Move the couch forward. Move the speakers out from the the front wall. Get the floor-standing monitor speakers up from the floor. Decouple them from the floor with transport dollies or the feet delivered with the speakers. Use damping mats under speakers so you can to reduce bass and vibration. Use absorbers and diffusers behind speakers. Use diffuses behind you on the wall. Good thick carpets on the floor. Heavy curtains that you can slide away to the corners of the room when you are not listening to music. They are great for covering large TV -sets and windows. More?. Keep your doors to the listening-room open to let out the excess bass pressure-waves from your speakers. Do not place subs in the corners. Keep the mid-tone drivers at he same height as your ears. Listen then if there is some "splash" from the ceiling and treat it with diffusers and/or absorbers. Decouple amp, cd-player and record player from the table-top/floor with absorbing mats feet. Then start with the fun part with power-cables, speaker and IC... It's like gardening. You are not supposed to get a perfect finished garden. You are always on the move and improving or just changing...
Alot of good tips here. Some of them I have had a little plan of doing myself. But remember to not overdampen as that also will ruin the sound and make it less lifelike. Damping under the speakers wont help if you live in a basement or ground level. But in hanging floors (room underneeth) it might in some cases. Decoupling speakers and equipment only helps in some cases when you have loads of vibration. Mostly it's estetics akd placebo. But cables.. That helps on sound. Uhm.. Opening my door gives me even more bass dude...😅 So that is not always the case. In all small rooms I have had it sounds best when the door is closed. And use absorbers and diffusers only where needed. And that could be anywhere and not neccecarely the places you mentioned.
Acoustic room treatment is arguably one of if not the most crucial part of the listening experience(especially in smaller rooms) next to speakers and is unbelievably overlooked. I cant believe how many blow thousands upon thousands on gear and dont even consider treating the room. Youre just hitting the point of diminishing returns going that path when you can spend a fraction or less with the DIY route on proper treatment, and achieve an infinitely better listening experience even with mid-low end gear.
Totally agreed. the one thing I can say Is the most difficult thing to do is to find someone that will actually help you in figuring out what treatment you need, and the other side is to get the room to sound it's best, you either have to start from scratch or spend at least $15K to $20K on room treatment. It's always dealing with the weakest link syndrome. When you get involved with room treatment, whatever treatment you use, you'll either begin to hear the deficiencies in your room that's generated from the untreated areas or whether you choose the right product/materials to treat the room.. As long as you know that going in, you'll learn to have fun with it, and to at least understand where to spend the money.
@@oldestpunkinargentina7766 $200 is only going to buy you some building insulation to use as side wall reflections. Yeah, it makes a difference if you have enough wall coverage, but it's still far from fixing the problems in the room. And you have to be careful using building insulation as treatment in room acoustics. it wasn't designed for that application and their absorption coefficient curves isn't optimized for music and speech. It's more for thermal insulation from hot and cold in a living environment.
Superb results and quite easy to DIY; As much bass trapping as one can aesthetically pull off in the entire room... ie, entire corners, entire wall surfaces. Face the trapping with 6mil plastic (Visqueen) ... this prevents excessive damping via reflecting 600hz and up. Anywhere appropriate, place diffusion/scattering in front of those Visqueen faced traps. This is all about LF decay times ... which is likely the biggest problem, easiest low hanging fruit issue to address. Fast, high resolution bass clarity will result. That's part A, to issue #1, in essentially every room, ie., poorly resolved bass due to uneven decay times. ----------------- Part B, to issue #1 is bass/modal resonances. Placement experimentation, and EQ, in that order. • A room's resonances are fixed and solely determined by the room's dimensions. • Loudspeaker placement determines which modes are excited. • Listener location determines which modes are heard. Those three elements are crucial, yet oftentimes misunderstood. Then on to EQ, (be it dsp based automated Dirac or equivalent, or simply parametric EQ with measurements). If problematic frequency peaks remain in the response below ~250hz, EQ is a must. I say approx 250hz because it should only be applied below the transition frequency. Attempting to EQ above the minimum phase region corrects in one physical place ... thus creating FR issues elsewhere. This 250hz approximation is the transition region... whereby the sound propagation changes from "waves" to "rays" EQ is a valid tool within the pressure wave region below, not in the ray acoustics region above. An EQ change in the wave acoustics frequencies, results in a change evenly everywhere in the room. However, an EQ change in the ray acoustics region above, results in unpredictable changes throughout the space due to superposition peaks/dips. That's issue #1, ... bass clarity.
I went nearfield a few years back and solved a host of issues that are mentioned here. An added benefit less amplifier power is needed,not to mention I was now able to afford better quality speakers, albeit smaller. Yet I still use all my original upstream equipment from my former whole-room system. Its not for everyone, but if one tends to listen alone, and rarely if ever uses the system for social events, etc,I recommend giving nearfield a try.
I have bought GIK panels and I have found that they have made a tremendous difference in my room. I would recommend that if your are skeptical, to just dip your toe in and buy 2-4 large panels and you will hear a clear improvement. That way, you will feel more comfortable with spending the necessary amount to treat your room (whatever that may be). Room treatment are NOT snake oil. I think dollar for dollar they are the most cost effective way to improve sound that you already are getting. But don’t think you need to spend 1000’s to see a big improvement either. Happy Hi-Fi!
Agreed! I bought two large GIK Alpha Pro Diffusor/Absorbers panels for the wall behind my speakers and they made a big difference. After adding a shag carpet and heavy curtains I'm finished with my room now. I'm actually afraid I would over-dampen my room if I added anything else.
For near field, you need to have about a 3 ft triangle between speakers and you. Also, the speakers need to have at least 4ft distance from any wall. So, you realistically need at least a 12 or even 13 ft width in your room, otherwise you'll still get reflections from side walls. Also, if you use a sub, place it next to you, the listener, and put on a platform to raise it higher, at least 6 to 12 inches higher.
While mentioning the Ohm Walsh 2000's you did not mention that rear and early side reflections do not need correcting as they help widen the sound stage even more while giving phenomenal imaging and a sit anywhere sweet spot.
A big problem is that many homes and apartments have an open floor plan where the kitchen and livingroom are part of the same space. This is bad acoustically for many reasons, and worst of all you can hear the refrigerator 24-7. Refrigerators are the enemy of good sound.
I have an open plan house. The acoustics are actually quite good as I have a vaulted ceiling which, I feel, helps. The biggest acoustic problem in my open plan house is other people talking!
