advice on room treatment

[germinal]

So this is my listening room.. no treatment as of yet... reverb time at the moment ranging from 2 sec (low Freq) to 1.2 sec (higher Freq) want to get this to around 0.5

Size of the room is 11 metres x 9 metres (floor surface) x 3.7 metres high ceiling (highest point)

I was thinking of DIY.. and utilizing the horizontal beams where the lights are resting up (they are located at 2.5 metres above the floor)

Basically I was thinking about making boxes with Rockwool. 4 boxes of each 2.4 metres long and 1.2 metres wide. and putting them on the beams... this would give me almost 12m2 of acoustic material..

behind the speakers I would put some diffusers..

Do you think this would be a good idea ? something else I'm missing ? I don't think I need to worry too much about first reflections in this room.. because of - in my opinion - the sloped walls, the sound waves tend to bounce upwards.

Thanks for any input

 

[Cellcbern]

View attachment 84958

So this is my listening room.. no treatment as of yet... reverb time at the moment ranging from 2 sec (low Freq) to 1.2 sec (higher Freq) want to get this to around 0.5

Size of the room is 11 metres x 9 metres (floor surface) x 3.7 metres high ceiling (highest point)

I was thinking of DIY.. and utilizing the horizontal beams where the lights are resting up (they are located at 2.5 metres above the floor)

Basically I was thinking about making boxes with Rockwool. 4 boxes of each 2.4 metres long and 1.2 metres wide. and putting them on the beams... this would give me almost 12m2 of acoustic material..

behind the speakers I would put some diffusers..

Do you think this would be a good idea ? something else I'm missing ? I don't think I need to worry too much about first reflections in this room.. because of - in my opinion - the sloped walls, the sound waves tend to bounce upwards.

Thanks for any input

Hard to tell from the photo - is the wall behind the speakers also sloped?

 

[christoph]

What a beautiful room
Diffusion behind your dipoles is an excellent idea!
How far out from the front wall are your speakers?
I would start with diffusion on the front wall first and then listen and get a feeling for each step you take.
I would refrain from filling up the ceiling. That would be a sacrilege in this room. That would rob you stage hight and look aweful imho
Maybe you could place absorption on the sides, where you can't do anything anyways because it is too low.

 

[Cellcbern]

View attachment 84958

So this is my listening room.. no treatment as of yet... reverb time at the moment ranging from 2 sec (low Freq) to 1.2 sec (higher Freq) want to get this to around 0.5

Size of the room is 11 metres x 9 metres (floor surface) x 3.7 metres high ceiling (highest point)

I was thinking of DIY.. and utilizing the horizontal beams where the lights are resting up (they are located at 2.5 metres above the floor)

Basically I was thinking about making boxes with Rockwool. 4 boxes of each 2.4 metres long and 1.2 metres wide. and putting them on the beams... this would give me almost 12m2 of acoustic material..

behind the speakers I would put some diffusers..

Do you think this would be a good idea ? something else I'm missing ? I don't think I need to worry too much about first reflections in this room.. because of - in my opinion - the sloped walls, the sound waves tend to bounce upwards.

Thanks for any input

Never had a listening room with a peaked ceiling so no direct experience, however I have known a couple of people over the years with such listening rooms. One thing I remember is that they treated the ceiling a couple of feet below the peak, the explanation being that otherwise the peak focuses the sound that is reflected down towards the floor.

 

[germinal]

Hard to tell from the photo - is the wall behind the speakers also sloped?

Yes.. but the angle is steeper ( more perpendicular on the floor) bit still sloped

 

[germinal]

What a beautiful room
Diffusion behind your dipoles is an excellent idea!
How far out from the front wall are your speakers?
I would start with diffusion on the front wall first and then listen and get a feeling for each step you take.
I would refrain from filling up the ceiling. That would be a sacrilege in this room. That would rob you stage hight and look aweful imho
Maybe you could place absorption on the sides, where you can't do anything anyways because it is too low.

At the bottom 2.5 metres from
The front wall.. top of the speakers around 1 metre.. but can easily put them 1 metre more in the room..

In understand what your are saying.. don’t touch the ceiling.. but absorb low to the floor.. the boxes I inted to make I could easily place em on the floor against the sidewalls.. the lowest point of the windows is 110 cm..

Question is : does this create similar effect ?

 

[germinal]

Never had a listening room with a peaked ceiling so no direct experience, however I have known a couple of people over the years with such listening rooms. One thing I remember is that they treated the ceiling a couple of feet below the peak, the explanation being that otherwise the peak focuses the sound that is reflected down towards the floor.

Thanks.. I can put a box on the beams straight in the middle.. my listening position in right under the highest point , the peak so to speak.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Germinal, your room is so similar to mine, let me do my best to help.
I too run in a roof space, my descending eaves at 30°, not angled into floor, but to short vertical side walls.
My dimensions are 5.5m wide, 15m deep, 3m max height midline apex and 1.3m high at side walls.
I also have steel beams at 2.3m centres, continuous w eaves, but no horizontal steels.
--
Can I ask if you have vertical side walls, or do your 30° descending eaves meet at that angle into the floor?

