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Acoustic dampening
#1
Hey fellas. 
I’ve searched for previous threads on this and couldn’t find anything. 

I’ve been looking at acoustic dampening walls on https://addictivesound.eu/en/acoustic-solution. Has anyone done this?  

If someone is a SME on this could I please get advice. I like in a multi family house. I’m on the top floor so the ceiling has some crazy shapes. I’d like to put some panels in and sound dampening curtains up but want some smart help. I had a care with a complete wall but maybe that’s too much. Also if I can reduce any noise the neighbors may here that would be great. It’s a garman made building completed in 2020 so very think concrete walls and floors. 

My understanding is I’d put two panels behind the speakers. And then here and there. So what’s best.
Crutchfield can suck a fat baby arm. 
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#2
What's am "SME"?

Acoustically treating a room is a bit different to "electronic room correction". Physical room treatments affect the sound you hear in some ways that electronic correction doesn't. Both can smooth the frequency response at the listening position but physical treatments, depending on the types of treatment you choose (bass traps, mid to high frequency absorption, diffusors) also affects things like the size and shape of the soundstage and the way the sound is presented to you in ways that electronic correction cannot.

It's definitely not as simple as "put two panels behind the speakers. And then here and there" and, if you have a non-rectangular room and/or non-flat ceiling then things get more difficult very fast. All of the standard recommendations you will see for where to place acoustic treatment tend to assume that you have a rectangular room with a flat ceiling. Other shaped rooms, L-shaped rooms for example (my room is L-shaped) are more individual and require more individual responses. Sloping ceilings can require different responses with factors like does the ceiling slope from the left side of the room to the right or from front to back, and in which positions the high point and low point are or whether it's a cathedral ceiling oriented from side to side or front to back. Your mentioned that the ceiling has "some crazy shapes" so I expect that would require special consideration. Other factors which influence where you would place treatment are things like whether the entrance or entrances to the room are permanently open or whether they have doors and whether the doors are open or closed while listening, and the size and placement of windows. Finally, the inescapable factor that affects your placement of treatments are the location of your speakers and listening position.

In the end "what's best" depends on your room and the type of result you want to get. You've told us virtually nothing about your room including nothing about its size and shape, nothing about where your speakers and listening position are located in relation to walls, corners, and doors/windows, and nothing about the type of result you want to get. Do you want to get detailed soundstage and holographic type imaging or are you after the type of sound you hear from an orchestra if you sit in the middle of the hall so there's a large and expansive soundfield but very little sense of stereo imaging? Are there any specific issues with the sound you're currently getting that you're hoping to fix, things like a lack of clarity in the bass or a stereo image that's too shallow or which pulls to the left or right? What kind of speakers do you have (cone speakers in a box, panels such as electrostatics, horns, omnidirectionals, etc) because that affects how they radiate sound into the room and can affect what kind of treatment you use and where it's placed.

There is no "standard" or "one size fits all" set of instructions which can be given for physical room treatment which will give a result which suits every room/system. If you want useful suggestions on how to treat your room you're going to have to provide a fair bit of information about your room, any particular issues you have, and what kind of result you'd like to achieve. There's really only about one standard "rule" worth paying attention to and that is using bass traps in the room corners to help smooth and clean up the low bass response. After that, everything else depends on your particular circumstances.
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Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#3
SME - Subject Matter Expert and @David A, pretty sure you fit the bill!
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#4
Photo 
(17-Mar-2021, 20:41)David A Wrote: What's am "SME"?

Acoustically treating
Yes. You are exactly an SME, Subject Matter Expert. Or maybe THE SME!  

Tried to add a picture of the room and right side speaker. There are two evenly spaced around TV. I’m looking to get the sound lowering curtains for the quad door sized windows behind couch position. I’m not sure what to expect. And honestly I was gonna drop 2k on dampening the wall to the right so I can turn speakers up and not worry about Neighbors.

I’m clearly way in over my head.

Room is L shaped for kitchen and there’s a door that closes for rest of house. Top floor so ceilings are slanted and peak to left and right of entertainment area. Tile floors concrete walls ceiling and floors. I know you can hear a pin drop in this house because the tile and everything’s hard. In the end better sound and making sure neighbors won’t hate me playing above 40. I’m only here for another year then will take a house after this. It’s just that these speakers are so awesome I want them to rock.


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#5
Thanks for the info and photo. That helps a bit but by the look of the bit of the ceiling I can see and the mention of an L-shaped room mean the room acoustics are going to be fairly complex. You also mention that you're moving in a year so we're really talking about a fairly temporary arrangement which needs to be considered since good quality acoustic treatments aren't cheap and a lot of them are designed to be glued to the walls which is a problem if you're going to be moving so some quick and dirty suggestions.