I have an open floor plan as you describe, tile floors, cathedral ceilings and all. Outside of potential appliance noise (not much of an issue for me), my A/V calibrator did his tests on the room and advised where to put some sound panels. On his next visit with sound panels in place (already had a thick rug in the listening area and heavy curtains on a sliding glass door), he remeasure the rooms acoustics and listens to several test disks and said that it’s now a really good listening room that measures and sounds excellent. Now, I just have to keep wifey from clucking and I’ll be golden.😁
I live right next to a busy road, which is next to a train track, in a neighborhood popular with Harley Davidson enthusiasts, and both my neighbours have loud barking/howling dogs. When I can hear my refrigerator I feel lucky haha
It cant be underestimated.... the room is the single most important thing to consider when trying to get good sound. I have the unfortunate predicament of using an attic room as my man cave / hifi room. Floor size is 4 x 5m so pretty fair size but the upper is concave and narrows to the roof. These uppers are hollow when knuckle rapping and the whole thing is acoistically alive. The floor is wood suspended with thick carpet and again not inert. All this means no matter what equipment i use i am hearing the room and it ruins everything. Net result is im selling off all my 000's of pounds of hifi as i simply dont enjoy sitting and listening to my room.... and the noisier mains i also suffer up top!!! The reality for me is my £300 grado headphones plugged into the Marantz sacd player sound far better in many ways than £32k worth of all valve pre/power amps with Tannoy Kensington GR on the end and its made my hobby a box swapping nightmare in a room that just wont let my kit sing.
I helped a friend set up his new speakers after moving into a new apartment. Luckily it was a fairly large space with an open concept living room and dining room so he was able to pull his speakers into the room and wall reflections were not an issue. The nearest side boundary was his floor to ceiling windows that had drapes to minimize reflections. As with many people he had his TV between the speakers so I brought over some large thick beach towels and threw them over the TV and it made a noticeable improvement to the stereo imaging and clarity much to the surprise of my friend who was very sceptical and reticent to covering up his TV because he thought it looked silly.
I'm living in 11X11X8 foot cube-room hell. I've solved as well as I can with open-baffle speakers that minimize first-reflection point issues, sitting relatively close, light absorption on the back wall and placing my subwoofer very close to my listening position while taking extra care to properly time-align it to the mains. It's hard to get a wide, deep soundstage in a room this small but imaging, tonality and microdynamics sound very good as long as I don't push things much past 85 db. Even bass tonality and impact is good as long as I don't push things really loud. To achieve large scale sound with good macrodynamics in a room this small requires significantly more treatment than I'm willing to buy or build.
If you don't mind my asking, what open baffle speakers do you have, and how far are they from your front wall? I've been looking at purchasing the Spatial Audio M5 Sapphires for my 11'X15' listening room.
@@Diatonic5th emerald physics 3.4, now out of production. I have them pulled 5 ft from the front left and right corners on a diagonal, with the direct sound crossing 3 ft in front of my head when in listening position. If you draw a straight line from the back of each speaker you will be in the corner. This was the easiest way to create most space between the back of speaker and front wall, which I've been led to believe is best for these kinds of speakers. Would love me some Sapphires, good luck!
@Roland de Rooy not all the frequencies below 55 hz are offensive at 85 db or less but there are definitely some nulls that are unfortunate and can't be managed without treatment.
@Roland de Rooy Yes, it's picking poison. I do enjoy headphones now and then but ultimately prefer speakers. I could chop all the low to get a more linear response but I find I ultimately prefer to have an acceptably good experience of most of the low by carful placement of mains and sub, time-aligning subs and mains, listening at relatively low db (70-80), managing peaks with DSP and living with the nulls. I look forward to one day having a better room which wouldn't require that I cover 30% of the surface area (minimum) with bass traps like this one!
I feel ya @Caleb Keen. Mine is 12x12x8, with a window on one side and bathroom opposite. At least it’s carpeted. Thinking of trying some bass traps to start but not optimistic. Any suggestions from anyone appreciated! 😊
I have some vintage speakers in my finished basement room 20 x 10. Any attempt to put speakers on the long wall (20') results in lackluster sound. The SAME speakers on the short wall with the 20' as the space they play into sounds totallly different. They come into their own. Sound like DIFFERENT speakers. Speakers have a 37hz-20Khz +/- 3 db range. My conclusions, the bass is too smeared does not have the space to propagate when it's less the 10' but can breathe when it's closer to 20'. This was a real eye-opener when it came to understanding room effects/problems. The room has the usual acoustic tile drop ceiling, cement floor which is carpeted, a foundation wall that is paneled with wood, and three other paneled walls. Surprisingly, almost ANY speaker, and I mean ANY sounds best against the SHORT WALL!
Doing a near field deal with Klipsch 51PM and an additional 8” Sub ..its entertaining ....and I’m going to go with cans for serious music listening . Great video as per usual Steve ☕️ thanks.
I have horn speakers. They are more directional than most other designs and because of this I find they project more sound directly to you than the reflections.
I have horn speakers as well with hardwood floors. A nice large rug with carpet pad really helps with the low end. One needn't get too crazy with room treatments as Steve says. And don't forget to play around a bit with speaker position as well.
@@Drackleyrva Horn speakers are more directional in the midrange and higher frequencies. This means that the reflections you might have will be comparatively lower intensity than the direct sound. This is not necessarily an advantage, call it a “feature” of the horn design. It has the drawback that toe-in can greatly alter the character of the sound, so you need to figure out toe-in more precisely than with a speaker with wider, more even dispersion. I do want to point out that while mid and high frequencies are more easily treatable with absorbers or diffusers, the bass is not easy at all because it is about the room modes rather than the speakers themselves, and changing the fundamental modes (those where the sound wavelength is twice the distance between walls) is almost impossible to do with traps of any sort (you’d have to build a pretty deep soft surface on one of the walls). This is ameliorated when rooms don’t have parallel walls: the modes in this case get washed out. Room correction (ie digital room correction) can be very effective in reducing bass peaks (ie room modes) whereas it is ineffective at increasing bass in bass lows - because the latter are cancellation modes and if you put more energy in, you just cancel more of it. So digital room correction is not necessarily the key to solving these problems.
I always wondered why some younger audiophiles were so intent on headphones. One can AB test with a set of headphones. ( against treated room, to get target sound ) I haven't tried it yet. Just a theory.
No listening fatigue on this channel for sure! You continue to do what you do best Steve... give us your honest opinion on all things Audio..... The Audiophiliac Show: (like Clapton once sang ) Let it Grow!! 👏👏👏 Damn those shirts Steve! 🍻👍
I'm pretty lucky having a great space for listening....12' x 25' with slanted roof, great rug, sound absorbers at first reflection points. I can pull the speakers off the wall and place my chair in the ideal sweet spot. Until I got this space set up, I didn't really understand the importance of the space. I'm my younger, more naive days I just thought a great pair of speakers was all that mattered.
Several years ago I converted an expandable attic to my audio visual room. I maintained the basic shape of the space making the cross section trapezoidal for many of the reasons you discussed. Carpeting, books on shelves, and a couch are my treatments. No slap echo or standing waves..I'm going to miss it when I have to downsize.
