Room Acoustics HELL
How I Fixed It. For the Most Part.
Welcome to Hell
I knew a square room was a bad idea, but I had no idea how bad. Dimensions of my room are 15‘ x 15 1/2‘ but half of one wall is a staircase so the upper half is closer to 18 1/2 feet wide and then a huge 12 foot section of corner has been chopped off which opens into a large space. Unfortunately, that large space is all tile, creating the most “slappy-clappy” effect you’ve ever heard. Before moving in I tried to convince myself it would be OK. The irregularities from the true square would be enough to prevent the legendarily evil standing waves from occurring. Boy was I wrong in a big way. It destroyed everything. There was not one single sonic characteristic previously identifiable as “my system” present. The overall color, tonal balance, three dimensionality, separation of space, you name it, was completely missing. It did not sound like even the most vague resemblance of the system I had owned before in two previous houses. The areas however that suffered the most were the ones most dear to my heart: dynamics, bass, percussive impact, bass, liveliness and bass. Did I mention the bass was lacking? I have never in my life heard sound so harsh yet so dead at the same time. So totally lacking energy and life and so painful to hear. Tonal balance was totally off. Aside from a single home theater sound bar, I’ve never heard anything so flat and one dimensional in my entire life. To double check this I compared my $60,000 system to my $700 Sonos sound bar. OK the big rig still sounded better, but not by a lot. Wife response: so you’re going to sell the big rig, right?
Audiophile = Large House?
The word “audiophile” is commonly associated with someone who appreciates expensive equipment for the purposes of quality sound reproduction. In fairness, it should be equally associated with people who can afford large houses. To achieve great sound, you must have a venue that will facilitate it. Either live in the country or double or triple your income and live in the city. Otherwise you’re trying to tell me you enjoy driving your exotic F1 race car in bumper-to-bumper traffic each day during your work commute. By far the most expensive stereo component you own is your house.
Previously I believed the room was about 50% of the sound you’re hearing, your system being the other 50%. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s not more like 2/3 room and 1/3 system.
Room Acoustics: Underrated Bang for the Buck
Audiophiles are always looking at value. Me too! At a certain price point, room treatments provide by far greater bang for the buck than component upgrades. Here’s another related pricing exercise for you: how much would it cost you to knock out a wall or open up the space in your house? How much would it cost to upgrade your stereo amp to mono blocks? Or whatever the next upgrade you’re considering would cost....which is less?
Yet comparatively we talk about this so little. Look at the number of forum posts on Audiogon under speakers and amplifiers and then compare that to room treatments. There should honestly be more posts about rebuilding rooms than upgrading speakers. Audiophiles would receive a much higher return on investment. I guess speaker manufacturers buy more ad space than your local handyman.
The Results
4 diffuser panels, eight monster bass traps and an extra layer of carpet was enough to restore the mids and highs to their former glory. Soundstage size was markedly improved. I was finally hearing the sound stage one would expect from an overall larger volume room with 10’ ceilings (compared to my previous residence). The 3D density of sonic holograms appeared to me as they had in previous houses, which is a considerable thing to say given the massive expansion of the soundstage. By that I mean, as the soundstage gets bigger generally objects become more diffuse. In this case it became bigger and the objects within it were just as dense as before (better?). However, the color and texture were far richer in my previous house with the golden ratio (to be described in another post). Overall, realism in the midrange and highs was pretty similar, maybe slightly better.
The bad news: bass impact and sense of energy was still missing. Don’t get me wrong. It was greatly improved. It was now finally “mildly listenable” in the low end. Previously it was so offensive to hear I had trouble controlling the fits rage with mental flashes of selling my stereo and burning the house to the ground.
Lessons Learned
To my surprise, DIRAC Live improved nothing (in this case). I’ve had good luck using a DEQX system to improve bass response, so I was really disappointed to learn I was going to have to resort to acoustic panels to solve my problem. This was a REALLY BAD room to tame.
I added extra carpet pad and an entire carpet on top of the existing carpet. This seemed to tame some of the harshness in the air. Let me be clear: TWO carpets stacked on top of each other plus carpet pad helped the sound.
As for 100% fixing the bass and dynamics problems in a room with acoustics this bad, there are only two possibilities beyond the bass traps I added.
completely line the room with bass traps. Based on the amount of improvement I’m hearing from the number of panels I’ve purchased, I could easily see the need to cover every last corner wall surface and ceiling. OR....
it really can’t be totally fixed. You’ll have to alter the structure or move to another house.
Your ability to fix your mid-range and highs (which would include your soundstage) with a reasonable number or acoustic room treatments is pretty good. Once you’ve heard how amazing this sounds, you will have a hard time going back to an untreated room.
I tried placing the sound panels on the floor (on their sides along the walls) down low to keep them out of sight, but that didn’t help much. Getting them centered up on the walls seemed to make a big difference (see photos).
2” thick gray foam from Amazon is worthless.
Monster bass traps from GIK Acoustics do wonders, but their aesthetic manufacturing standards leave a bit to be desired. Call them for recommendations.
Cheap diffuser panels off Amazon did a great job (link to come), but you may not need them at all if you have a bright sounding room. I placed mine behind a piece of canvas art centered on the main wall behind the speakers (see last photo below).
ATS QRD diffuser panels did a pretty decent job
Diffuser panels created some degree of localization (at least for me). That means I was hearing sound coming from wherever I had them placed them in the room. This does wonders for creating a denser image of the singer at center stage (centered on the main wall behind the speakers) or teasing the corners of a soundstage out a bit further (if you want).
The Synergistic Research HFT‘s and black box did wonders, but not until I had decent room acoustics. Since my bass problems have not been fixed, I’m not surprised the black box is currently making no difference whatsoever in the low end. I would not recommend buying those products to fix a problem, only to enhance the sound you have and take it to another level. The only exception I’ll make to that statement is to properly center of your soundstage. If your room is unbalanced left to right and you have to fiddle with the balance control, the HFT‘s do have an amazing ability to force the soundstage to center properly. The last photo shows my HFT placement; S= silver, B=black, G=gold.
