Test results and working on my room

MusicDirector

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I have a severe echo and smearing problem in my room where my daily driver system is.
I ran a test to determine where my reflection points are.
Room: Hard floors, flat ceiling, 27' long by 12' wide. One sofa across from wall with system. Two CD cabinets with glass doors, one on either side of sofa. One end of room sliding glass door with vertical blinds, on other end opens up to dining/kitchen. Basically the room from hell.
I put a comforter over each CD cabinet and a bunch of pillows on top of the back of the sofa and tested with music, movies and the good old snap and clap test. Result: good cut in mid frequency echo, but still had lots of high frequency echo also no smearing in movies, was able to hear dialog finally. Identified reflection points: wall behind sofa, glass doors on cabinets, floor and ceiling.
Got a rug today, it's only 5'x7' and while it should be a good foot or two bigger, it was all I could afford. Laid it down and did notice some cut in the high frequency echo, maybe half. Not much more I can do about that though since I can't attach anything to the ceiling or walls.
I'm going to test again with the rug in place just to see, but I know that panels are needed as well as getting rid of the glass doors. Hopefully I should be able to get away with maybe a couple of panels and stands.
~Eric
 
Eric, don't discount curtains/drapes, they are your friends. Good move on the rug.
 
I don't discount anything. I live in an apartment though, so it is what it is and I can not change anything. The PVC vertical blinds are fine, they do prevent hard reflection from the sliding glass door as I keep them closed when playing the system. They deflect and defuse rather than absorb and since they can not be changed out, it's as good as we get on that section and it's fine it seems.
 
Eric...since your new 5' x 7' rug does not cover a good portion of your floor, one idea is to experiment with the placement of the rug relative to the speakers. Depending on the radiation pattern of your drivers, the reflection point/floor bounce might be happening very close to your speakers or further into the room, so you may want to play with the rug placement. Start out with the rug right up next to the speaker and then pull it out further out from the speaker maybe 0.5 a foot at a time and see if there is a change in sonics each time you change the position. You may find that there is an optimal location that absorbs/diffuses that floor reflection most optimally. Good luck!
 
Eric...since your new 5' x 7' rug does not cover a good portion of your floor, one idea is to experiment with the placement of the rug relative to the speakers. Depending on the radiation pattern of your drivers, the reflection point/floor bounce might be happening very close to your speakers or further into the room, so you may want to play with the rug placement. Start out with the rug right up next to the speaker and then pull it out further out from the speaker maybe 0.5 a foot at a time and see if there is a change in sonics each time you change the position. You may find that there is an optimal location that absorbs/diffuses that floor reflection most optimally. Good luck!

Already there. I got a couple of small rugs placed under the speakers already. They are front ported so I was assuming some possible reflection or floor bounce right in front of them. However, to my disappointment, doing so made zero difference. That also tells me the reflection point is well away from the speakers. The hard floor extends throughout the dining/kitchen area and of course there is plenty left on the other side of the rug as well. However, in clap and click testing on the rug I notice a difference compared to the same test just off the rug to the dining/kitchen side a little more then the sliding glass door side. I'm getting reflection in high frequencies off the ceiling of course and when it hits the rug it stops. The other spots it bounces back and forth of course. I'm doing my best so there will remain big compromises because I do not want to invest too much into treatment and I couldn't if I wanted to anyway because 1) it's an apartment and 2) I'm not made of money.
One thing that would make a difference in the listening area would be to cordon it off with a free standing tri-panel, but the two problems with that are: 1) high cost and 2) it would be a large object in the middle of the room in the traffic path in four directions.
I already experimented with the speaker placement which only consisted of distance from the wall behind them because they are already set properly on all other axis points. Placing a small rug under them (useless) and I will have to settle for getting rid of the glass doors on the cabinets and a panel or two where needed except the ceiling of course. the combination of that and the rug will have to do and there is nothing I can do beyond that. In fact, the speakers are presently 8.5 inches from back of cabinet to wall, I tried putting them about 2 feet from the wall, but that put them in the middle of the room and I noticed a tiny bit of roll off in the bass. The drivers in the speaker cabinet sit another 13.5 inches forward so that, plus the fact that they are front ported makes it ok to sit them closer to the wall behind. Add to that the fact that I need to anyway due to the size of the room. Another problem is that they are very far apart (13 feet)! Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about it due to the design of the room only allowing one place to put a system and that wall happens to have a fireplace which sits between the left speaker and the system and there is a bedroom door between the right speaker and the system. The right speaker sits on the other side of the bedroom door (I bought a floor speed bump for the cable that goes across the door way when I moved in), because the wall space on that side of the fireplace is barely enough for the system. (The wall space on the other side of the fireplace is barely enough for the speaker)!
If what I can do with the room proves to be not even barely enough, then I will have to get rid of my system because I am not willing to get evicted.
 