Hey Steve, I have a 11 ish ft SQUARE stereo listening bedroom. More precisely W3,42 x L3,47 x H2,77 meters. What you said is what I'm experiencing. I have to make do with near-field or face the room boom. I have a pair of Neat Motive 2 (12cm woofer and 76cm tall) loudspeakers driven by a Naim NAP250DR and one SVS SB12-NSD subwoofer. As you can imagine, the sub almost have to go in the middle to avoid the boundaries. My amp is too much for my speakers, at some point the speakers will produce that prrrr sound reaching the excursion limits with the kick drum. At this point, I wish I had a tad stronger speaker. At the same time I know this speaker cannot have rear firing port and probably should not be a multi driver loudspeaker. I'm thinking about another pair of down ported 2 way tower but with 17cm woofer to resist more. A little taller would also help with the near-field listening because I have a computer desk with a 27 inch LCD blocking the speakers a little. I have a large carpet covering all listening area, curtains behind my listening position covering a large sliding window and a wardrobe on one of the walls on the side more distant of the speakers. What would be your first room treatment experimentation? Absorbers on the side walls at first reflexion points? One wall has the wardrobe covering the probable location of the absorver. Osvaldo
Building a purpose built 'studio' type listening room, it occurred to me not to finish the ceiling. Since the supporting joists were running parallel to the speakers I decided to modify them into one giant diffuser/absorber. The very top of the ceiling (bottom of the main floor) was lined with absorbtive insulation and a series of diffusers both internally within the joists and interspaced where the ceiling would normally be resulted in an infinite ceiling with a touch of controlled bounce back. Black cloth covers the rest of the 'false' ceiling. Result: A full 9' basement ceiling, savings in money and a great improvement in sound.
I had to check what side the buttons were on Gutts shirt. I coulda sworn that was my moms mu mu from the hula craze back in the 50’s. Nope it’s a guy shirt.
No! Why do you recomend having the sub right next to the sitting position!? In every case I have tried that it sounds funky and it places the bass sounds next to me rarher than dissapearing in a way that I can't tell where the sub sits like it should. Diffusers and absorbers should be used where needed and not just place them behind the speakers etc. Messure where they need to bee if possible. Putting them behind can be a mistake if they are not needed there.
Sorry none of this is an option when an audiophile lives in a real family home without a dedicated listening room. We have significant others to sign off on room treatments. And they don’t.
I liked this show the best so FAR! You literally read my mind as I was giving this room/ ear field DEBATE credence earlier today. It's cool how you dedicated a whole show to something otherthan; equipment, BUT- of equal importance IMHO. GREAT SHOW!
Placing the sub next to or near the listening chair worked well for my set up. I can easily reach over to the volume control and adjust the bass. UB5s with RSL 10 speedwoofer. 11x14x8 room carpeted.
I installed the free REW software on a laptop and purchased a calibrated microphone to take actual measurements of the room response. It's a real eye opener. With experimentation I was able to cure some bass nulls, higher frequency response was highly variable depending on seating position. Just a few inches make a difference. Getting flat response across the audio spectrum would be very difficult.
I can't believe that some people in the worst sounding rooms (acoustically), still refuse to get an EQ of some sort, they rather have all the peaks and dips in the frequencies, then an EQ in their system.
Absolutely! After all my hard work and money to achieve clean sound, it would be the very height of stupidity to introduce more dirt and grunge back into it. Not to mention a waste of money. Edit: Speaking hypothetically, of course. Not meaning to call anyone stupid. Just sayin'.
EQ is an absolute must for taming modal resonances. However it should only be applied in the minimum phase region below the transition frequency. Attempting to EQ above the minimum phase region simply corrects in one physical place ... thus creating FR issues elsewhere. Essentially, you EQ within the pressure wave region, not in the ray acoustics region. Of course before EQ, experimentation via placement of both speakers and listening position, as well as LF trapping to address decay times. Then; enter EQ (be it dsp based Dirac, or simply parametric EQ with measurements)
I am pulling my floor standers to the middle of the room, on a carpet, and putting my soft arm chair right in front of them. Than smoke some green and I am flying xd xd
My family/home theater room has no two identical walls; one opens to my entry hallway, one is a 3 bay window set , my back wall is really just 1/4 of a wall then open to my kitchen, and my ceiling is vaulted one direction up to the second floor. Might as well aim a speaker into a 3-D kaleidoscope ... I’m considering a pair of Bluetooth earbuds 😄
@@stephenbrockway5899 I have not. Always assumed that such technology was beyond my budget. I’ll check into them. How do open baffles improve my situation? Thanks for the advice 👍🏼
I have big ass plants on both sides of my speakers (tekton enzo xl) and the corners and hanging above my windows. Hell I have plants all over the damn place and that works great. Also my big ass rug and thick ass velvet curtains really helped a but ton.
I've also got thick velvet curtains, also blinds on the windows. The thing to look out for when buying curtains is the spec of weight of the material per foot. The higher the better. The sound performance compared to when I had thin curtains and no blinds is night and day. Most rooms have curtains so why use thin curtains that the sound will pour through to the reflective glass windows.
I feel your pain, I have the Magnepan LRS in my bedroom. I’m scared to put them in the family room, I once came home to a hole in my KEF Q300. Maggies are a bit more fragile in a family room
I listen to 6 different TH-cam Audiophiles who have given at least a glimpse of their rooms, all different (and I think only 1 is purpose built). You guys should put together a zoom style presentation where you each talk about what makes your room work for you..
Does anyone have thoughts about or experience with using an armchair with large 'ears', or 'eggchair'? Well placed, I guess this way you could receive more of the direct sound from your speakers and less indirect/reflected sound...without having to do a massive room haul over. Right?
Hi Steve, Love your shows! Would you stage a floor standing speaker along the long instead meaning along the 16foot wal in a 15 x 14 room with 8 ft ceilings in an attic. There is more symmetry due to the window dormers on the read long side. Thanks so much in advance to your feedback.
Ive tried 3 sets of speakers in my room (about 10' by 10') one side 50% open to livingroom below. All speakers perform with lackluster bass. Maybe its too small, too square and Im too close to hear those "long" waves of bass.
It is the main issue to reproduce great sound.i've been dealing with this for many years.for smaller rooms,I recommend small stand mounted monitors.most great British speakers are of that type.most listening rooms are in older dwellings that tend to have smaller rooms.Was an audio consultant for some years and I can't tell you how many of the Ultra High End systems I've heard that sounded horrific!.room treatments are very helpful,but careful system matching is very critical! In my opinion, the 180°dome tweeter set high end audio back 30years.the main culprit for most undesirable reflection.i found that speakers with ribbon or horn tweeters have better directivity and do not see the baffle like domes.
Great ideas. With a little DIY the panels don't have to cost much either, I built mine for the cost of the insulation I used. Lots of info can be found easily. I made a rectangle stuffed in my insulation a little extra to get it off the walls as far as possible added my own fabrics. Can even look any way you like this way. Did wonders for my sound stage😁👍
Hi Steve, If you do a chapter 2 on room impacting sound, maybe holding up a drawing of your unusual room shape, with Xs where you typically place speakers would help? Thanks
yes absorption material to the speakers as first reflection, but leave a gap where the tweeter is 6" between the panels in most cases if the very bright sounding don't need to? and the best absorption material is natural wool fleece it goes lower than any other material below 20hz you can buy quarter half 1/2 inch fleece and double it up and hang it away from the wall, never have panels touching the wall the second reflection point should be in your sitting position about 2 feet in front and about 1 feet behind the gap between the panels in line with a treat needs to be about 12 inches here if you're sitting more than 7 feet away from you speakers. If you have a narrow longitudinal room you need to really have the speakers the other way you don't want your speakers against the side wall. And don't need to be that far apart in the middle 4,1/2 ft no more than six feet apart. Bass traps are very important you didn't mention on or corners ideally but at least behind the speakers minimum 2 feet across I would say 3-ft ideally you can use fleece for this is best just hang up some wooden dowel across the corners hang the fleece over leaving a gap at the bottom of about a foot if you have cats make it higher You can easily make diffusers the top professionally tune to your room any bits of material wood you just Google quadratic diffuser calculator putting your dimensions material it will give you the specifications blueprint to make it. Softwood like pine is ideal cover the back with natural wool fleece not hardboard. If you wanted to look a bit more attractive you can hang rugs or bamboo rugs on the wall in front of the fleece the same on the floor put the fleece and bamboo rugs across the speakers ideally 3-ft in front and some behind
Curious to know what electronics gave you the most success with the Snell Type A's. I could not get the same base response in a similar leaky room. Additionally, I found attenuation at some medium to high frequencies. Also what was your break-in period?
