For me this is the ultimate test. If you can understand someone else whispering at a fair distance without reading lips, you've got it great.
Need qualified room acoustician
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For me this is the ultimate test. If you can understand someone else whispering at a fair distance without reading lips, you've got it great.
Chuck, just saw this thread thanks to The Bogg posting and bringing it up to What's New.
I sometimes find the acoustic treatment used to be the source of the problem. From your pictures in post #9, you have styrofoam diffusers on the rear wall, and they are pretty close to the seats. Those diffusors - when you rub them with your fingertips do they have an upper midrange glare-y sound? Styrofoam has a pretty distinctive sound and that may be the source of your problems. If they are too difficult to take down to try it out, drape a wool blanket over them and see if it reduces your problem.
I sometimes find the acoustic treatment used to be the source of the problem. From your pictures in post #9, you have styrofoam diffusers on the rear wall, and they are pretty close to the seats. Those diffusors - when you rub them with your fingertips do they have an upper midrange glare-y sound? Styrofoam has a pretty distinctive sound and that may be the source of your problems. If they are too difficult to take down to try it out, drape a wool blanket over them and see if it reduces your problem.
I emphatically second Art's recommendation of Jeff Hedback (hedback designs, HDAcoustics). He did my room remotely! and nailed it!!
http://www.hdacoustics.net/
http://www.hdacoustics.net/
I don't understand why you think Rives owes you more than what you paid for. You didn't pay for any personal on-site consultation and yet you expect it. Why? I don't think it's fair to bash Rives because he won't come to your house for free. You chose not to pay for that level of help and you shouldn't complain when you don't get what you didn't pay for. Either Rives did a poor design for your particular room or the Rives design wasn't executed properly. Somebody has to be paid to sort out the mess.
I have a slight bias (see above, didn't use Rives) in this fight, but my take is that if Rives is offering a remote level one service then they need to have plans that work! If there are legit questions as to whether the plan is flawed or the implementation is flawed I'd think the local (in town for another reason) Rives person would WANT to visit. Otherwise they risk bad feedback which could affect much more profitable aspects of their business model. It's a risk they take for any loss leader or inexpensive intro product/service, just like any other business. I realize we may not have all the pieces to this puzzle.
Ted-I understand what you are saying, but i'm not sure if I agree. Rives was paid to develop the plans for the listening room and nothing more. If Rives come to the house for free, it probably could open up some liability issues. What if Rives come to the house and determines the work was not performed in accordance with the plans? What's next? You go back to the contractor and complain the work was not performed correctly and hope they will correct their mistakes at no cost without having to take them to court? What if they won't? What if they want to argue that they built the room in exact accordance with the plans? Are you then going to take them to court and expect Rives to come and be your witness? And if Rives really did mess up the plans, I doubt they would admit that and assume liability for drawing new plans and paying for a rip-out and reinstallation. All I see for Rives in this situation is a lose-lose proposition. Audioguy got what he paid for. He doesn't like what he paid for, but at this time no one really knows if the design was flawed or the execution was flawed. It's going to cost more money to get this problem fixed and it's apparent that Rives isn't going to work for free.
I don't think Audioguy stated that he expected Rives to come for free. He indicated that Rives had "belittled" in a sense by saying that he ONLY paid for the level 1 blueprints. I wouldn't expect him to come over for free (although if I were Rives and gave a crap I probably would) but since he was in the area it shouldn't be too costly to get him to come over and actually see and hear the room. Maybe I've misunderstood, perhaps Chuck can pipe in.
I didn't even bother with the third part of the level 3 service where Rives himself comes out. Once I was dissatisfied with the result I didn't think any "fine-tuning" would change the character of the room so I cut my losses with them.
I didn't even bother with the third part of the level 3 service where Rives himself comes out. Once I was dissatisfied with the result I didn't think any "fine-tuning" would change the character of the room so I cut my losses with them.
I've decided on the DIY appraoch. I contacted Bob Hodas and while he was reasonably confident that he could improve on the situation, no guarantees and since it was not going to be cheap, I decided to pass. Same story with Dennis Erskine and Adam.
