bobc
New Member
Posts: 20
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Post by bobc on Feb 1, 2017 13:01:35 GMT
Hexpa,
Thanks for your insulting comments.. My hearing is fine.. Like I said, The mix may not have been done yet ..Gateway Mastering is a world class studio and Bob L was a kind and gracious host.
I did find Ethan's writings to be informative and his videos entertaining and want to thank him for his time.
I am signing off of this forum disappointed and insulted.. and will not be back..
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Post by Hexspa on Feb 2, 2017 6:15:16 GMT
Hexpa,
Thanks for your insulting comments.. My hearing is fine.. Like I said, The mix may not have been done yet ..Gateway Mastering is a world class studio and Bob L was a kind and gracious host.
I did find Ethan's writings to be informative and his videos entertaining and want to thank him for his time.
I am signing off of this forum disappointed and insulted.. and will not be back..
Jesus. The guy has a room shaped like a miniature waffle house, puts up eight 4lb mineral wool absorbers and suddenly saxes are kazoos, cellos are violins and the room has no bloom. I swear I try to be nice but at some point you just have to break it to people. I apologize for hurting everyone's feelings. I am actually trying to be helpful. I realize I rub some people the wrong way. For better or worse, that's unlikely to change. It's always been like this despite my best efforts to be personable. So ya. Apparently people think I'm a dick. Whatever. -m
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Post by Ethan Winer on Feb 2, 2017 16:12:14 GMT
I don't know what "bloom" is - do you mean room ambience? I agree with Hex that the solution to thin sound is always more bass traps. Your room isn't large, but it's big enough to get decent sound quality. Before you stick up more traps, try listening in different locations. Sometimes the middle of the room is good, sometimes it's bad. The middle has a null at the lowest mode frequency, which sounds thin, but it has a peak at the 2nd "harmonic" which can sound full. So:
Halfway back in an 18 foot room has a null at 31 Hz and a peak at 63 Hz, then another null at 94 Hz and other peak at 125 Hz.
Halfway between the left and right sides in a room 13 feet wide has a null at 43 Hz and a peak at 87 Hz, then another null at 130 Hz and other peak at 174 Hz.
But more bass traps will only help. Room measuring software is a good way to identify problems and see the effect of various panel placements.
I'm confused by one thing you said: "i listened to Ethan playing Bach on his Tele with a backing of violins and strings. It took only 2 notes to hear the weight and bloom of the strings." Where did you play this? In your same room? If my recording sounds good, but another recording sounds bad, and you played both in the same room, maybe it's the recordings?
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bobc
New Member
Posts: 20
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Post by bobc on Feb 3, 2017 13:06:21 GMT
Hexpa,
Any guy that can admit he can be a dick is ok in my book.. We'd be friends if you were local!
Ethan, bloom: A quality of expansive richness and warmth, like the live body sound of a cello. (I was listening in $5 headphones plugged into my laptop..)
I have built more bass traps and will be hanging them tonight... I really would like to build some polyfusors just to try... I have a full woodshop and lots of woodworking experience... I have searched the web , and maybe search on the wrong thing, but haven't found any DIY Polyfusors, except for the 24" sauna tube ones that Ethan says are a pain to build... I may just build some 2'x4' frames and add the 1/3 circle and cover it with 1/8" in plywood... Any know of a diy?
Qdiffusors probably aren't the best in my case due to the short distance between the listening position and the rear wall.
The end goal is a deep, rich, open, warm, sound... I am not after hard , bright or sterile... This is a stereo listening room not a neutral recording or mixing room... I listen mostly to Jazz... I like it big, open , airy and rich. Right or wrong ~ it's what I like and it's my room..
Thanks guys.
bc
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Post by Hexspa on Feb 3, 2017 16:35:43 GMT
Right on bc. It's all good.
It's good you have building experience. You can make some awesome absorbers custom fit to your room.
Consider the shape of your room - it's not just a flat rear wall that you have. You also have that angled ceiling which is directly reflecting sound back at you and your speakers.