Steve forgot to mention planar speakers, like Magnepan, Soundlabs, etc, they do not send sound to the floor and ceiling and not much to the right and left, the sound coming off the back is the issue... speakers have to be far away from the back wall, or diffused/absorbed...
How do you know where your first reflections are happening? I always see people with diffusers behind the speakers, on the back wall and on the sidewall almost straight across from the speaker. I read on some scientific website that said back wall needs 4" thick some substance I forgot.
good video the house i grew up in had a den room it was 35ft by 22 if i remember. the walls were wood the floor had broadlem the front of the room had built in book shelves. i had a entry level prologic system at the time and running movies or music the floor would shake under my feet.we had a crawl space under the floor would that make that happen? in a apartment the floor is solid .But that floor i remember would shake like a subwoofer . the walls to would resinate . we had alot of books to. that room was quite dead sounding no echo at all.
Hey Steve I would love to see a video on VMPS audio. I have a set of SuperTowers and a 10” subwoofer. I love the company but know little about them as a whole. Very rare findings with the brand!
I had been playing with this for a while and finally found out that near-field listening was actually ideal for me. It so turned out, ironically, that position the speakers there also reduced most of the reverbs that would otherwise affect listening experience (luckily), and getting closer to the sub helps with avoiding the annoying standing waves. My room is 12x25 ft with 10 ft ceiling. The speakers are facing the 12ft direction.
He’s right. Check out TH-cam Josef hifi room. My approach since I was fortunate enough to build my dream listening room I designed the room as if I was designing one giant speaker. And then being in it. It’s brilliant I so recommend it and working through things like a big frequency sweep on a big pa you hire for a day might be the best $100 you ever spend to find problem areas. Steve great vid as always keep em coming stay safe !
In my studio, I've got large absorption panels behind and to the sides of the speakers. They really help! Then I hung TWO 3'x8' panels on the ceiling, and that was a step too far! They sucked all the life and energy out of the room, and it felt unnatural. I tried for a week to get used to it, and once I took the 3x8 panels back down, the life came back. I now have 2 small 2x3 panels at the critical reflection points, and it's just about right. I plan to make diffusor panels for overhead to disperse the reflections without sucking out too much energy from the room.
My music room is the dreaded "almost cube!" I gravitated toward the near-field listening arrangement. Not ideal, but it works. The wall behind the speakers is a 1/4" fake brick panel, it's really heavy and it makes a difference.
Lucky in that I have a pass through into the kitchen that the wife hates. So there have been drapes over it for years, also drapes over the two windows on the other side. Coat rack behind the left speaker and an open hall behind the right. Big stuffed sofa at the back of the room. Not ideal but it works.
Hi Steve, my name is Steven and I stay in Malaysia. Love your review and it give me ton of knowledge thanks to you. I wish if you can talk about connections on sub woofer onto amplifier either a active or passive and that would be great. The reason why is because I always had this kind of problems every time.
Large rooms especially with high ceilings are almost always better than small rooms if the proportions are decent. The major problem with your presentation is that there is no attempt to address the issue of integration of all aspects of furnishings, art work and audio components. This is one reason why many people give up when it comes to audio. Few people have spaces that can be devoted to the tyranny of audio adjustments.
Large rooms with high ceilings are actually harder than small rooms with low ceilings. You need higher sensitivity speakers (usually expensive floorstanders) more expensive amplifier. Expensive sound treatments are also always needed in large rooms. Probably costs 7 x or more to complete a large room compared to a small room.
my listening room is in a bedroom because it keeps it away from the neighbour's it has a king size bed in it with the speaker three foot away from the bed definitely not ideal but the Atcs cope pretty well being a sealed design
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Move the couch forward. Move the speakers out from the the front wall. Get the floor-standing monitor speakers up from the floor. Decouple them from the floor with transport dollies or the feet delivered with the speakers. Use damping mats under speakers so you can to reduce bass and vibration. Use absorbers and diffusers behind speakers. Use diffuses behind you on the wall. Good thick carpets on the floor. Heavy curtains that you can slide away to the corners of the room when you are not listening to music. They are great for covering large TV -sets and windows. More?. Keep your doors to the listening-room open to let out the excess bass pressure-waves from your speakers. Do not place subs in the corners. Keep the mid-tone drivers at he same height as your ears. Listen then if there is some "splash" from the ceiling and treat it with diffusers and/or absorbers.
Decouple amp, cd-player and record player from the table-top/floor with absorbing mats feet. Then start with the fun part with power-cables, speaker and IC... It's like gardening. You are not supposed to get a perfect finished garden. You are always on the move and improving or just changing...
thaks for your amount of tip you gave here
Alot of good tips here. Some of them I have had a little plan of doing myself. But remember to not overdampen as that also will ruin the sound and make it less lifelike.
Damping under the speakers wont help if you live in a basement or ground level. But in hanging floors (room underneeth) it might in some cases. Decoupling speakers and equipment only helps in some cases when you have loads of vibration. Mostly it's estetics akd placebo. But cables.. That helps on sound.
Uhm.. Opening my door gives me even more bass dude...😅 So that is not always the case. In all small rooms I have had it sounds best when the door is closed.
And use absorbers and diffusers only where needed. And that could be anywhere and not neccecarely the places you mentioned.
Acoustic room treatment is arguably one of if not the most crucial part of the listening experience(especially in smaller rooms) next to speakers and is unbelievably overlooked. I cant believe how many blow thousands upon thousands on gear and dont even consider treating the room. Youre just hitting the point of diminishing returns going that path when you can spend a fraction or less with the DIY route on proper treatment, and achieve an infinitely better listening experience even with mid-low end gear.
200 bucks on DIY room treatment went a longer way than 5K on equipment for me.
Or you could do both
Totally agreed. the one thing I can say Is the most difficult thing to do is to find someone that will actually help you in figuring out what treatment you need, and the other side is to get the room to sound it's best, you either have to start from scratch or spend at least $15K to $20K on room treatment.
It's always dealing with the weakest link syndrome. When you get involved with room treatment, whatever treatment you use, you'll either begin to hear the deficiencies in your room that's generated from the untreated areas or whether you choose the right product/materials to treat the room..
As long as you know that going in, you'll learn to have fun with it, and to at least understand where to spend the money.
