Is your listening room acoustically treated?

[no32]

About 2/3 of my ceiling is treated with 2x4 Soundscape panels. They are 60cm suspended from the ceiling.

The rest of the room isn’t treated even though There’s glass wall behind the speakers and large mirror along one of the side walls

The acoustic in this room was very good to begin with , the ceiling treatments reduced enough echo to make it even better

It’s about 120 sq meters and ceiling height is 14-8 meters


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[Pim]

This has turned out to be an interesting poll. It seams that everyone here has paid for a professional to build their DAC/amplifier. Some have paid for professionals to build their cables, footers, power supplies, digital room correction etc. but nobody has paid for a professional to treat their listening space; one of the most important parts of a high quality sound system.

Doesn't anyone see value in professional guidance to get the best out of their system? Is it too hard to find someone? Is it too expensive? Or is it too easy to do it yourself?

[no32]

I had 2 professionals measuring and recommending
I followed their advice


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[David A]

I could see value in professional guidance PROVIDED you somewhere where there is a professional who specialises in small rooms because acoustically our rooms are quite small. Then there's the question of how much you want to spend. If you're embarking on a project of actually building a dedicated listening room from the ground up, then you've got a major building expense ahead of you and spending a bit more on professional advice is likely to be a significant part but not the major part of the total cost.

I suspect it's a different thing if you're just looking to treat an existing room. The only expense there, besides professional guidance if you get it, is going to be the cost of the acoustic treatments you install and professional guidance is going to be a much greater part of the total cost if you use to. If you're trying to cut costs, doing the job without the professional guidance is probably the major cost cutting decision you can make.

I'm in an audio club here in Brisbane. The only consulting acoustics person I know of usually works on jobs like school halls and much larger spaces and as far as I know he doesn't take on smaller jobs like home listening rooms. While he's the friend of one of our club members, an architect, and has helped that member on some of his projects I've never heard of him providing guidance for any other club member or audiophile. Let's just say that, depending on where you live, you may have problems finding someone local to help.

How hard is it to do yourself? I don't think there's a simple answer to that question.

There are some books you can turn to for advice. The first book I used was F. Alston Everest's "Master Handbook of Acoustics" and the other book I've used, and now prefer to rely on, is Floyd Toole's "Sound Reproduction/Loudspeakers and Rooms". Everest's book is more oriented towards building a home recording studio and/or editing room than towards home listening rooms. It goes into some depth on how sound behaves in rooms, how acoustic treatments work, and how to build your own DIY treatments. It does quote research findings, many of those findings coming from the research of Floyd Toole, but in several significant areas Everest's recommendations on how to treat a room are quite at odds from the recommendations Toole makes based on the same research. Rather than placing a lot of emphasis on the behaviour of sound in rooms, how treatments work, and how to build your own treatments, Toole tends to emphasise the research on how people respond to various aspects of sound in a room and what aspects of sound they prefer, and his recommendations for treatment are based on those studies of listener preference. A simple example of the difference between the 2 books is that Everest recommends treating first reflection points while Toole recommends leaving them untreated saying listeners tend to prefer the sense of spaciousness first reflections can provide though he also notes that recording engineers tend to have a preference for treating first reflections which probably explains why Everest's book, which is aimed more towards home recording setups, recommends treatment of those points.

When I first started experimenting with treating my own room Toole's book hadn't been written and I followed Everest's recommendations including treating first reflection points. I liked the results. When Toole's book was published I bought it and read it and found myself rejecting Toole's recommendations. It took me some years to start experimenting with Toole's recommendations and I was surprised to find I preferred them when I finally got around to trying them.

There is a big problem with both books when it comes to treating an existing room: they both discuss rectangular rooms and ignore irregular shaped rooms like L-shaped rooms (my current room is L-shaped) and neither devotes any time to discussing how to deal with asymmetrical rooms in general, open plan spaces, and things like windows in places which cause problems or open archway entrances from other areas (my room has large window areas on the front and back walls, 2 open archway entrances, and a corner on one leg of the L-shape is cut off at 45 degrees providing an angled reflective surface and 2 135 degree corners where you would normally have a single 90 degree corner).. Both leave you on your own when it comes to a lot of the things which can cause us problems when it comes to treating an existing room.