I have been working with GIK (who happens to be located in Atlanta) and using some possible ideas from Mark Seaton and from the observations of GIK, I have removed a very deep null (10 db from 200hz to 350 hz) that really messed up male vocals AND seem to have tamed (maybe completely) my glare problem. Once that is under control, I will move on to the over damped bass.
As far as listening to examples of the designers work, I did that with Rives. A friend had a level 3 done which is the best room I have ever heard.
Just an observation: While there is much science to the subject of room acoustics, there is just as much (from my experience) that seems to be educated guesswork. And that is why not every room designed by a specific designer will sound good.
My real issue with Rives is not that the room had an issue but his continued refusal to admit it was the room even when I presented the facts to him that proved it to be the room. Short of a Level 3 where Rives partner does the work, I would NEVER consider Rives Audio for a room project.
It wasn't about paying or not paying Rives for his work. It is about his refusal to admit the problem was the room no matter how much evidence I presented to the contrary. He said the measurements did not show any problem. And since I have fixed the problem by changing what he did, it was most certainly the room. Dennis Erskine and Adam Pelz knew it was the room. GIK knew it was the room. Mark Seaton knew it was the room. Anyone who entered could tell it was the room.
An area that it was suggested I investigate (by Mark Seaton and GIK) was the diffuser system Rives had me put in the ceiling. It was installed exactly as he designed since I sent him photos of the ceiling after it was completed and he agreed it was done correctly. When I asked Rives about it his comment was: "It can't be the ceiling since we have used it 100's of times with success". Well guess what. The ceiling was in fact part of the issue and we know that because we changed it and a 10db null was eliminated. Again, it is not that the room was not perfect but rather that he refused to take any responsibility.
Horrible customer service.
I have been working with GIK (who happens to be located in Atlanta) and using some possible ideas from Mark Seaton and from the observations of GIK, I have removed a very deep null (10 db from 200hz to 350 hz) that really messed up male vocals AND seem to have tamed (maybe completely) my glare problem. Once that is under control, I will move on to the over damped bass.
As far as listening to examples of the designers work, I did that with Rives. A friend had a level 3 done which is the best room I have ever heard.
Just an observation: While there is much science to the subject of room acoustics, there is just as much (from my experience) that seems to be educated guesswork. And that is why not every room designed by a specific designer will sound good.
My real issue with Rives is not that the room had an issue but his continued refusal to admit it was the room even when I presented the facts to him that proved it to be the room. Short of a Level 3 where Rives partner does the work, I would NEVER consider Rives Audio for a room project.
It wasn't about paying or not paying Rives for his work. It is about his refusal to admit the problem was the room no matter how much evidence I presented to the contrary. He said the measurements did not show any problem. And since I have fixed the problem by changing what he did, it was most certainly the room. Dennis Erskine and Adam Pelz knew it was the room. GIK knew it was the room. Mark Seaton knew it was the room. Anyone who entered could tell it was the room.
An area that it was suggested I investigate (by Mark Seaton and GIK) was the diffuser system Rives had me put in the ceiling. It was installed exactly as he designed since I sent him photos of the ceiling after it was completed and he agreed it was done correctly. When I asked Rives about it his comment was: "It can't be the ceiling since we have used it 100's of times with success". Well guess what. The ceiling was in fact part of the issue and we know that because we changed it and a 10db null was eliminated. Again, it is not that the room was not perfect but rather that he refused to take any responsibility.
Horrible customer service.
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I took some down and covered the entire surface (temporarily) with 2 inch OC 703. No help!
Looking at the pics, I wondered about that. Glad to hear you found one of the major issues and seem to have it corrected.
Ceiling treatments are tough, as room height, speakers and furnishings will really mess with a design that might have worked elsewhere. I've been approaching how to treat my ceiling very cautiously. From this thread, and Ted's recommendation I think I'll be speaking with Jeff.
Glad to hear you're making progress. I have a relatively low ceiling (7.5ft finished or so) and there is just absorption on it. I wondered about some diffusion to try to open up the sound but Adam discouraged it saying it would probably cause other problems.
I really think that the ceiling height plays a big factor in the end result and from my anecdotal observations it seems much harder to get a good result with a lower ceiling.