 

[germinal]

Germinal, your room is so similar to mine, let me do my best to help.
I too run in a roof space, my descending eaves at 30°, not angled into floor, but to short vertical side walls.
My dimensions are 5.5m wide, 15m deep, 3m max height midline apex and 1.3m high at side walls.
I also have steel beams at 2.3m centres, continuous w eaves, but no horizontal steels.
--
Can I ask if you have vertical side walls, or do your 30° descending eaves meet at that angle into the floor?

They go all the way to the floor.. well.. 4 inches above it actually.. don’t think you can
call that a short wall.. would be interesting to know what you did in the room for the acoustics

 

[spiritofmusic]

Well, I had one aspect unique to my room, a 0.5 m*3 hatch that effectively connected my room to the much larger space below. Filling that w RockWool dealt with a major bass node, so cleaning up bass response that I've been able to significantly up the level of my subs w much less smear and bloat.
I had been running standard GIK absorbers on front wall and reflection points at side walls, plus corner traps. These seemed to be fine, but moving to a system of slatted PET boards creating less absorption but some diffusion, has been a Godsend. Together w the filled hatch, imaging is clearer, a layer of haze has been removed. Critically there is no extra dryness, the sound blooms better than before, but there is greater precision in my sound.
Finally I've installed custom bass traps using an environmentally friendly sheeps' wool product (CosyWool), effectively twice the volume of my previous GIK traps.
The end result of all of this is greater inteligibility of sound, but w no risk of dryness or "hifi pinpoint imaging", the sound blossoms organically but w greater resolution of cues.
--
A critical part of the install as relates to you was installing these PETs on my descending eaves. I have five of them R and L, parallel w the existing structural steels, and they gently disperse sound waves that would be bounced twds me from the eaves. I can't tell you how critical these have been.

 

[DasguteOhr]

I would use large indoor plants as a diffuser, in corners of the room a basotect absorber. Use basotect panel absorbers on the sloping ceilings in order to break the first reflection. you can do this very well with a mirror from your listening point. you slide the mirror on the wall until you can see the loudspeaker in the mirror. attach the absorber there.
Corner absorbers and basotect panels exsample

 

[pjwd]

They go all the way to the floor.. well.. 4 inches above it actually.. don’t think you can
call that a short wall.. would be interesting to know what you did in the room for the acoustics

That is remarkably similar to Marc's room .. looks very cool
As Marc said the ceiling is the big one as that is the source of majority of your first reflections

Absorbers and diffusers will only mess up the reflected sound as they no longer correlate with the direct sound so a vertical baffle sytem that redirects reflection away from listener will work best .. your beams will already be foing a bit of that
The pitched ceiling does complicate reflections as it focuses them on listner
Before these are positioned you should try finalise speaker and listening spot and add in enough baffles to give some flexibility
Marc has used pet panels and these have worked well as they absorb a little as well
Your front wall can be looked at in the same way .. just redirect reflections
A good program to work all this out is amray trace .. if you can get your head around it

For reverb time I would firstly focus on low bass .. look up diy stuff that goes low and put it in the corners down your sides and at bass of front wall would be good ... try 3m or so to start

My 2 bobs worth
Phil

Cheers
Phil

 

[spiritofmusic]

Germinal, Phil here became my unofficial mentor in all this, and achieved me an amazing result, all in all 60% cheaper than a more proprietary alternative. I'd give his suggestions serious consideration.

 

[germinal]

That is remarkably similar to Marc's room .. looks very cool
As Marc said the ceiling is the big one as that is the source of majority of your first reflections

Absorbers and diffusers will only mess up the reflected sound as they no longer correlate with the direct sound so a vertical baffle sytem that redirects reflection away from listener will work best .. your beams will already be foing a bit of that
The pitched ceiling does complicate reflections as it focuses them on listner View attachment 84972
Before these are positioned you should try finalise speaker and listening spot and add in enough baffles to give some flexibility
Marc has used pet panels and these have worked well as they absorb a little as well
Your front wall can be looked at in the same way .. just redirect reflections
A good program to work all this out is amray trace .. if you can get your head around it

For reverb time I would firstly focus on low bass .. look up diy stuff that goes low and put it in the corners down your sides and at bass of front wall would be good ... try 3m or so to start

My 2 bobs worth
Phil

Cheers
Phil

Hey Phil,

thanks for your input... so basically you are saying I should hang baffles from the ceiling ? but vertical instead of horizontal.. but how exactly ? cause what's the difference between absorbers and baffles ? isn't a baffle just the same ?

sorry that I don't fully understand

EDIT : I saw some pics from marc's room.. I understand how the baffles should be positioned

but baffles have same effect as absorbers, no ? positioned the same way as in Marc's room they do an even better job absorbing..