@@oldestpunkinargentina7766 $200 is only going to buy you some building insulation to use as side wall reflections. Yeah, it makes a difference if you have enough wall coverage, but it's still far from fixing the problems in the room. And you have to be careful using building insulation as treatment in room acoustics. it wasn't designed for that application and their absorption coefficient curves isn't optimized for music and speech. It's more for thermal insulation from hot and cold in a living environment.
It's not overlooked, it's just that most people don't want a living room full of bass traps and carpeted walls
My room isn't as loud as Steve's shirt.
Superb results and quite easy to DIY;
As much bass trapping as one can aesthetically pull off in the entire room... ie, entire corners, entire wall surfaces.
Face the trapping with 6mil plastic (Visqueen) ... this prevents excessive damping via reflecting 600hz and up.
Anywhere appropriate, place diffusion/scattering in front of those Visqueen faced traps.
This is all about LF decay times ... which is likely the biggest problem, easiest low hanging fruit issue to address.
Fast, high resolution bass clarity will result.
That's part A, to issue #1, in essentially every room, ie., poorly resolved bass due to uneven decay times.
-----------------
Part B, to issue #1 is bass/modal resonances.
Placement experimentation, and EQ, in that order.
• A room's resonances are fixed and solely determined by the room's dimensions.
• Loudspeaker placement determines which modes are excited.
• Listener location determines which modes are heard.
Those three elements are crucial, yet oftentimes misunderstood.
Then on to EQ, (be it dsp based automated Dirac or equivalent, or simply parametric EQ with measurements).
If problematic frequency peaks remain in the response below ~250hz, EQ is a must.
I say approx 250hz because it should only be applied below the transition frequency. Attempting to EQ above the minimum phase region corrects in one physical place ... thus creating FR issues elsewhere.
This 250hz approximation is the transition region... whereby the sound propagation changes from "waves" to "rays"
EQ is a valid tool within the pressure wave region below, not in the ray acoustics region above.
An EQ change in the wave acoustics frequencies, results in a change evenly everywhere in the room.
However, an EQ change in the ray acoustics region above, results in unpredictable changes throughout the space due to superposition peaks/dips.
That's issue #1, ... bass clarity.
Nice addition to this thread.
I went nearfield a few years back and solved a host of issues that are mentioned here. An added benefit less amplifier power is needed,not to mention I was now able to afford better quality speakers, albeit smaller. Yet I still use all my original upstream equipment from my former whole-room system.
Its not for everyone, but if one tends to listen alone, and rarely if ever uses the system for social events, etc,I recommend giving nearfield a try.
My room sounds pretty decent, but it smells a bit 😅
I have bought GIK panels and I have found that they have made a tremendous difference in my room. I would recommend that if your are skeptical, to just dip your toe in and buy 2-4 large panels and you will hear a clear improvement. That way, you will feel more comfortable with spending the necessary amount to treat your room (whatever that may be). Room treatment are NOT snake oil. I think dollar for dollar they are the most cost effective way to improve sound that you already are getting. But don’t think you need to spend 1000’s to see a big improvement either. Happy Hi-Fi!
Agreed! I bought two large GIK Alpha Pro Diffusor/Absorbers panels for the wall behind my speakers and they made a big difference. After adding a shag carpet and heavy curtains I'm finished with my room now. I'm actually afraid I would over-dampen my room if I added anything else.
I was hoping to see a detailed look of your room Steve.
I went to nearfield listening in my room, and it did help with removing a lot of room problems.
For near field, you need to have about a 3 ft triangle between speakers and you. Also, the speakers need to have at least 4ft distance from any wall. So, you realistically need at least a 12 or even 13 ft width in your room, otherwise you'll still get reflections from side walls.
Also, if you use a sub, place it next to you, the listener, and put on a platform to raise it higher, at least 6 to 12 inches higher.
While mentioning the Ohm Walsh 2000's you did not mention that rear and early side reflections do not need correcting as they help widen the sound stage even more while giving phenomenal imaging and a sit anywhere sweet spot.
A big problem is that many homes and apartments have an open floor plan where the kitchen and livingroom are part of the same space. This is bad acoustically for many reasons, and worst of all you can hear the refrigerator 24-7. Refrigerators are the enemy of good sound.
I have an open plan house. The acoustics are actually quite good as I have a vaulted ceiling which, I feel, helps. The biggest acoustic problem in my open plan house is other people talking!
I have an open floor plan as you describe, tile floors, cathedral ceilings and all. Outside of potential appliance noise (not much of an issue for me), my A/V calibrator did his tests on the room and advised where to put some sound panels. On his next visit with sound panels in place (already had a thick rug in the listening area and heavy curtains on a sliding glass door), he remeasure the rooms acoustics and listens to several test disks and said that it’s now a really good listening room that measures and sounds excellent. Now, I just have to keep wifey from clucking and I’ll be golden.😁
The fridge doesnt run 24-7, if yours does you need a new one.
I live right next to a busy road, which is next to a train track, in a neighborhood popular with Harley Davidson enthusiasts, and both my neighbours have loud barking/howling dogs. When I can hear my refrigerator I feel lucky haha
Just move the fridge outside :)
It's worth remembering that a room like an anechoic chamber won't sound good. Recordings are made to allow for some room reverb.
It cant be underestimated.... the room is the single most important thing to consider when trying to get good sound. I have the unfortunate predicament of using an attic room as my man cave / hifi room. Floor size is 4 x 5m so pretty fair size but the upper is concave and narrows to the roof. These uppers are hollow when knuckle rapping and the whole thing is acoistically alive. The floor is wood suspended with thick carpet and again not inert. All this means no matter what equipment i use i am hearing the room and it ruins everything. Net result is im selling off all my 000's of pounds of hifi as i simply dont enjoy sitting and listening to my room.... and the noisier mains i also suffer up top!!!
The reality for me is my £300 grado headphones plugged into the Marantz sacd player sound far better in many ways than £32k worth of all valve pre/power amps with Tannoy Kensington GR on the end and its made my hobby a box swapping nightmare in a room that just wont let my kit sing.
I helped a friend set up his new speakers after moving into a new apartment. Luckily it was a fairly large space with an open concept living room and dining room so he was able to pull his speakers into the room and wall reflections were not an issue. The nearest side boundary was his floor to ceiling windows that had drapes to minimize reflections. As with many people he had his TV between the speakers so I brought over some large thick beach towels and threw them over the TV and it made a noticeable improvement to the stereo imaging and clarity much to the surprise of my friend who was very sceptical and reticent to covering up his TV because he thought it looked silly.
I'm living in 11X11X8 foot cube-room hell. I've solved as well as I can with open-baffle speakers that minimize first-reflection point issues, sitting relatively close, light absorption on the back wall and placing my subwoofer very close to my listening position while taking extra care to properly time-align it to the mains. It's hard to get a wide, deep soundstage in a room this small but imaging, tonality and microdynamics sound very good as long as I don't push things much past 85 db. Even bass tonality and impact is good as long as I don't push things really loud. To achieve large scale sound with good macrodynamics in a room this small requires significantly more treatment than I'm willing to buy or build.
If you don't mind my asking, what open baffle speakers do you have, and how far are they from your front wall? I've been looking at purchasing the Spatial Audio M5 Sapphires for my 11'X15' listening room.
