helps to listen in the near field if possible. Though not too practical with floorstanders.
I find the chair you sit on often gets overlooked, unfortunately I’m currently using a leather Chesterfield sofa and it is causing a distortion
Oh that’s a very good point indeed! Chairs with ‘wings’ or any construction behind the head or shoulders can cause a big problem with unwanted short echos or colouration.
Hi
Thanks for the video.
Do you have measurements with Room EQ Wizard for example?
Can you put them?
What kind of wool have you put in the burlap sack?
Written with translator
Greetings
Dear Juan José, thanks for your comment. I am using Rockwall insulation in the sacks. I did make some tests but that was long ago! Typically we found the decay rate improved - but the improvements were so massive that testing became rather theoretical. It’s a good idea to test to start with and see where you have problems, but you have to use your ears too! Ie most tests will tell you that you have a problem but not what’s causing it. The great thing about panels snd sacks is that you can experiment at low cost! + if you get some rugs and if you empty your wardrobe of all the clothes your family owns, you can Cary out some interesting experiments! Good luck!
@@PearlAcoustics Thanks for the clarification of the Rockwall insulation wool, it was simply the stuffing of the burlap sack.
I am well served as tests, in my case I use padding, a material more effective in deep bass than wool and for first reflection panels whose thickness is at least 30 cm, I also use padding.
The yarn that people I know use is Knauf Tabyk-p or TP-116, perfect for 25 cm thick panels and 40 to 60 cm corner panels.
My comment was to see the burlap sack.
Greetings and thanks for the deference in answering my question.
@@JuanJose-wt5yj hi by burlap sack, I guess you mean the big hessian sacks in the corner of the room? In this case it is Rockwall insulation. I use two complete rolls.
@@PearlAcoustics Yes, my mention was for the big sacks of arpillera and their Rockwall insulation filling, I'll be attentive to your channel just in case he makes a video with room eq wizard
Interesting video, thank you. I have been listening to my Quad 2 and 22 for over 40 years and one of the features of the quad i love is the open sound stage combined with great detail. I do not have the wealth of experience that you obviously have but to date i have never heard the width and presence from other amps. Currently I am on the verge of having them refurbished ( possibly following Mr Snook's suggestions) due to noticeable issues due to tired highly original components. Do you have any opinions or advice regarding such refurbishment?? incidentally I 100% concur about the room acoustics having conducted many experiments. My thanks for your attention.
Hi. Thanks for the comments. Personally, I would send them back to Quad. They do a great job and are not too expensive. + that protects their intrinsic value. Good luck
@@PearlAcoustics thanks...I have taken due note of your comment
My room is 22 feet long, 18 feet wide, 8 feet high, is open plan with a 12 feet by 7 feet kitchen annex. The flooring is a mix of wood and tiling laid over concrete. My walls are plasterboard and one long wall is all window from 3 feet up. I am on the ground floor of a city centre apartment block. The exterior is brick work against a steel frame, the under floor is block and beam over a 5 feet cavern. I guess there is about 2 feet of concrete between my apartment and the one above. I am at the end of the building so I only have one neighbouring apartment separated by a hallway and stairway. I’ve loosely studied room acoustics. My listening room, which is also the family open plan lounge, technically doing everything wrong. I have no specific room treatment. I have placed a large, plush rug, in front of, and between the speakers. Other than that, the only other sound absorption is my large leather 2-seater sofa in the listening position and a matching 3-seater settee along the long wall, under the window. As you will gather, far from ideal.
I have spent the equivalent of a decent car on my hifi rig. I’ve achieved a good sound reproduction. Whilst I appreciate that acoustic treatment would potentially massively augment my listening pleasure, I have to balance it agains the practicalities of family living. I don’t have the luxury of a separate listening room, my hifi rig has to fight for it’s right to be in our family lounge.
If anyone within a mile of Bristol city centre can offer me a good listening room? I’d snap their hand off!
Try reaching out to GIK they can surely help you, or at least give you some advice.
thank you but i already done it ... now i'm spending on capacitors , silver wires , op amps , tellurium copper connectors , resistors and so on :)
Yep. Try the In-Akustik products. Noise filter and their faantastic powerbar. Takes your stuff to a higher level.