Guidance on the internet is a mixed bag. There's lots of advice on the sites of firms making acoustic treatments which tends to extol the virtues of their various treatments along with a "more is better" philosophy, obviously with an eye to sales. There is good information there but there is definitely a sales bias. Then there's advice from hobbyists like us, many of whom have strong opinions which don't agree with the research of people like Toole. One problem you come across is an argument about which is better, absorption or diffusion, with the people favouring diffusion making great claims for the benefits of a diffuse sound field. Concert halls have diffuse sound fields once you get a certain distance from the performers but they're much bigger than our rooms and it's impossible to create a genuinely diffuse sound field in a room as small as most of our rooms plus there's the issue that diffusion takes distance and time in which to develop and if you don't have enough distance between you and a diffuser you ain't going to get the full benefit from it and you may even hear unwelcome artefacts from it.

Another big issue is that the books I mention and pretty much everything I've read on the internet all seem to discuss the benefits of acoustic treatment in terms of correcting frequency problems, especially in the low frequency region. What you find when you start to play around with doing the treatment yourself is that how and where you treat the room also affects things like dynamic attack and how lively the music sounds, the sense of pace the music has (treatment in some locations can make the music seem to drag while moving those treatments to other locations can "perk it up"), and you can also make big differences in the way the soundstage and imaging are rendered. Sometimes moving a treatment from one location to another by a small amount, say 6" or a bit less to a foot or so can make a big difference in how the music is presented to you.

If you have a nice rectangular room and no problems with openings or window location and the like it's relatively easy to recommend a treatment strategy that will deliver good results BUT those results may not match with the recipient's tastes and preferences. To some degree those recommendations are also going to be based on speaker choice and placement and listening position placement. Change your speakers and/or their location and/or move your listening position and you're likely to find yourself having to move your treatments as well. A lot of the products sold to people like us are meant to be glued or fixed to the walls which makes it hard to move them if you change something and have to adjust your treatment locations, and impossible to use if there's a window or some piece of furniture where you want to place the treatment. Freestanding treatments are great for dealing with those issues but often far less attractive. On the other hand, having an air space behind an absorbing panel actually increases the absorption it offers and that means you need to treat less surface area of the room which will often result in a livelier sound.

When I changed my speakers from a 2 way rear ported standpoint to a 3 way front ported floor stander design nearly 2 years ago I had to move the speakers back about half a metre to the wall and start rethinking my treatment strategy to deal with the different way the new speakers loaded the room. The treatment placements I had been using prior to the speaker change worked reasonably well with minimal adjustments to their location to compensate for the shift in speaker position but I started playing around trying to get things working better. Moving my treatments was easy since they're all free standing but I played with their height on the stands and also started seriously experimenting with leaving first reflection points untreated and trying out other locations instead. After 22 months or so I think I've got things sounding much better but it's taken all that time because irregular shaped rooms like mine can be a real problem and, as I said, no one tends to give any ideas of how to deal with them. Would a professional acoustician have helped? I have no doubt they could have given me instructions on how to set things up but I'm not certain they would have recommended the setup I've arrived at and really like. There is no universally best treatment solution for a room, there's a whole family of good/best solutions which deliver different results and the *best* solution for your purposes is the one which suits your preferences. There's no guarantee a professional will give you that solution.

So doing it yourself can be easy or hard, take little time or a lot of time, little experimentation or a lot of experimentation. One thing you do get out of doing it yourself, if you spend at least some time playing around with placement of treatments and paying attention to the results that delivers is a much better understanding of what kind of sound you're looking for, what the room you have is contributing to the sound you're getting, and how to work with a room to get good results. That kind of experience is invaluable in my view but getting to a result you're happy to live with long term can take a lot more time and effort than you initially think will be involved. As i said, I've spent 22 months now playing with my room on and off since changing speakers and that was a real surprise. In the past with standpoints and my current room or another small room it's never taken me more than a few weeks to get things to the point where I was happy with the result.