@@Diatonic5th emerald physics 3.4, now out of production. I have them pulled 5 ft from the front left and right corners on a diagonal, with the direct sound crossing 3 ft in front of my head when in listening position. If you draw a straight line from the back of each speaker you will be in the corner. This was the easiest way to create most space between the back of speaker and front wall, which I've been led to believe is best for these kinds of speakers. Would love me some Sapphires, good luck!
@Roland de Rooy not all the frequencies below 55 hz are offensive at 85 db or less but there are definitely some nulls that are unfortunate and can't be managed without treatment.
@Roland de Rooy Yes, it's picking poison. I do enjoy headphones now and then but ultimately prefer speakers. I could chop all the low to get a more linear response but I find I ultimately prefer to have an acceptably good experience of most of the low by carful placement of mains and sub, time-aligning subs and mains, listening at relatively low db (70-80), managing peaks with DSP and living with the nulls. I look forward to one day having a better room which wouldn't require that I cover 30% of the surface area (minimum) with bass traps like this one!
I feel ya @Caleb Keen. Mine is 12x12x8, with a window on one side and bathroom opposite. At least it’s carpeted. Thinking of trying some bass traps to start but not optimistic. Any suggestions from anyone appreciated! 😊
I have some vintage speakers in my finished basement room 20 x 10. Any attempt to put speakers on the long wall (20') results in lackluster sound. The SAME speakers on the short wall with the 20' as the space they play into sounds totallly different. They come into their own. Sound like DIFFERENT speakers. Speakers have a 37hz-20Khz +/- 3 db range. My conclusions, the bass is too smeared does not have the space to propagate when it's less the 10' but can breathe when it's closer to 20'. This was a real eye-opener when it came to understanding room effects/problems.
The room has the usual acoustic tile drop ceiling, cement floor which is carpeted, a foundation wall that is paneled with wood, and three other paneled walls. Surprisingly, almost ANY speaker, and I mean ANY sounds best against the SHORT WALL!
Doing a near field deal with Klipsch 51PM and an additional 8” Sub ..its entertaining ....and I’m going to go with cans for serious music listening .
Great video as per usual Steve ☕️ thanks.
I have horn speakers. They are more directional than most other designs and because of this I find they project more sound directly to you than the reflections.
That was my question----are horn speakers better suited for certain rooms vs standard speakers?
I have horn speakers as well with hardwood floors. A nice large rug with carpet pad really helps with the low end. One needn't get too crazy with room treatments as Steve says. And don't forget to play around a bit with speaker position as well.
@@Drackleyrva Horn speakers are more directional in the midrange and higher frequencies. This means that the reflections you might have will be comparatively lower intensity than the direct sound. This is not necessarily an advantage, call it a “feature” of the horn design. It has the drawback that toe-in can greatly alter the character of the sound, so you need to figure out toe-in more precisely than with a speaker with wider, more even dispersion.
I do want to point out that while mid and high frequencies are more easily treatable with absorbers or diffusers, the bass is not easy at all because it is about the room modes rather than the speakers themselves, and changing the fundamental modes (those where the sound wavelength is twice the distance between walls) is almost impossible to do with traps of any sort (you’d have to build a pretty deep soft surface on one of the walls). This is ameliorated when rooms don’t have parallel walls: the modes in this case get washed out.
Room correction (ie digital room correction) can be very effective in reducing bass peaks (ie room modes) whereas it is ineffective at increasing bass in bass lows - because the latter are cancellation modes and if you put more energy in, you just cancel more of it. So digital room correction is not necessarily the key to solving these problems.
@@miguelbarrio Thanks guys!!
Enjoyed this. Remember an oft quoted comment in music that "The most important instrument in an orchestra is the [room]."
AWESOME!! TOTALLY AGREE.
I always wondered why some younger audiophiles were so intent on headphones. One can AB test with a set of headphones. ( against treated room, to get target sound ) I haven't tried it yet. Just a theory.
No listening fatigue on this channel for sure! You continue to do what you do best Steve... give us your honest opinion on all things Audio..... The Audiophiliac Show: (like Clapton once sang ) Let it Grow!! 👏👏👏
Damn those shirts Steve! 🍻👍
I'm pretty lucky having a great space for listening....12' x 25' with slanted roof, great rug, sound absorbers at first reflection points. I can pull the speakers off the wall and place my chair in the ideal sweet spot. Until I got this space set up, I didn't really understand the importance of the space. I'm my younger, more naive days I just thought a great pair of speakers was all that mattered.
Several years ago I converted an expandable attic to my audio visual room. I maintained the basic shape of the space making the cross section trapezoidal for many of the reasons you discussed. Carpeting, books on shelves, and a couch are my treatments. No slap echo or standing waves..I'm going to miss it when I have to downsize.
Hey Steve,
I have a 11 ish ft SQUARE stereo listening bedroom. More precisely W3,42 x L3,47 x H2,77 meters.
What you said is what I'm experiencing. I have to make do with near-field or face the room boom.
I have a pair of Neat Motive 2 (12cm woofer and 76cm tall) loudspeakers driven by a Naim NAP250DR and one SVS SB12-NSD subwoofer. As you can imagine, the sub almost have to go in the middle to avoid the boundaries.
My amp is too much for my speakers, at some point the speakers will produce that prrrr sound reaching the excursion limits with the kick drum. At this point, I wish I had a tad stronger speaker. At the same time I know this speaker cannot have rear firing port and probably should not be a multi driver loudspeaker. I'm thinking about another pair of down ported 2 way tower but with 17cm woofer to resist more. A little taller would also help with the near-field listening because I have a computer desk with a 27 inch LCD blocking the speakers a little.
I have a large carpet covering all listening area, curtains behind my listening position covering a large sliding window and a wardrobe on one of the walls on the side more distant of the speakers.
What would be your first room treatment experimentation? Absorbers on the side walls at first reflexion points? One wall has the wardrobe covering the probable location of the absorver.
Osvaldo
Building a purpose built 'studio' type listening room, it occurred to me not to finish the ceiling. Since the supporting joists were running parallel to the speakers I decided to modify them into one giant diffuser/absorber. The very top of the ceiling (bottom of the main floor) was lined with absorbtive insulation and a series of diffusers both internally within the joists and interspaced where the ceiling would normally be resulted in an infinite ceiling with a touch of controlled bounce back. Black cloth covers the rest of the 'false' ceiling.
Result: A full 9' basement ceiling, savings in money and a great improvement in sound.
I had to check what side the buttons were on Gutts shirt. I coulda sworn that was my moms mu mu from the hula craze back in the 50’s. Nope it’s a guy shirt.
Does GIK have local reps that will come to my home? That's the only way I would give them any business.
How can one talk on improving room acoustics & not show their listening room? Is it sufficient to be reviewing speakers for the audiophile public?
No! Why do you recomend having the sub right next to the sitting position!? In every case I have tried that it sounds funky and it places the bass sounds next to me rarher than dissapearing in a way that I can't tell where the sub sits like it should.
Diffusers and absorbers should be used where needed and not just place them behind the speakers etc. Messure where they need to bee if possible. Putting them behind can be a mistake if they are not needed there.
