Paolo, I actually have a good, quiet basic sound in my room. Slap echo moderate. Speech v intelligible up here. And my eaves, despite my reservations, have helped, maybe breaking up standing waves. Maybe my protruding steels (0.3m x 3m x 0.1m every 2m, 6 sets in total over the depth of my room) also act as natural "break ups" again aiding SQ.
So, I want to boost things, but keep it subtle. My main reservation of the rooms I see featuring SMT, ASC Tube Traps and Acustica Applicata Daads (and to be fair, GIK to some extent too), is that the listening rooms are plastered flr to clg and along side walls w these expensive panels.
I've seen rooms w 12 SMT Wings on front wall plus 12 Flower Petal panels above, and both side walls fully fitted w SMTs. 50 SMTs before you even talk about clg treatments and corner bass traps.
Ditto Acustica Applicata rooms. The UK dealer advised 20 Daads plus 32 EcoDaads on ceilings plus Volcano Helmholtz Resonator.
It's rare to see this seriousness of treatments not run into dozens of panels and a total cost equivalent to a major component purchase.
Hi Marc,
My room definitely corresponds to your description of a full furbished SMT room.
What Calia.. (sorry too complicated a name
) said is correct, with 4 you have a minimum, with 6 you are not looking back, with 8 you wonder how did you ever live without them...
Now, as with many things in life: the more you have, the more you want!
As for the cost of a totally equipped SMT room, the equivalent of a very pricey preamp? Yes, but I can assure you the effect cannot be obtained, not even with the most expensive preamp, amp and speakers at the same time!
Now some good news, you can buy SMT panels either in MDF (prices you mention above) but also in hard cardboard. And the latter are only half the price, I think even less. You can spray the cardboard (like Marten did in its room in Munich where they had 210 cms high wings) in a certain non-obtrusive color or you hide them between a painted or printed acoustic transparent cloth like Jeroen did after i recommended him to take away all his absorbers he had on his side wall making his room sound very dead with all the drawbacks that entailed. The Wilson and Magico rooms all have these nice cloths as well in Munich since a number of years, to hide... a whole bunch of SMT wings!
Of course you also have the acryl wings, but they are expensive and I only recommend them if they need to stand alone or need to be visually unobtrusive.
For the front wall I would recommend the flowers effectively or the V-wings but since you have experience with absorbers in the front, the crystal panels (also much cheaper than the wings) would maybe the way to go! If you don't like it (enough) or want to 'upgrade' to wings afterwards, you can always hang them against your ceiling.
Best.