Mitigating risks of Built-in Room Treatments?

caesar · Feb 17, 2012

As I am pondering building a new room, one of the decisions I have to make is whether to get built-in room treatments or to go with stand alone pieces. Using stand alone pieces, I can add them and remove them as I see fit to get the sound that I like. However, they are BUTT UGLY.

Built-ins, of course, solve the aesthetics problems. But I really fear using them - while incurring huge product and labor costs of putting built ins - and having a life-less sounding room.

Is there a way to mitigate these risks?

Steve Williams · Feb 17, 2012

Hire an acoustician

caesar · Feb 17, 2012

Steve Williams said:
Hire an acoustician

Steve, my problem is that if I hire the wrong one and he gives me a dead room, I will be really pissed.

Steve Williams · Feb 17, 2012

I think that would be unlikely

caesar · Feb 17, 2012

Steve Williams said:
I think that would be unlikely

I don't know if this is an audio urban legend or not, but apparently Harry Pearson had a very expensive room put in that was dead. He had to tear it out.

Also, an acquaintance built a "room within a room" that sounded good with bass but dead in the rest of the spectrum.

It goes to the old saying - "at the breakfast table, the chicken is participating, while the pig is committed".

Bruce B · Feb 17, 2012

Bass traps will not give you a "dead room". Only eggcrates on the wall give you dead rooms...

Seriously... look for someone that is NOT into Home Theatre. My room and Mike L.'s room have lots of hard surfaces and are far from dead. You only get dead rooms if there are a lot of absorptive surfaces, like carpeting, 703 and fabric on the walls that cut down everything from 500Hz and above.

MylesBAstor · Feb 17, 2012

caesar said:
I don't know if this is an audio urban legend or not, but apparently Harry Pearson had a very expensive room put in that was dead. He had to tear it out.

Also, an acquaintance built a "room within a room" that sounded good with bass but dead in the rest of the spectrum.

It goes to the old saying - "at the breakfast table, the chicken is participating, while the pig is committed".

I'd like to know when HP had this room built

Building a listening room is not a trivial task. Take this example from Norman Varney's AV RoomService Ltd.

Wall Cavity Hits

A conventional wall, ceiling or floor assembly does a poor job of controlling noise between rooms. They also distort sound quality due to the assembly’s natural construction resonances. For example; a typical 8’ foot high 2x4 wall will resonate around 70 Hz. like a drum. Try hitting your wall with your fist between studs and listen. These cavities act like capacitors that store and release energy. Whenever the resonant frequency, or its harmonics are played into the room, the cavity sympathizes and plays back those frequencies into the room latter in time. This results in the room sounding slow, droning and muddy.

On the other hand, too much mass, such as cement blocks, may be good for noise control, but lack low frequency absorption, allowing bass to reverberate in the room. This also makes for a slow and muddy reproduction with poor dynamics and resolution. Well-engineered shell construction consists of a controlled balance of mass and absorption for optimum tonality, dynamics and resolution.

http://www.avroomservice.com/sounds/wallcavity.php

garylkoh · Feb 18, 2012

Steve Williams said:
I think that would be unlikely

Ask Mike L. who had to rip out most of the stuff that his first acoustician installed.....

Steve Williams · Feb 18, 2012

as I said everyone has perhaps an anecdotal story and I don't think MikeL ripped out most of the stuff

Suffice it to say has anyone not heard the term, "caveat emptor"? Do none of you not have a say in the type of room you want.

I would suggest that there are acousticians and that there are acousticians just as in any business. I would be hard pressed for anyone to suggest that a Keith Yates designed room is a dead room

rockitman · Feb 18, 2012

To me mitigating risk is to use panels installled by yourself such as Realtraps for example. You can start off with basic treating...bass traps behind the speakers, first reflection point absorption and finally full frequency range traps behind the sitting area. Panels give you the advantage of moving them around and bringing them with you should you move. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As Bruce B says, frequency tuned Bass traps don't deaden the room.

Steve Williams · Feb 18, 2012

It's just that there is a WAF involved in Caesar's choice and traps are ruled out

rockitman · Feb 18, 2012

Steve Williams said:
It's just that there is a WAF involved in Caesar's choice and traps are ruled out

completely understandable. That's why my system is in a man cave in the finsihed basement. Women require invites for access....

Bruce B · Feb 18, 2012

Steve Williams said:
It's just that there is a WAF involved in Caesar's choice and traps are ruled out

There are ceiling soffits in millions of homes. Just change the materials and it becomes a bass trap!