I hope one day I'll have the money to build my own home and hire the best acoustic engineers to build the physically best listening room from scratch
let's be honest.
How many woman caves with soundsystems out there?
Sorry none of this is an option when an audiophile lives in a real family home without a dedicated listening room. We have significant others to sign off on room treatments. And they don’t.
I have the cube 11x10x10 only place I’ve got....room treatments are needed so bad 😂😂🙏🏼
Rooms are vital and so often overlooked , but they do need to be tailored to suit I think its really where serious audiophiliac behaviour begins.
It can get pretty neurotic. Especially to an outsider
I liked this show the best so FAR! You literally read my mind as I was giving this room/ ear field DEBATE credence earlier today. It's cool how you dedicated a whole show to something otherthan; equipment, BUT- of equal importance IMHO. GREAT SHOW!
Chandeliers - diffusion that looks good.
Placing the sub next to or near the listening chair worked well for my set up. I can easily reach over to the volume control and adjust the bass. UB5s with RSL 10 speedwoofer. 11x14x8 room carpeted.
I installed the free REW software on a laptop and purchased a calibrated microphone to take actual measurements of the room response. It's a real eye opener. With experimentation I was able to cure some bass nulls, higher frequency response was highly variable depending on seating position. Just a few inches make a difference. Getting flat response across the audio spectrum would be very difficult.
Which microphone did you get?
I can't believe that some people in the worst sounding rooms (acoustically), still refuse to get an EQ of some sort, they rather have all the peaks and dips in the frequencies, then an EQ in their system.
Absolutely!
After all my hard work and money to achieve clean sound, it would be the very height of stupidity to introduce more dirt and grunge back into it. Not to mention a waste of money.
Edit: Speaking hypothetically, of course.
Not meaning to call anyone stupid. Just sayin'.
In a decent analogue system the deleterious effects of things like direc most often palliate or even overwhelm the benefit.
EQ is an absolute must for taming modal resonances.
However it should only be applied in the minimum phase region below the transition frequency. Attempting to EQ above the minimum phase region simply corrects in one physical place ... thus creating FR issues elsewhere.
Essentially, you EQ within the pressure wave region, not in the ray acoustics region.
Of course before EQ, experimentation via placement of both speakers and listening position, as well as LF trapping to address decay times.
Then; enter EQ (be it dsp based Dirac, or simply parametric EQ with measurements)
Crank the volume up and sit in the beer room , heavenly lol
I am pulling my floor standers to the middle of the room, on a carpet, and putting my soft arm chair right in front of them. Than smoke some green and I am flying xd xd
Steve are you wearing my Aunt's Housecoat?
all my walls have floor to ceiling bookcases
Everyone has to buy houses that have a room for a home theater and than talk
Great review, Steve. Is that a Totem Beak on top of the speaker behind you?
The room is by far the biggest component of the sound and is by far the most effect for money spent
just hit the subscribe button.... also a request.. More McIntosh reviews... the C53 and MC462 to start with.
My family/home theater room has no two identical walls; one opens to my entry hallway, one is a 3 bay window set , my back wall is really just 1/4 of a wall then open to my kitchen, and my ceiling is vaulted one direction up to the second floor. Might as well aim a speaker into a 3-D kaleidoscope ... I’m considering a pair of Bluetooth earbuds 😄
Have you tried open baffles? Pure Audio Project, Magnapan or Caintuck Audio might be worth looking into. You can demo the Magnapan LRS speakers.
@@stephenbrockway5899 I have not. Always assumed that such technology was beyond my budget. I’ll check into them. How do open baffles improve my situation? Thanks for the advice 👍🏼
throw some carpet in front of the speakers
Could you do another video on how to get room improvements past the missus?
My room was made for headphones.
I have big ass plants on both sides of my speakers (tekton enzo xl) and the corners and hanging above my windows. Hell I have plants all over the damn place and that works great. Also my big ass rug and thick ass velvet curtains really helped a but ton.
Moral: Lots of ass makes better audio.
* poot *
I've also got thick velvet curtains, also blinds on the windows. The thing to look out for when buying curtains is the spec of weight of the material per foot. The higher the better.
The sound performance compared to when I had thin curtains and no blinds is night and day. Most rooms have curtains so why use thin curtains that the sound will pour through to the reflective glass windows.
Hah! I thought the headphones comment would come a lot sooner. 😅
The room is the biggest elephant! Have you ever tried STILLPOINTS APERTURE PANELS?
My 8' cube is simply bad. I've put lipstick on the pig but it's still a pig.
I feel your pain, I have the Magnepan LRS in my bedroom. I’m scared to put them in the family room, I once came home to a hole in my KEF Q300. Maggies are a bit more fragile in a family room
Square is the enemy of good sound. I gave up and have headphones there.
@WoundrousMindTrick I’m really happy with the Magnepan, they will move to the study once decorating is complete
Looks like Totems speaker-cone on top of your klipsch ?
If so, do they work?
By the way, love your chanel. Reegards from Douglas, Stockholm
Hi Douglas, it's called the Totem "Beak". I'm also looking into this. Apparently, they can make a difference in some cases but not always.
www.stereophile.com/content/totem-acoustic-beak
I listen to 6 different TH-cam Audiophiles who have given at least a glimpse of their rooms, all different (and I think only 1 is purpose built). You guys should put together a zoom style presentation where you each talk about what makes your room work for you..
I'd totally watch that!
Does anyone have thoughts about or experience with using an armchair with large 'ears', or 'eggchair'? Well placed, I guess this way you could receive more of the direct sound from your speakers and less indirect/reflected sound...without having to do a massive room haul over.
Right?
Hi Steve, Love your shows! Would you stage a floor standing speaker along the long instead meaning along the 16foot wal in a 15 x 14 room with 8 ft ceilings in an attic. There is more symmetry due to the window dormers on the read long side. Thanks so much in advance to your feedback.
Ive tried 3 sets of speakers in my room (about 10' by 10') one side 50% open to livingroom below. All speakers perform with lackluster bass. Maybe its too small, too square and Im too close to hear those "long" waves of bass.
It is the main issue to reproduce great sound.i've been dealing with this for many years.for smaller rooms,I recommend small stand mounted monitors.most great British speakers are of that type.most listening rooms are in older dwellings that tend to have smaller rooms.Was an audio consultant for some years and I can't tell you how many of the Ultra High End systems I've heard that sounded horrific!.room treatments are very helpful,but careful system matching is very critical! In my opinion, the 180°dome tweeter set high end audio back 30years.the main culprit for most undesirable reflection.i found that speakers with ribbon or horn tweeters have better directivity and do not see the baffle like domes.