First, forget about putting anything on the wall to prevent sound leaking to the neighbours. Whatever you put on the wall will change the sound in your room but it won't stop sound leaking through the wall to your neighbours. Acoustic products work on sound within the room, they don't stop sound escaping from the room to other rooms or apartments, If you want to block sound moving out of your apartment then we're talking soundproofing, not acoustic treatment, and that really would have had to be done at the stage the building was built because it involves barriers within the wall and other things as well. I assume you have a concrete slab floor which is shared with other apartments on your floor and sound is going to be conducted through that floor as well as through the walls and the same probably goes for the ceiling. About the only thing you can do to reduce sound leakage to the neighbours is to keep the volume down unless the neighbours are out unless you want to engage in extensive construction work installing a secondary wall, floor and ceiling which are acoustically isolated from the existing wall, floor and ceiling. For 12 months it's not worth it and if you're renting you probably wouldn't get permission to do the modifications.

So, what can you do to improve the sound given that you're moving in 12 months and you don't want to be paying for treatments that you can't take with you and use in your next home.

Given that you've said the walls, floor and ceiling are concrete then your biggest problem is likely to be in the bass so I'd look at getting some good bass traps, at least 1 for each corner you can place one in and maybe 2 for each corner so that you can stack them if they're small or you find you need a bit more bass control than only 1 trap provides. Firms like Vicoustic and Arenovion make triangular wedge shaped traps that can go in the corners and be stacked. I use RealTRAPS Mondo Corner Traps on their corner stands and there's also ASC Tube Traps. All of those products are quite effective and they're all free standing so you don't have to glue or fix them in place and you can easily take them with you when you move which is good because all rooms benefit from bass trapping so you will definitely be able to use them in your new home. It's worth getting the best traps you can afford because they don't wear out with use, they're with you through house moves and system changes, and they just keep on working.

As for other treatment, given that you're going to be moving I'd suggest going cheap and temporary. I'd put some rugs on the floor, preferably wool or natural fibres rather than synthetic, and put some sort of non-slip underlay under them. If you want to try treating the walls, I'd think of something like some stands for hanging clothing and just hanging folded blankets over them. Experiment a bit with where you place them. Lots of people recommend the side wall first reflection points but leaving them untreated helps create a wider soundstage which many people prefer so try other locations and also try putting them not quite opposite each other, offset by a few inches sideways and in height if you can, because that will deliver a little bit more absorption than having them precisely opposite each other. I'd also consider something like that in the middle of the front wall between the speakers and below the screen. Something like that may also help at the back of the room but a lot can depend on which wall of the L-shape room the speakers are placed on.

That advice may not be what you were hoping for but good acoustic treatments aren't cheap and they're usually highly visible. Their placement depends on the room and where the system is in the room. If you're moving in a year I'm reluctant to make firm recommendations on how to treat your current room because if your next room is different in size and construction (no concrete room surfaces for example) the treatment requirements may be very different and you may have ended up spending a lot of time and money on treating your current room which ends up being wasted when you move. I think it's better to get by in the short term with bass treatment which will still be beneficial after you move and then to consider what other treatment you need for the long term after you're in your new home. You can then pick the treatments you need, both acoustically and for how they work visually in the new room, and know for certain that they're going to meet your needs for a lot longer than one year.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#6
Ok man. Sounds like base traps and I think I’ll just put a small wall of sound panels behind tv and speakers so it appears semi stylish. I have a shag carpet.....after four years in Iraq/Afghanistan I kind of completely hate Persian rugs and anything of the sort. I think the sound absorbing curtains may also help. And a multi panel picture set for the wall on the right.
These things I’ll likely be able to apply at the next place. Except curtains probably.
Crutchfield can suck a fat baby arm. 
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#7
No betterrerrrr pic


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#8
That's a pretty irregular shaped room. There may actually be good things about that as well as bad. The bad is that the acoustics become quite complex because of the different angles and the shape, the fact that the right speaker is much closer to a side wall than the left which means the early reflections aren't similar and can shift the centre of the stern image to one side, and other such things. On the other hand the really long dimension along the axis of the speaker plane, the different dimensions front to back (kitchen vs speaker area) the different ceiling heights in different areas, you've got a lot of variety in axial dimensions and therefore more room modes than the 3 axial dimensions (length/width/height) provide in a normal rectangular room and that can actually help the room response to smooth out more quickly as frequency rises.

Unfortunately it means it's a very difficult room when it comes to deciding how to treat it acoustically. If you want to get the best results then you've got 2 choices. You can either hire an acoustic consultant with really good room modelling software. have him come in and measure the room, both in terms of dimensions and the actual frequency response, and then let him crunch numbers and come up with a recommendation or you start with a couple of bass traps and one or two panels and start experimenting with where you put them, and deciding what more treatment you want to add as you go along and find out how the room responds to what you're doing. That can be a long process, I still find myself playing with the placement of treatment in my room close to 4 years after my last major system change. I've had the things sounding very good for a long time now but I still find myself moving panels every now and then to see if a small change can make an improvement.

You said that you're moving in 12 months. That means this room is a temporary situation for you and you don't know what your next room is going to be like. With a room like your current one you could end up doing a lot of things in order to improve the sound but that means that you're probably going to buy more treatment in the effort to improve this room than you're going to need with your next room if it's a much simpler shape. That's why I recommend minimal treatment for this room and saving money and effort now for your next room which is going to be a longer term listening environment for you.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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