This is probably too long a post in many ways but I hope it at least gives anyone who's contemplating acoustically treating their room an idea of what can be involved in the process, some of the things you can end up having to deal with in "real world" rooms rather than the idealised rectangular boxes that are almost always discussed, plus the idea that it can end up taking more time and work than you initially think may be involved. Would I do it again? Yes, but hopefully it would take me less time if I have to do it again because of some of the things I ended up learning this time around.

[Pim]

@David A , I like your second to last paragraph. It's certainly true that experimenting yourself is a tremendously important learning curve. I still find it interesting though that just about every other part of the system gets outsourced and the room doesn't. I must say I do enjoy playing with speaker placement to a point but ultimately I just want the sound I want and enjoy the music. If I could outsource getting the best out of my system to someone who can do in a day what takes me a month, I wouldn't hesitate for a second.

I do a lot of stuff myself that I could outsource. I've done more building work on our house than most people would ever dream of. I enjoy learning how to do new things. But along the way I've also learned there are certain things you should leave up to the professionals to do. I think the success of any project stands or falls by your own understanding of your shortcomings. The reason I started this thread in the first place is to get some understanding of how hard it is to do my own room treatment. There are quite a few room treatment threads on Stereonet Australia that I've read and to be honest, it gets a bit much.

I might buy the Floyd Toole book. I've seen a youtube video of him and the man makes a lot of sense.

[audio_engr]

Haha ! this is indeed an interesting thread ... I am torn whether or not to call Jim Smith who wrote the book 'Get better Sound' as he offers a personal setup & calibration for US$ 1,500 approx. for east coast US residents.

[David A]

Haha !  this is indeed an interesting thread ... I am torn whether or not to call Jim Smith who wrote the book 'Get better Sound' as he offers a personal setup & calibration for US$ 1,500 approx. for east coast US residents.

Jim's setup and calibration service does not extend to acoustic treatment as far as I know. I believe it concentrates on getting the speakers and listening position placed in the room for optimal effect and that should always be the starting point. Acoustic treatment can't work miracles. It can improve what you already have  but the better your starting point the less you have to "correct" and the better the result will be so getting the room setup as good as possible should always be your first priority. I've seen people amazed at what something as simple as changing speaker toe in a little can do to the sound they hear.

Since you mentioned Jim Smith however, take a look at the final item in his Quarter Notes Volume 2 Issue 1 from early 2010. That recommendation is a shameless personal plug and some of my ideas have changed since then but it does discuss things you can do to treat a room without going out and buying acoustic treatments.

[audio_engr]

Since you mentioned Jim Smith however, take a look at the final item in his Quarter Notes Volume 2 Issue 1 from early 2010. That recommendation is a shameless personal plug and some of my ideas have changed since then but it does discuss things you can do to treat a room without going out and buying acoustic treatments.

Thank you for the tips @David A

I will look up the Quarter Notes ... 

"the better your starting point the less you have to "correct" and the better the result will be so getting the room setup as good as possible should always be your first priority".

I have always believed in this and continue to fine-tune my setup in an otherwise extremely difficult room that is square in dimensions with low ceilings & differing ceiling heights. Its quite a challenge.

[Confused]

My thoughts are increasingly turning towards room treatments. It is something I know I should pay more attention to, but the simple fact is that I always seem to be more interested in electronics (and many other things), so thoughts of doing something with the room get pushed backwards. That said, I have now reached the point where I am really happy with both my digital and vinyl set ups, so doing something with the room is the one place left I can potentially achieve some worthwhile gains.