Great ideas. With a little DIY the panels don't have to cost much either, I built mine for the cost of the insulation I used. Lots of info can be found easily. I made a rectangle stuffed in my insulation a little extra to get it off the walls as far as possible added my own fabrics. Can even look any way you like this way. Did wonders for my sound stage😁👍
Hi Steve,
If you do a chapter 2 on room impacting sound, maybe holding up a drawing of your unusual room shape, with Xs where you typically place speakers would help? Thanks
yes absorption material to the speakers as first reflection, but leave a gap where the tweeter is 6" between the panels in most cases if the very bright sounding don't need to? and the best absorption material is natural wool fleece it goes lower than any other material below 20hz you can buy quarter half 1/2 inch fleece and double it up and hang it away from the wall, never have panels touching the wall the second reflection point should be in your sitting position about 2 feet in front and about 1 feet behind the gap between the panels in line with a treat needs to be about 12 inches here if you're sitting more than 7 feet away from you speakers. If you have a narrow longitudinal room you need to really have the speakers the other way you don't want your speakers against the side wall. And don't need to be that far apart in the middle 4,1/2 ft no more than six feet apart. Bass traps are very important you didn't mention on or corners ideally but at least behind the speakers minimum 2 feet across I would say 3-ft ideally you can use fleece for this is best just hang up some wooden dowel across the corners hang the fleece over leaving a gap at the bottom of about a foot if you have cats make it higher
You can easily make diffusers the top professionally tune to your room any bits of material wood you just Google quadratic diffuser calculator putting your dimensions material it will give you the specifications blueprint to make it. Softwood like pine is ideal cover the back with natural wool fleece not hardboard.
If you wanted to look a bit more attractive you can hang rugs or bamboo rugs on the wall in front of the fleece the same on the floor put the fleece and bamboo rugs across the speakers ideally 3-ft in front and some behind
Curious to know what electronics gave you the most success with the Snell Type A's. I could not get the same base response in a similar leaky room. Additionally, I found attenuation at some medium to high frequencies. Also what was your break-in period?
Another thing not mentioned was moving speakers around. Making sure speakers are not equidistant from the back wall and side wall.
Steve forgot to mention planar speakers, like Magnepan, Soundlabs, etc, they do not send sound to the floor and ceiling and not much to the right and left, the sound coming off the back is the issue... speakers have to be far away from the back wall, or diffused/absorbed...
How do you know where your first reflections are happening? I always see people with diffusers behind the speakers, on the back wall and on the sidewall almost straight across from the speaker. I read on some scientific website that said back wall needs 4" thick some substance I forgot.
good video the house i grew up in had a den room it was 35ft by 22 if i remember. the walls were wood the floor had broadlem the front of the room had built in book shelves. i had a entry level prologic system at the time and running movies or music the floor would shake under my feet.we had a crawl space under the floor would that make that happen? in a apartment the floor is solid .But that floor i remember would shake like a subwoofer . the walls to would resinate . we had alot of books to. that room was quite dead sounding no echo at all.
Speaker bungs and nearfield in a rectangular bedroom and it's alright. Can't complain too much.
Best thing you can ever do is spend £200- £300 on making some DIY panels and Traps or Buy some. 4" is a good start. Dont forget the Ceiling : )
Hey Steve I would love to see a video on VMPS audio. I have a set of SuperTowers and a 10” subwoofer. I love the company but know little about them as a whole. Very rare findings with the brand!
I had been playing with this for a while and finally found out that near-field listening was actually ideal for me. It so turned out, ironically, that position the speakers there also reduced most of the reverbs that would otherwise affect listening experience (luckily), and getting closer to the sub helps with avoiding the annoying standing waves. My room is 12x25 ft with 10 ft ceiling. The speakers are facing the 12ft direction.
Why yes, yes it does
My room sounds amazing but it would sound better with a pair of Cornwall iv in it. JK my room has a ton of reflections.
He’s right. Check out TH-cam Josef hifi room. My approach since I was fortunate enough to build my dream listening room I designed the room as if I was designing one giant speaker. And then being in it. It’s brilliant I so recommend it and working through things like a big frequency sweep on a big pa you hire for a day might be the best $100 you ever spend to find problem areas. Steve great vid as always keep em coming stay safe !
I saw one PSI AVAA making a difference in bass in a room. A couple of AVAAs in a room would be better, but the Swiss-made AVAA is too expensive.
That's why a recording/mastering studio with average gear sound way better than a living room with 300.000 gear.
♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
In my studio, I've got large absorption panels behind and to the sides of the speakers. They really help! Then I hung TWO 3'x8' panels on the ceiling, and that was a step too far! They sucked all the life and energy out of the room, and it felt unnatural. I tried for a week to get used to it, and once I took the 3x8 panels back down, the life came back. I now have 2 small 2x3 panels at the critical reflection points, and it's just about right. I plan to make diffusor panels for overhead to disperse the reflections without sucking out too much energy from the room.
If you have a medium sized room, all made of reinforced concrete, does near field listening help as well?
My music room is the dreaded "almost cube!" I gravitated toward the near-field listening arrangement. Not ideal, but it works. The wall behind the speakers is a 1/4" fake brick panel, it's really heavy and it makes a difference.
Hmmm they should make something that will equalize the room response.
Give us a tour of your New York Apartment! I’m from the south and live in the country so I would love to see how New York City dwellers live.
Windows are fun to look out but not your friend sound wise. Drapes can help but I don't want to pull the blinds every time I listen to music.
Nearfield listening is great. A 3-foot equilateral triangle ( two speakers and one listener) at the center of the room is T-H-E ideal starting point.
Lucky in that I have a pass through into the kitchen that the wife hates. So there have been drapes over it for years, also drapes over the two windows on the other side. Coat rack behind the left speaker and an open hall behind the right. Big stuffed sofa at the back of the room. Not ideal but it works.
Hi Steve, my name is Steven and I stay in Malaysia. Love your review and it give me ton of knowledge thanks to you. I wish if you can talk about connections on sub woofer onto amplifier either a active or passive and that would be great. The reason why is because I always had this kind of problems every time.
This was great Steve!! Thanks, very helpful info regarding acoustic room treatments.
Large rooms especially with high ceilings are almost always better than small rooms if the proportions are decent. The major problem with your presentation is that there is no attempt to address the issue of integration of all aspects of furnishings, art work and audio components. This is one reason why many people give up when it comes to audio. Few people have spaces that can be devoted to the tyranny of audio adjustments.
Large rooms with high ceilings are actually harder than small rooms with low ceilings. You need higher sensitivity speakers (usually expensive floorstanders) more expensive amplifier.
Expensive sound treatments are also always needed in large rooms. Probably costs 7 x or more to complete a large room compared to a small room.
my listening room is in a bedroom because it keeps it away from the neighbour's it has a king size bed in it with the speaker three foot away from the bed definitely not ideal but the Atcs cope pretty well being a sealed design
I think some foam would help on my ceiling and one wall. Good info Stevo
In a person-cave situation, bean bag chairs in front of speakers.
That is all.
Great suggestions! “Just try stuff” may be the best approach.
@Lloyd Stout
"Shotgunning"?
Is that like 'spray and pray'? XD
Thanks for the advise Steve, will put it to good use XD
Just subbed, I watch all of your vids.
Get a Lyngdorf amp with roomperfecr
Just wondering what size/dimensions your current room is?
Room treatment made as much, if not more of a difference as any piece of gear and or speaker in my room. Atc makes really nice absorbers.
ATS maybe?
@@featherboards1565 sorry. Ats is correct.
GIK will be wondering why they are getting so many hits on there website and an increase in enquiries 😂