It's called speaker boundary interference and listener boundary interference. The more you put absorption up, the less of that problem you have.
That interference causes comb filtering and it's ugly older brothers Nasty Null and Paul Peaks. Those guys are going to magically transform your brass sax into a plastic buzz box.
So you've got to treat more square footage in absorption. The bad news is that 4lb mineral wool is roughly the equivalent of OC701. The good news is you're a craftsman supported by knowledgeable people (myself excluded).
So what I suggest is you build a custom 8" thick frames stuffed with your absorption and treat all of your surfaces except where you'd like to place diffusion.
Remember - you primarily need lots of absorption especially given the volume and shape of your room. Once that's handled you can put in some diffusion - maybe 10-15% of your surface area; just a guess.
You don't need 100% absorption but you need a lot - at least your whole rear wall (including the slanted ceiling), RFZ, all corners and maybe a few more for additional modal treatment. The rest can be diffusion.
Of course it's your call but that is my understanding and recommendation. Absorption will not make your room bright, hard or sterile.
One more tip - for all panels that don't function as RFZ, you can place a thin membrane of plastic or kraft paper adhered with spray glue to improve the low-end response. You can also gap the panels up to 4x their thickness for more low end response at the minor expense of low mids.
I have 20 4" 8lb mineral wool panels gapped 8-12" and nine 32" fluffy super chunks (with 50% kraft paper) and it's barely enough for a 2500ft3 room. Honestly I can't wait until I can double the amount.
Or just kidnap Ludwig and take over his place. I'm sure no one will notice.
-m
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bobc
New Member
Posts: 20
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Post by bobc on Feb 3, 2017 17:39:46 GMT
Yeah, I get it... For the record all of my panels use 4" rock wool and are built on 5.5" frames and none , yet, are mounted directly to the walls.. The rear angled wall will be. I fear putting craft paper on the panels....my woofers are 15" TAD 1602's with 11 lb magnets... I can move the room with bass... I can blow out a lit candle in front of one of the bass ports. I don't need a paper sounding rattle added to my troubles...
As far as diffusors, I hear what you are saying... Do you know of any DIY plans?
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Post by Hexspa on Feb 4, 2017 8:02:24 GMT
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Post by rock on Feb 4, 2017 14:35:36 GMT
I fear putting craft paper on the panels.... The paper is attached with spray glue and it should not rattle. If you're not convinced, use thin plastic sheeting about .7 mil thick. It should also be spray glued. Cheers, Rock
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Post by Ethan Winer on Feb 4, 2017 15:34:12 GMT
Poly shapes are not great close-up in small rooms. My diffusion video posted earlier lets you hear the problem. They're okay in very large rooms to break up flutter echo, but that's about it IMO. This is perhaps the best DIY diffuser resource: Diffuser Calculator
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bobc
New Member
Posts: 20
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Post by bobc on Feb 6, 2017 14:51:46 GMT
Update:
I now have over 100sq ft of bass traps in my room. Still getting an anomaly in midrange between 400Hx and 315o Hz... I remembered I had a 1/3 octave test tone cd and played it and noted a few things.
Also, noted that when plying vinyl, the record surface noise went from very, very quite to accentuated.
Just to be sure it wasn't amp/preamp or source related, I also tried another preamplifier and amplifier... No change.
Test tones notes: by excite , I am stating that an odd artifact of the tone existed.
250hz image centered no issue 315hz image centered with slight excite in right channel 400hz image moves hard right slight excite 500hz image still right no excite 630hz image centered no excite 800hz image hard right with excite 1k image right no excite 1.25 image center no excite 1.6k image center no excite 2k image center no excite 2.5k image hard Right no excite 3.15k image hard right no excite 4k image center no excite 5k image center no excite 6.3k image center no excite 8k image left louder no excite 10 image center no excite
also ran 1khz square wave tone, as I moved my head from side to side at listening seat, the tone moved around the room.