I agree that diffusion on a low ceiling is not so useful. But absorption can do a great job. If you think about it, a ceiling that absorbs fully is like a ceiling that's infinitely high. Either way the sound goes up and never comes back down. Of course, you can't make a ceiling 100 percent absorbent at all frequencies. And an infinitely high ceiling may not be the best goal anyway. But in my experience, when absorption is used at key places, the overall sound in the room becomes much larger.
--Ethan
Just got the new Stereophile and in the letters section it was kinda' odd that Richard Rives Bird rants that his company name wasn't mentioned in the January ed. article that featured the $1mil music room at the "University of the South" in Sewanee, Tenn. The article does mention Chris Huston though.
Hi 'Bogg,
I've personally been in 4 Rives rooms which left more to be desired. I've also visited or worked in rooms by multiple other designers where the results were lackluster. It really does depend on what sort of expectations are set and the involvement of the designer. Communication of expectations is key from what I've seen, although there are those who are overly confident all designs will work beautifully in all rooms and scales.
I suspect I might have been one of a few people who reported on the Denver demo room Keith Yates designed. Occasionally working and talking with Keith I know he takes on many more projects at what I call "attainable" scales than he did 2 or more years ago. No matter who you work with, I'd say the key is a good bit of open discussion about what your expectations are and what a designer is going to provide. No matter the skill of the designer, if your expectations and desires don't align, it will be a less than pleasant experience for both.
I would generally agree, within reason. It is often that a good sounding room will be comfortable to converse in, but insuring this is an additional design effort where there are factors which affect person-to-person acoustics which don't affect the transfer of sound from loudspeaker to listener. Some listening rooms which are rich in late energy and spaciousness might not be very conducive to conversation as those with more consideration of conversational use. I have been in some very large spaces which are were very difficult to converse in, yet stage to listener intelligibility was fairly useful, so size alone is no silver bullet. Again, this is something to communicate to a designer in the planning and interviewing stages.
In audioguy's case, just talking in the room from the loudspeaker/listener locations made it clear the ceiling was very active. The issues were in a range which made it only jump out on particular sounds and not for all instances, which tends to make it all the more frustrating as you momentarily hear how good it could sound when you skip that range!
Very good to hear significant progress has been made on the issue!
Hi 'Bogg,
I've personally been in 4 Rives rooms which left more to be desired. I've also visited or worked in rooms by multiple other designers where the results were lackluster. It really does depend on what sort of expectations are set and the involvement of the designer. Communication of expectations is key from what I've seen, although there are those who are overly confident all designs will work beautifully in all rooms and scales.
I suspect I might have been one of a few people who reported on the Denver demo room Keith Yates designed. Occasionally working and talking with Keith I know he takes on many more projects at what I call "attainable" scales than he did 2 or more years ago. No matter who you work with, I'd say the key is a good bit of open discussion about what your expectations are and what a designer is going to provide. No matter the skill of the designer, if your expectations and desires don't align, it will be a less than pleasant experience for both.
I would generally agree, within reason. It is often that a good sounding room will be comfortable to converse in, but insuring this is an additional design effort where there are factors which affect person-to-person acoustics which don't affect the transfer of sound from loudspeaker to listener. Some listening rooms which are rich in late energy and spaciousness might not be very conducive to conversation as those with more consideration of conversational use. I have been in some very large spaces which are were very difficult to converse in, yet stage to listener intelligibility was fairly useful, so size alone is no silver bullet. Again, this is something to communicate to a designer in the planning and interviewing stages.
In audioguy's case, just talking in the room from the loudspeaker/listener locations made it clear the ceiling was very active. The issues were in a range which made it only jump out on particular sounds and not for all instances, which tends to make it all the more frustrating as you momentarily hear how good it could sound when you skip that range!
Very good to hear significant progress has been made on the issue!
Thanks for your input Mark. I agree that expectations need to be discussed - I fully explained my wants and needs for the room. It seemed pretty clear that Rives et al understood the value of diffusion and that the room should have a reasonably neutral character. I wanted exceptionally good dialog intelligibility and every "good" room I've been in has had that. I did a "level 3" Rives room which means that Chris actually came to my house a couple of times during the course of the build, which was ground up within the constraints of a relatively small room (7.5ft finished ceiling, 17ft wide, and 24.5ft deep). The telltale measurement in my room is the decay time of 180ms which is very short and correlates well with the "dead" feeling of the room. Not what was expected or desired, but very similar to Chuck's measured decay time.