@@theklipschcave5593 will have a look thanks
Good afternoon sir. I'm planing purchasing a pair of Sibelius with Sugden A21SE . I want your honest opinion on how good is the sound at low volume a maximum of 60 db in a small bedroom. is the sound stage still gorgeous? THANK YOU.
Hi Sebastian, many of ours customers comment on how the sound of our Sibelius loudspeakers is the same at low listening levels as louder. But if you reach out to us via our website, we will be happy to put you in touch with a customer or two with a Sibelius paired with the Sugden A21SE. I am sure they will give you some valuable insight. + I would be happy to speak with you on the topic. Hope this helps?
Well said.
In my new house, I had a reverbe time of 2,1. Nice, isn‘t it. An average Cathedral has about 1,8. So I had installed a acoustic ceilling. Now I have an RT of 3,8. And I have the fealing, I did too much. 😉 Absolutly no echos. But, as you said. It is acousticly dead.
Thanks for your comment
A small addition: Books on open shelves randomly placed... as a diffuser; different surfaces of different depths and shapes and materials etc. Normally, Mark Rothko on the wall! Happy listening to all lovers of sound and music!
😉👍
great advice
Thank you 🙏
very helpful
I love this episod 😎👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you kindly.
Hello!, thanks for your info.
I built some hi fi speakers and then I noticed how acoustically poor my room is. I have a lot of problems with canceling bass. I think that if I use sandbags in the middle of the room it could absorb some of the energy and improve this aspect, is that right?. Thanks in advance.
Hi. I would check with GIK. But generally I would suggest in the corners is the best place to start. And Rockwool would probably be better or special bass traps. Have you followed all my tips about listening with a bass heavy track on? Good luck!
@@PearlAcoustics Yes I did, but I still have no chance of placing anything in the corners today. If I can place bags with sand or other material inside the drawer of the sofa. There is a large empty place inside it but it only justifies if it will produce some absorption in the room.
@@javiercapeche5997 try with absorption such as dense grade Rockwool. Sand is too dense, I fear.
@@PearlAcoustics Thank you. Lets try this.
Brilliant
What about filling Hessian sacks with straw / strawbale instead of Rockwool?
Never tried. It would have to be densely packed. Hay, might be better...
Rockwool is a known and measured quantity that works. Acoustic solutions are very much about the materials used. This study indicates hay is a poor sound absorber. www.researchgate.net/publication/318792609_STRAW_AS_AN_ACOUSTIC_MATERIAL
He actually referenced drum and bass. Hahaha!
It is my favorite genre.
I paused it, got my wife to see this man reference drum and bass.
Our favorite❤️
Yes , the room is part of the system 30-50 % . 👍
Unfortunately in a marriage the wife ain't having all of that lol. I was wondering, would wallpaper instead of painted walls make any difference. Great videos I'll keep watching.
What you need is some thickness to absorb, but there are really nice acustic panels out there that adds to the room rather than makes it ugly.
Any mixing engineer worth their salt will mix their productions to sound good IN REALISTIC LISTENING SCENARIOS. Aka: people's kitchens, living rooms, cars, ... No mixing engineer with a brain will expect normal listeners to have an acoustical listening environment similar to the music studios acoustically treated near-field listening environment.
That said: I do agree with your fundamental premise in/of this video. I myself cringe when I see people who proudly show their gear / music setup - with appalling speaker placement. And it happens even when I've been to the homes of audiophiles and music producers - "bedroom" as well as established, pro producer studios.
Proper, custom acoustic treatment (that solves the problems it is supposed to - vs just being put up blindly, based on TH-cam videos etc) and proper, fine-tuned speaker setup: makes a world of difference. Music becomes IMMERSIVE and yes: sounds true, to what the producer and mixing engineer intended. The emotion in/of the music will translate properly - the music becomes way more enjoyable. TRULY enjoyable. All of a sudden, one can FEEL inside what the singer is conveying emotionally, the timbres of the instruments get more meaning, the rhythm makes you want to rock/tap your feet, or dance even:)
Thanks for your comment comment and contribution to the discussion
A 4 inch driver is a 4 inch driver, while you can make it sound good. Its not going to reproduces large movements of air that large instruments do.