Another note: I have had my system set up in this same room , same config, for 16 years. Never experienced these issues.. I did have acoustic foam on rear wall, and at 1st and second reflection points on walls and ceiling... The only odd issue that I really experienced was that the right speaker needed to be approx. 4" closer to the listening chair than the left one in order to achieve a strong center image.. I am thinking now of moving that speaker back to match the position of the other speaker distance... My thought are that I will lose center image and excite a different frequency...
Last, I have not treated the 2nd reflection points on the side walls, and they are hard parallel surfaces... One is a door , the other is a wall. Another weird thing.. I was reading a hardcover book and could feel the energy in the room vibrating the hardcovers , in my hands.. Weird huh!
thoughts ?
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bobc
New Member
Posts: 20
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Post by bobc on Feb 6, 2017 18:54:46 GMT
One more thing... When adding a membrane to the panels... The membrane faces the room , not the wall correct? So I'll need to remove the fabric to the face of the panel, add the membrane, then put the fabric back on over the membrane...
Correct?
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Post by Hexspa on Feb 6, 2017 23:29:02 GMT
Hey bobc. Take this with a grain of salt but I think some of your perceptions come down to this:
When mixing a song, for instance, you might initially hear the multitrack and think it sounds great.
But then you start high passing stuff and notching out resonances here and there...
Then suddenly everything starts sounding like crap - this is actually a good sign sometimes.
What it means is you're crossing the threshold from total chaos toward a polished sound.
All those problems you never noticed are becoming more apparent because you've cleared out the mud hiding them.
This happens in other fields; not just music and audio.
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Post by Hexspa on Feb 6, 2017 23:35:36 GMT
Regarding speaker placement, reflection points and stereo image - I feel your pain! Anything can f up your imaging. In my case, the rear of the room isn't symmetrical. The front has a window on one side. The room kind of is on an angle lengthwise and even the damn fireplace between my speakers isn't centered gah. Imaging isn't, and never will be, great in this room. Barring that it's best to have all your RFZ points treated. Also, a great way to find your ideal speaker placement is the use of real time analysis (RTA) software (such as Room EQ Wizard) in conjunction with an omni linear condenser ( ECM800, Nady CM100 - affiliate links). Given that you're using a different type and quantity of material with differing placement, it's not surprising that your prior speaker locations have become less definite. Take this as an opportunity to vacuum under them for once. lol Ok, I think I've made my point. The previous post was speculation but ya, placement, RTA, RFZ - that's all tangible. -m
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Post by Hexspa on Feb 6, 2017 23:41:25 GMT
One more thing... When adding a membrane to the panels... The membrane faces the room , not the wall correct? So I'll need to remove the fabric to the face of the panel, add the membrane, then put the fabric back on over the membrane... Correct? Correct.
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bobc
New Member
Posts: 20
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Post by bobc on Feb 7, 2017 13:23:16 GMT
I "may" have found the bad vibes... Last night I leaned a couple of small bass traps on the right closet door, because they were in the way.. And then was messing around with music on, and i had very little resonance... I sat, turned up the volume and it was better.. Still not great but some of the ugly was gone... It appears that the wood closet door just behind my right ear, was resonating... Reminder: my house is 211 years old and the woodwork has really had time to dry out..hehe.
I will now load the door with weight somehow.. Most likely another bass trap, with a matching one on the left side of the room... and just as a coincidence, directly opposing the door on the opposite wall is a window! :0)
as far as the corners behind each speaker, I think I will build up some corner traps, super chunks or what ever the term is... I have 31" in height before it will hit the front angled wall... They will be out of site... Is there a reason that i see them being built with a plywood top and bottom? Or is it just so that they can be moved around? If no reason, I will just get some 24"x48" Safe and sound and cut some 24X24X34 triangles, stack em in the corners and cover them with fabric..
Maybe I am onto something...
Keep the thoughts coming Hex, Rock and Ethan..
My goal is to make this room sound BIG, full and rich as if there were no walls.. Neutral is not what i am after- whn I hear neutral it makes me think cold.... I want to hear the acoustic that the music was recorded in as well as the music.
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