One day I'll visit Mike Lavigne and see if his room is really as good as I had imagined it would be - it was his article that inspired me to use Rives.
When you say that Keith is taking on more "attainable" projects I assume you mean more "affordable" right?
I don't know how many more years I'll live in this particular house so I don't think it makes sense to invest the dollars to try and redo the acoustics. It's been hard to find anyone to commit to a solution. I did speak extensively with Adam Pelz and had him come up here. He made some worthwhile changes but in the end I didn't get the impression that he knew HOW to affect the changes that would guarantee what I want. I didn't feel like experimenting so I'll just live with it...for now. My speakers are quite neutral (ATC Anniversary 100 towers). It might actually make sense to try a more "coloured" speaker with a rising treble and bit more emphasis in the midbass but it's hard to "borrow" speakers to try out.
One things for sure, before I hire any other "expert" I'll be sure to actually hear an example of their work in a similar scoped project.
Thanks also for your input Ethan (I had a bunch of your realtraps before I built the room with built-in bass traps). I think one of the issues in my room is too much absorption - the whole ceiling for example is absorptive. The advantage to an overly absorptive room is the pinpoint imaging when it's present in the recording. But there are definitely tradeoffs.
I just need that magical guy who can walk into my room and say "aha, your problem is xxx, and the solution is yyy"! I've speculated about comb-filtering, overdamping, etc... but I don't have the solution.
Now I am not familiar with any of Rives work personally but for a pure two channel room I am not sure why they would be targeting an RT60 of 0.2s. For a home theater maybe (but even then that is a dead room) but certainly not a two channel room. Anything below about 0.35s in my opinion is not good for two channel. I target 0.4s with a +/-25% error range for the frequency bands from 250Hz to 4kHz. The IEC even has published guidance on this - see the RT60 - reverberation time page on my website for a discussion of targets etc.
Getting decay time balanced across the spectrum is very important to preserve a balanced reproduction environment. Quite often mirror point treatment (side walls, back wall, ceiling plus a thick carpet) is all that is required in an otherwise live room (sheetrock walls, glass windows, wood floor). Certainly placing absorption all over the ceiling is going to create an overly dead room.
One room I did recently (Music Lovers in SF) had these thin drapes hung everywhere - result was too much absorption at high frequencies (RT60 of 0.2s) compared to 0.5s elsewhere. You could hear easily that the reproduced sound was unbalanced, even with a nice system in there (Wilson Sashas, etc). We took out all the thin drapes and replaced with eight 2 by 4ft panels (a combination of RPG BAD panels and plain 3" absorbers) at mirror points. Result - balanced reverberation time across the spectrum even in large, high ceilinged room. Not really rocket science, but being able to measure (and if you are paying someone at this level they should be measuring) RT60 across the spectrum is a basic entry criteria.
Something like this should be produced. This is a measurement I took of a client's room before we did any acoustic treatment. For a gold star: who can tell me what would be a good thickness of fiberglass absorber to use for this room?
I would propose that any acoustician worth his or her salt produced a report at the end of their work containing measured evidence of the suitability of their room for the task at hand. I think we should (the acoustician community) be able to put in place a set of targets for each measurement from IEC work and from AES and other published work.
I'd guess at least 6-8 inches, if you are concerned with that stratospheric rise around 100 Hz and below. You could then tune the amount of absorption in the higher frequencies by using covering materials on the fiberglass. How'd I do? Disclaimer: I'm not a qualified acoustician.
Lee
How about 1"? We're trying to fix the upward slope in the reverberation time, not the longer reverberation time at low frequencies. Which BTW is quite ok:
You should NEVER use 1" at primary reflection points (3" is the minimum) though since you will end up with a nicely distorted reflection coming back at you. Look at these absorption curves. It should be pretty clear that a 1" thick absorber will absorb everything above 1000Hz but then increasingly less below that. So if you were to put a signal with equal energy per octave (pink noise) into the 1" absorber you would expect to see something coming back at you looking like the inverse of the absorption curve i.e. too much midrange, not enough treble.
In the mean time you could experiment with large pieces of reflective material placed on the ceiling (not at reflection points) and elsewhere.
--Ethan
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