 

[spiritofmusic]

Germinal, there's some general dispute as to whether these PETs are more absorbers or diffusers. I'll christen them "subtly absorbative break-ups".
Compared to my thicker, bigger area GIKs, they don't absorb as much (evident as ABAing the GIKs in and out showed much more deadness w the GIKs in, more bloom w the PETs in).
Compared to more dedicated diffusers (GIK Gotham Quadratics were my initial likely destination prior to Phil's input), there was less dryness and slight skittishness I detected when trialling some Thomann Viscoustic Multifusers panels.
The conclusion I draw is that my room was already pretty calm acoustically to start (compared to my hugely over lively/harsh previous room), and thus only light diffusion and absorption wanted via front and side wall, and eaves treatments. Conversely I need a greater area covered, since I sit 4m back from my spkrs, and my room is very large, thus my room looms large in its involvement in my sound (not listening nearfield, room reflections more an issue than for those who sit 2.5-3m from their spkrs). Hence smaller thinner panels than my old GIKs, but more of them, overlapping louvre-style on walls, staggered on eaves, have been a really practical solution.
Phil absolutely came up trumps w his insistence on me sorting my eaves reflections first, all else subsequently is built on this foundation.

 

[pjwd]

Hey Phil,

thanks for your input... so basically you are saying I should hang baffles from the ceiling ? but vertical instead of horizontal.. but how exactly ? cause what's the difference between absorbers and baffles ? isn't a baffle just the same ?

sorry that I don't fully understand

EDIT : I saw some pics from marc's room.. I understand how the baffles should be positioned

but baffles have same effect as absorbers, no ? positioned the same way as in Marc's room they do an even better job absorbing..

Germinal
Well they do asorb a bit and do work a bit harder in this baffle arrangment but the main advantage is that any sound reflected is away from the listener where it would smear between direct and indirect ... with your ceiling you will have some very early reflections ( maybe reduced a bit by narrow vertcal dispersion of speakers?... not sure .. but would still be there)

The advantage is you dont loose ceiling height .. in fact if you dont hear reflections it seems taller

I think you have to be very carefull with broad band absorbtion ( kills the room)and I would only approach that after you tidy up reverb and first reflections
Phil

 

[spiritofmusic]

Agree w that Phil, GIK absorbers in my room were just too dull. I can't say if eaves PETs create a "taller" image, but room boundaries feel more removed. I sense that as greater energisation (aided greatly by better disposal of bass nodes w my new bigger CosyWool traps), bloom and more defined but still holistic (ie non pinpoint) imaging.
Greater ease, bloom and definition equals less room boundaries.

 

[Cellcbern]

They go all the way to the floor.. well.. 4 inches above it actually.. don’t think you can
call that a short wall.. would be interesting to know what you did in the room for the acoustics

There is an alternative to the conventional room treatments that everyone is recommending that you might want to take a look at - DHDI ZR Acoustics' thin panels that reduce/eliminate reflections (all frequencies) without deadening the room the way absorbers do. I tested them extensively and deployed them in my listening room (see photo). My experiences are described in this thread:

Trying the ZR Acoustics Panels

With the pandemic keeping me in the house much more than I'd like, I decided to remove, replace, retry, and validate all of the various tweaks (including acoustical treatments) I've added to my system/listening room over the years. My conclusion as a result of doing this over many months was...

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Audiomachine Studios

Nestled in the hills of Malibu, Audiomachine’s new Studio is home to the dynamic and prolific compositions of Paul Dinletir. Outfitted with a 9’ Fazioli Grand Piano, Bricasti M7 Reverbs and an opulent selection of keyboards, synthesizers and outboard gear, Audiomachine is a virtuoso of acoustic...

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[Addicted to hifi]

View attachment 84958

So this is my listening room.. no treatment as of yet... reverb time at the moment ranging from 2 sec (low Freq) to 1.2 sec (higher Freq) want to get this to around 0.5

Size of the room is 11 metres x 9 metres (floor surface) x 3.7 metres high ceiling (highest point)

I was thinking of DIY.. and utilizing the horizontal beams where the lights are resting up (they are located at 2.5 metres above the floor)

Basically I was thinking about making boxes with Rockwool. 4 boxes of each 2.4 metres long and 1.2 metres wide. and putting them on the beams... this would give me almost 12m2 of acoustic material..

behind the speakers I would put some diffusers..

Do you think this would be a good idea ? something else I'm missing ? I don't think I need to worry too much about first reflections in this room.. because of - in my opinion - the sloped walls, the sound waves tend to bounce upwards.

Thanks for any input

Nice room and system.

 

[Addicted to hifi]

Are

View attachment 84958

So this is my listening room.. no treatment as of yet... reverb time at the moment ranging from 2 sec (low Freq) to 1.2 sec (higher Freq) want to get this to around 0.5

Size of the room is 11 metres x 9 metres (floor surface) x 3.7 metres high ceiling (highest point)

I was thinking of DIY.. and utilizing the horizontal beams where the lights are resting up (they are located at 2.5 metres above the floor)

Basically I was thinking about making boxes with Rockwool. 4 boxes of each 2.4 metres long and 1.2 metres wide. and putting them on the beams... this would give me almost 12m2 of acoustic material..

behind the speakers I would put some diffusers..

Do you think this would be a good idea ? something else I'm missing ? I don't think I need to worry too much about first reflections in this room.. because of - in my opinion - the sloped walls, the sound waves tend to bounce upwards.

Thanks for any input

are they Magnapan speakers?