With all respects Steve, I would like to reassure you that it certainly can and does. A double bass can fill a concert hall and it’s bridge moves it’s front play, only a fraction of a millimeter, The Sibelius’ drive cone has a similar column of air behind it. But it can more 6mm in each direction. A Bass clarinet produces incredibly loud low notes from a reed that’s only an inch wide. Our loudspeakers can produce way more bass than many other multi driver floor standers. Perhaps check out Thomas & Stereo’s video review? th-cam.com/video/rNRwtIJPtzQ/w-d-xo.html
Mine finally sounds better than ever in my 60 years. I might have $3000 in it, tops. Built my own speakers. Don't plan to change anything.
observation: I live in a decent home with a sort-of great room living room. It is NOT a dedicated listening room. Not like the high dollar boys. I violate lots of his rules. I do have $34k of equipment. Yes I have carpet. No there's no acoustic panels/ or sound deadening on the walls. Sofa and twin recliners. Just be rest assured that if you get great gear you'll be very pleased. As long as the amps & speakers get along per his other videos. Turn up old rock cd's to 5 watts so your neighbor enjoys it too. Wango Tango.
Thanks for your comment. In fact you hit on a very important point. Sometimes big rooms are just fine without any treatments because the delay in the echo coming back is rather long and can give a natural ‘concert hall’ type effect, and when it comes back, it is much quieter than the original source. Causing no disturbance. The big problem is in lively small, enclosed spaces. I should have mentioned that.
Is er in Vlaanderen een firma die mij hiermee kan helpen ? Alvast bedankt. Mvg
There maybe, but I struggled to find one. If you reach out to GIK, they can help you remotely. They did our studio remotely and it worked fine.
100% right
If you can spend a whole evening with three friends, having diner, talk, discuss, laugh and can listen to background music while the guests prepare for leaving, than everything is fine with your room. That’s my experience.
The room can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Most audiophiles try to fight the room, nullify its effects. That is why the overwhelming majority of speakers beam their high frequencies in a narrow solid angle, a cone which gets tighter as frequency increases. By killing off the room, a hopeless battle they struggle to obtain the goal of great imaging, soundstage or whatever you call it at a narrowly defined sweet spot after adjusting their speakers exact position and angle with a micrometer.
This is exactly the opposite of how all acoustic instruments and human voices propagate sound. The engineering challenge for me therefore was to create reflections by incorporating the room as an integral part of the system.
Hi there. What u don't mention here, and as i think is pretty important, is the fact that you don't wanna have a completely dead room, as in a mixing studio. That is really not the goal for higher fidelity at home. In a mixing situation, i get it, but not in a living room. You have to involve the room somehow, to get the best out of it, and that doesen't mean u goal is 100% dead room. Cheers from Denmark
Hi Thomas, thanks for your comment and indeed, I see your point. I have the luxury of having more than one listening room, so when I listen to certain kinds of music, (for example, complex string quartets) I might tend to go into a more damped room than another. I also didn’t mention, room acoustics to reject external noise. I hope though, that I raise the topic and get people to decide for themselves the level of room effect - as far as nature and budget allows? Headphone lovers (and I am not one of them - only for work in location) have no effect at all. Thanks again!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the vast majority of audiophiles, music lovers, don’t have the luxury of a dedicated listening room. My hifi has to fight for it’s right to be in our family lounge. Like most family lounges mine has rugs on the floor, curtains at the windows and an array of assorted soft furnishings which without additional help, ensure the room is not excessively live. A dead room can be as detrimental to musical reproduction as ane excessively bright room. I’m not denying that acoustic treatment can substantially alter the ambiance of the room, but whether that difference represents an improvement to musical reproduction has to come down to personal taste.
I guess that like many other like minded audiophiles, I have to strike the balance between pleasing my auditory system and pleasing the aesthetics committee, AKA the wife. Acoustic treatment like defuser panels, bass traps and absorption panels would probably be a step too far, resulting in a costly divorce. There are many difficult choices in life. Non more so than the hifi or the wife. I would never put myself in a situation where I had to make that choice, particularly as my room’s acoustic properties with our current level of soft furnishings, drapes and rugs, is sufficient to satisfy my listening preference.