Acoustics do not have to be ugly. There are lots of women that have been in my studio and loved the decor.

MylesBAstor · Feb 18, 2012

Bruce B said:
There are ceiling soffits in millions of homes. Just change the materials and it becomes a bass trap!

Acoustics do not have to be ugly. There are lots of women that have been in my studio and loved the decor.

Before or after that bottle of wine?

egidius · Feb 18, 2012

serious acoustic designer or library

caesar said:
As I am pondering building a new room, one of the decisions I have to make is whether to get built-in room treatments or to go with stand alone pieces. Using stand alone pieces, I can add them and remove them as I see fit to get the sound that I like. However, they are BUTT UGLY.

Built-ins, of course, solve the aesthetics problems. But I really fear using them - while incurring huge product and labor costs of putting built ins - and having a life-less sounding room.

Is there a way to mitigate these risks?

Every acoustic designer will tell you something differently, and if you look at Concert halls, there sure must be bad ones, but as long as you know how to describe what you need, and stay away from guys advising you an all out assault, you could be a lucky man. An alternative might be building a library, as you can play with the position of the books, and read them ;-) e

Nyal Mellor · Mar 1, 2012

Your threads are funny! You worry too much. If you are worried about one acoustician screwing up your sound why not hedge your bets and pick 3 and get them all to agree by committee? Why not build 3 listening rooms? Why not travel to different rooms designed by different acousticians and pick one you like? Why not call up the acousticians and get three references, call them up and get a reference from them. You are not likely to get the answers you are looking for on an internet forum!

microstrip · Mar 1, 2012

Just reading a few answers on this thread we see Caeser has a good point. Not all of us have a the same receipt on sound treatments.

There is no such think as standard solution or a standard best room - different acoustical engineers will present different acoustic designs, sounding very different. You have to define your priorities and preferences and then find someone who understands them, accepts them and designs a room for YOU.

My advice - read the chapter about acoustic treatments of F. Toole "Sound Reproduction" just to know about the problems, and then look for a trusted designer - he must find the solutions for you. If possible, try to get an invitation to listen in some rooms he designed.

And there is always the comfort and aesthetic aspect - look at four well-known rooms fully described in the net such as Bruce, Steve, Mike Lavigne and Albert Porter ones. In which would you feel more comfortable listening to music ? (Please do not answer, I am not suggesting a poll

).

If you look for advice and suggestions you must always start stating your preferences very clearly - otherwise we all want you to do it our own way.

Nyal Mellor · Mar 1, 2012

microstrip said:
Just reading a few answers on this thread we see Caeser has a good point. Not all of us have a the same receipt on sound treatments.

There is no such think as standard solution or a standard best room - different acoustical engineers will present different acoustic designs, sounding very different. You have to define your priorities and preferences and then find someone who understands them, accepts them and designs a room for YOU.

My advice - read the chapter about acoustic treatments of F. Toole "Sound Reproduction" just to know about the problems, and then look for a trusted designer - he must find the solutions for you. If possible, try to get an invitation to listen in some rooms he designed.

And there is always the comfort and aesthetic aspect - look at four well-known rooms fully described in the net such as Bruce, Steve, Mike Lavigne and Albert Porter ones. In which would you feel more comfortable listening to music ? (Please do not answer, I am not suggesting a poll ).

If you look for advice and suggestions you must always start stating your preferences very clearly - otherwise we all want you to do it our own way.

I'd be very worried if everyone's rooms were the same. After all everyone's musical tastes are different and more importantly everyone's speakers are different. One of the key tasks of a proper acoustic design is matching speakers to room at the listeners intended position. Even the design for a room with conventional forward firing cone dome speakers can be very different at the lateral points depending on how well behaved the speaker is off axis and YES personal preference on soundstage focus vs spaciousness. Couple that with multiple ways to solve the same problem, that's why there is no one approach is 'best', much like you can get great sound from dipoles, constant directivity speakers, line sources, horns, tube amps, class d amps, vinyl, hires PCM, etc etc. No point debating the minutiae of design a vs design b over and over with a bunch of neurotic audiophiles (we should all be a little bit skeptical but it is too common for people to believe what they read on the Internet over what their real five senses tell them)! What wouldbe more interesting for all of us would be for you to put a list of requirements up here, then call a bunch of designers and write up the results of your discussions and what your feelings were on each of the suggested approaches, costs, etc. U have to take the plunge at some point and T A L K to some people and L I S T E N to some rooms!

Mitigating risks of Built-in Room Treatments?

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