Room treatment in progress now

I'm getting rid of the glass doors on the CD cabinets this weekend. Cost me $200 to get them, but I've had them for 2.5 years and they do make getting to the 3 CDs on the hinge side a PITA. Plus now the fact that they are major reflection points makes me now say that regardless of investment it's time for them to go. It was an elegant idea at the time of design and build, but, no they are showing their true colors. after that, I will be calling a couple of room treatment places to discuss what is needed to complete the work to the point I can.
 
Re: Room treatment in progress now - update

Ok, the glass doors are off the CD cabinets and gone. Yes, it did improve things as anticipated, but not the end all of course. Tomorrow, I will try to get in touch with some experts and figure out how many panels I need and what type and all that.
~Eric
 
Cool!

Keep the updates coming. Hope the sound gets better with every change.
 
Re: Test results and working on my room - UPDATE

Good news on the room treatment front. I found that the cost will not be as low as Ilike, but won’t be unreasonable at all. Basically, within what I had in mind asmaximum, maybe just a few dollars over.
The first company I contacted (well known) ,had me way overbudget (into four digits at around $1400 to start) and suggested more panelsand such than I could physically fit in the room anyway! Then I contacted GIKAcoustics. Great company! They work withyou nine ways to Sunday to help you out. I’m speaking with their lead tech andhe is suggesting to me just what is needed from a performance stand point andit turns out the total cost will be a little more than my max budget (which issouth of $250), but only by about $100 to $150 or so. The additional good thingabout that is that I can treat the room piece mill and it will still make a bigdifference as I go according to the tech. (“Get a panel or two if needed forthe back wall behind the sofa now and then save a little more get two basstraps later”). There is not much one can do with a room like I have anyway hesaid and it makes no sense to go overboard on cost and panels in any room,especially a room like mine. I love the way these folks think!
He said all I can do for my room is perhaps move the sofaaway from the back wall some more and one or two panels and two bass traps anda rug of course and that’s it. Moving the sofa may be an issue as I have a 42inch TV and that puts me kind of close, but what might be a bigger issue is thenarrowing of the walk path with that. I’m 90% music and 10% HT or TV, sogetting a good listening position is more important. Also with the issues myeyes have, turntables and TVs may not matter anymore in a couple of years ormore. I already have a 5’x7’ rug inthere which is a bit smaller than should be, but I’m off by about a foot. Won’tbe the greatest, but will make a difference which is as good as it’s going toget in that room. It appears that my biggest problems are the wall behind thesofa and the floor. I’m still going to get reflection from the floor where thespeakers sit, but at least not in the sitting area where the 5’x7’ rug is now.A bigger rug would completely solve that, but far too pricey for me.
I just like the approach the folks at GIK took, totallyholistic and professional with no upsales or BS. Nice friendly folks there too.I’ll be ordering a panel or two from them in the next day or so and then laterI’ll see about getting a couple of bass traps as suggested. Please forgive the plug for GIK, but their service is really great from my experience so far and there aren't too many opportunities these days to tell about great service from a company. ~Eric
 