My room is already pretty good acoustically. I am lucky in that I have listened to a system absolutely identical to mine at Oxford Audio Consultants, and in two different demo rooms at various different times. In one OAC demo room, the Pro + Blades sound rather different to my set up at home, whereas in another demo room they sound very similar. The similar sounding room is exactly the same width as my room at home (I have measured it to within 10mm), it has less junk and furniture in it and it is a little shorter than my room. The Oxford Audio room is better treated than mine though, with other differences, such as a suspended wooden floor versus my carpet covered solid concrete. At Oxford Audio the bass is definitely a bit more even than I have at home, the system sounds a little darker, but perhaps does lose out on punch and dynamics. My aim with room treatments would be to try and get some of that Oxford Audio goodness at home, without losing too much of the good stuff I already have. I can see there are compromises here. Indeed, I have listened to the Blades at two other hifi dealers (with different amplification, only OAC also have Devialet), as well as at a couple of shows. This is useful data in terms of gauging your own room and set up at home. Interestingly, I would not swap the sound achieved at one dealers reasonably well treated room with that I achieve at home. I suspect this is due to this particular dealer having a slightly narrower room, which I think does not suit the Blades.

One thing I can see regarding room treatments is that it is something that will take a lot of time and effort to get right. Time that I just do not have at the moment, so a lot of my future efforts will probably develop very slowly. Having said that, I do have some ideas regarding things I can experiment with, and I can highlight some likely problem areas in my room. I quite like the idea of getting some cheap foam type products, just to experiment with. OK, I know these are not optimum products, but I can see some benefit from experimenting with something cheap and simple before going for the more serious (and expensive) products. As an example, I have measured my room response with REW, I have a bass null, I have checked the wavelength of this bass frequency and it is exactly the distance between one speaker and my worst treated wall. (the equivalent wall opposite has a window, but covered with floor to ceiling curtains) Yes, I know the room interaction is more complex that this, taking into account all walls, floor and the ceiling, but things like this give me ideas as to where to experiment. I also have one fairly obvious "first reflection point" that could do with sorting out.

I am also interested in trying GIK's advice service:

https://gikacoustics.co.uk/acoustic-advice-form/

https://gikacoustics.co.uk/room-acoustics-visualizer/

I visited the "Hifi London Indulgence show" in 2017, a terrible name for a show, but they did have some good seminars running throughout the day. One seminar I attended was run by a guy from GIK UK, he was talking about room treatment in general, explaining their advice service, and taking general questions. It was a great talk. Someone mentioned in an earlier post that companies that produce room treatment products are likely to push to sell you as much product as possible. The GIK guy certainly did not give this impression. He explained that when you use their advice service they tend to respond by highlighting the things that are likely to yield the biggest improvement for the least effort, the things you should try first. They then move onto things that might be more difficult, but still yield positive results, all the way to things that are really hard to do and will only give a small benefit. It is then up to the customer to decide how far they want to go. OK - I know GIK were at the show to persuade people to buy GIK products, but I did leave the seminar with a very positive impression of what GIK can offer.

If anyone has tried the GIK advice service, I would be very interested in hearing your experiences of this.

EDIT: I have just voted in Pim's poll "I listen in the living room but it's well treated", I should have picked the option below, although if I get my act together and do some of the stuff described in this post, my selection will then become correct. Maybe this is the motivation I have needed all along!

[audio_engr]

If anyone has tried the GIK advice service, I would be very interested in hearing your experiences of this.

I have been on a dialog with these guys here at their US Headquarters for a few months now. They do have some very note worthy products and I have witnessed them being used to very satisfying standards in Demo Rooms of a few top-notch Highend HiFi dealers here in the US. 

I am keen on their : 
- 'Impression series' Corner Bass Traps
- 244 Bass Trap with FlexRange (used as either Absorber OR Diffuser panels)
- Monster Bass Trap with FlexRange (used as either Absorber OR Diffuser panels)  
- Q7d Diffusor (unfortunately GIK is unable to get them manufactured these days ... )

BTW - the items above are all available thru RPG Acoustical Systems albeit @ 3 to 5 times the GIK prices.