Interestingly enough, a highly respected TH-cam hifi reviewer has recently substantially upgraded his reference system. He used to employ DSP and EQ to enhance his previous reference system. He found this of absolutely no benefit to his upgraded system. That speaks volumes for higher quality gear, making a significant improvement without additional help.
Absolutely, listening to and appreciating music does not need always to be in perfect conditions. Indeed, I am very lucky in this regard. But then again it is my job. So I suppose that’s ‘normal’
@@PearlAcoustics 👍
what an odd spot for a switch
Indeed, we’ll spotted. The room was originally wired fir a very different set up! In later videos you will notice it is covered by a large screen! 😉
Although your videos are not to bad I continue to get frustrated with the many videos I see about room acoustics and the approach to room treatment. First in previous videos you talk about the importance of speaker placement. I couldn’t agree more that speaker placement is critical and essential in getting good sound. I could talk a while about what you’re trying to achieve with speaker placement. It’s a process and takes time and patience. I also want to note YOU CANNOT find the optimal speaker placement with any acoustically treatment in the room. To often people blame poor room acoustics when in fact it is poor speaker placement. And once your speakers are placed correctly you will have addressed approx 90 percent of the rooms issues. If not even 100. I have found that with meticulous speaker placement I would need little to no room treatment. The concept that you want an acoustically dead or damped room is absolutely incorrect ! You want a live room but controlled. This cannot be achieved with heavy absorption period ! Absorption creates more problems than it helps. Not only are you creating live and dead areas with in the sound field absorption is not linear in its absorption coefficients. It creates comb filtering issues where it absorbs sound and certain frequency’s and reflects others. If anything defusers are a significantly more effective approach if it is needed. Yes room echos are a problem but you need to understand how this happens. Room echos are caused when you have two parallel reflective surfaces. Sound bounces back and forth between these two surfaces. To address this you “technically” only need to address one side of the reflective surface ! Now the only time and place I 😢are that approach of treating one side of two parallel surfaces is between the floor and ceiling. With floor treatment being the correct treatment. Other than that you either want to use defusion or very light acoustical material that slightly delays the sound wave but does not absorb it. This is ideal for only rear and or side wall reflections. But very careful choice of the material being used and its placement must be careful done. You want a live room with about 1 to 1.4 mil s delay time. This creates a more natural and acoustical dynamic and live listening space that is much more accurate and enjoyable to listen to music in.
Thank you for your contribution to the topic
If someone would make acoustic panels with dials and knobs and gauges on it, more people would treat their room. Ha Ha.
😀👍
These Jokers, Then after every recording is perfect then the guys push up brightness ,take away depth, Fatigue sets in . Push VU meters . So
now you have to go play JAZZ to get ears right
Not all rock but 80%
Ignoring bass modes, by far the dominant problem in rooms. Thumbs down.
Hi. Thanks for your comment. We cover bass modes in the loudspeaker placement video.
I disagree. I made a lot of diy speakers and made countless speaker measurements in 30 years of this hobby and this explanation is total misleading and nonsense that larger bass units in the room give less bass than smaller ones each larger 10" bass unit or larger measured with nerfield position goes linearly usually at least up to 50 hz which smaller up to 6" bass/midrage unit speakers can only dream of.
Dear Boris, thanks for your comment. Maybe I was not clear, or you misheard me. What I said was that if you are getting standing waves that are counteracting each other (ie the bass is being reflected back out of phase to the bass driver producing it, then it does not matter how big the driver will be it will react just the same. Meaning: some people complain because they don’t have enough bass and they go out snd buy bigger speakers but fail to realise that the problem is the room, not the speakers. Hoping this is clearer?
@@PearlAcoustics I agree, space is one of the most important hi-fi components. Standing waves are a problem as well as sound reflections both in space and speaker housing this is a complex problem that involves compromises that include room acoustics and placing speakers in a fairly ideal place but there is no end to it this fun crazy hobby. Thanks,