well, a small adjustment in cost has occurred. Total cost of treatment that can be done (AKA gotten away with) will be about $490. The good thing is that it can and should be done piece mill! That's still a hell of a lot of money for slightly taming a room that needs much more, but that includes $100 of shipping, so it's really $390. It would cost me about the same to DIY it if I could. So considering that I could not DIY it even with GIK's help (and they have no problem helping DIY folks) the cost is not that bad. Also considering that it travels with me where ever I go it's not that bad. What I am doing won't completely take care of the room, but will resolve about 40% of it at most. That's better than nothing. There are other simple things I could do, but they won't pass inspection. It's bad enough I need to present this idea and hope it gets the green light.
 
I got two acoustic panels installed on my back wall. Ultimately 3 would be nice, but for now two will have to do. Results: Now that I have a 5x7 rug in the room (a bit inadequate, but it's what's there) and the two panels up I notice a more focused sound. (Good!...that's the expected result we want)! I also did the click and clap test and noticed a nice improvement. Now I need to find a way to test for the effect of adding bass traps. I want to test that before I try to save and spend on those to see if they well significantly improve things in my room or not.
 
Re: Test results and working on my room UPDATE

So I installed the two panels and put down a 5x7 rug and noted that the sound was only slightly more focused which is better than nothing, but not enough to make any real difference. I then tested the effects of bass traps in the only two spots they would go and the results were a big fat zero. So in conclusion I have given up on the room. It's just a very bad room where no amount of treatment outside of tearing the building down and rebuilding it will do anything. It makes no sense to throw money at a dead horse. So I just have to live with it. It's not the end of the world I guess. Headphones have been suggested and I have a nice pair, but 1) I can't handle listening through headphones longer than 20 minutes and 2) I love me Paradigms.:audiophile:
 
Hey at least you gave it a try even though it didn't pan out as you had hoped. Not everyone has a room that's conducive to an audio system. The only place for my gear is in a great room. Short of having the blinds closed while i have music playing and suspending mattresses from the ceiling I just have to live with it.

I find that having an extra beverage helps the analytical noise in my brain go away allowing me to just enjoy the music. :)
 
Hey at least you gave it a try even though it didn't pan out as you had hoped. Not everyone has a room that's conducive to an audio system. The only place for my gear is in a great room. Short of having the blinds closed while i have music playing and suspending mattresses from the ceiling I just have to live with it.

I find that having an extra beverage helps the analytical noise in my brain go away allowing me to just enjoy the music. :)
I like the beverage idea!!!!
Yes it is too bad your room can't be fixed. I have alot of the same problems you mentioned, as I just saw this thread and read the whole story. I use a gray indoor/outdoor carpet from Home Depot. Was $20 I think and is 6x8 . It helped but it is very thin.
I think ill give Gik a call, cause I need help.
I will also take Kevs advise and get me some curtains, one so I can move the couch back closer to the rear wall to make the room ready for the floorstanders I have coming.
And another so I can block off the hallway that is behind where my left speaker will go.
I do have room for a few wall panels and I have no idea what to do about the ceiling.
Thanks for the thread, your posts and everyone else's gave me some good ideas!!
 
Before "giving up" on the room, I suggest you objectively measure your speaker/room response, and see what you're actually dealing with, with regard to bass response/modes, as well as overall frequency response. Clap tests and listening don't give you the complete picture. The XTZ Room Analyzer and Parts Express Omnimic kits are simple all-in-one-box solutions, or you could cobble together a measurement system (mic and USB soundcard) and use REW. Personally, I've found the XTZ kit to be extremely helpful (and easy) to identify issues in my mixed use family/listening room, and assess the effects of various room treatments (rug, absorption panels, and bass traps).

(BTW, not really intending to sneak in a For Sale plug, but I just ordered the newer XTZ Room Analyzer Pro, and am selling my original XTZ v.1 kit. I'm not very active in this forum, so I posted in Classifieds on other forums, but feel free to PM me if interested).
 
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