The Importance of Room Treatments

[Titanium Dome]

There's a lot of discussion about room treatments and their place in the hierarchy of what's important in home audio reproduction. Here's a place we can delve into this a little deeper.

I'll include a poll for the sake of generating interest. Bear in mind it's not scientific. It's just opinion.

For starters, here's how I would sort things out.

1. Speaker choice
2. Speaker placement
3-A: Room
3-B: Room treatments
4-A: Pre/DAC
4-B: Amp
5. Dedicated power circuit
6. Everything else

As always, I reserve the right to change my mind, be influenced by the opinions of others, learn something, and be contrary. I'm sure the mods will keep it clean.

[maxwedge]

I lot of thinking has to go into this! Haven't voted yet but I think that the room it's self is ground zero dictates and all the rest, ego aside!
I know, I have a s***y room and big ego!

[SEAWOLF97]

rather a meaningless poll as there is NO one correct answer .....
obviously it is a matrix of most ALL the choices.

[JBL 4645]

Well I turned my plastic JBL control 5 into something better so I’m stuck between

Speaker Choice?

Source Components?

What about electronic crossovers?

I’d have to with Speaker Choice I take it, it means JBL of course.

[Hoerninger]

sn't it the music?
____________
Peter

P: Would this be the place to document some solutions which are not so obvious?

[JBL 4645]

sn't it the music?
____________
Peter

P: Would this be the place to document some solutions which are not so obvious?

And isn't it the Dolby film mix for film soundtracks!

[Titanium Dome]

sn't it the music?
____________
Peter

P: Would this be the place to document some solutions which are not so obvious?

And isn't it the Dolby film mix for film soundtracks!

These are both source material. If you think it's the most important, cast your vote.

It would not be the most important to me, though it obviously is important. Without a song or movie, what is there? However, this is not a chicken-or-egg poll. It assumes one has access to all the requisites.

So if all the requisites are there, what's the most important to you?

[JBL 4645]

I placed my vote, speaker choice!

[Titanium Dome]

A lot of us have opinions about this topic. What I find interesting is that our oft-expressed opinions sometimes are not supported by our actions.

So I took a look around to see what my actions indicated about what is important to me.

Anyone who's been over to my place knows that speaker choice has to be #1 by a long shot. I have so many speakers! They range from free roadside pick ups to multiple tens of thousands of dollars systems.

A cynic would say I'm unhappy if I have to have so many, that I still haven't found the speaker that does it all for me. Honestly, I'm not looking for the "does-it-all-for-me" speaker. I like different sounds, different timbres, different sonics; I have many because I enjoy many. The ability to choose and listen to many fine JBL models is, by my actions, the #1 thing in sound reproduction.

Usually after I find a great deal on speakers (never pay full retail!) I take them home and figure out how I'll get them in the house and which room they're likely to be accepted in. By accepted, I mean the room where they'll cause the least amount of disruption in my domestic bliss. I don't get to choose the room as much as I get to ask Huikyong where I can put them.

From that negotiated settlement, I spend a ton of time figuring out placement, often moving furniture around when I'm home alone to try things, then moving it back before H. returns. A couple of times I changed things and left them, and both times she said "I don't like it." So now I keep everything the same and suggest how the flow of the room would be better if we moved this or that. Usually we work it out and I get better if not the best placement.

So in most respects, the room itself is a tertiary factor and I have to depend on speaker placement more than anything else to get the most out of the speaker choice. The other tertiary factor is room treatments, which with a couple of exceptions is always kept to a minimum to insure domestic tranquility. So, couches, rugs, blinds, etc. can come into play in moderation, but absorbers, traps, and diffusers are not normally possible. In fact, I find they're rarely even useful given the rooms and spaces I have to work in.

Since the poll is limited to ten items, I didn't have room for calibration/EQ per se, but I'd put this into the pre/processor/DAC category. Some of you use Audyssey or other auto-calibration methods. I usually use friends' ears and equipment (like the generous-with-his-time grumpy) or pay a pro.

Since the amp is the middle ground between the pre and the speaker, I try lots of amps before settling on something. Usually, I can tell little to no difference, but I can tell when an amp isn't helping, and with the K2s I found amp choice was a bigger deal than I expected.

[Titanium Dome]

These items change around when I get the chance to really start from scratch. In my DIY home theater, I had much more control, as it was deemed "my room." Actually, I ended up getting two rooms on the bottom floor.

In this case my first and most important thing was to get a real system. This ended up being the Synthesis® One Array; speakers, subs, amps, pre/pro, SDEC units all integrated into a single system. Once the system was acquired (the room being predetermined), I set about rebuilding the room to be as good as it could be for the system it was about to receive.

As most here know, I paid a guy to help me design the room, but did all the purchasing and construction myself to save $$$. He showed me where to put diffusers and absorbers (no first reflection absorbers BTW), how to break up the ceiling reflections, where to put the proscenium, how to use the adjacent room as a bass dump, etc. My goal was the best sound and viewing experience, not necessarily the best looking room, which would have add $$$ I didn't have.

Then I paid $1500 to have the complete calibration done, which as grumpy can attest, made a really good sounding system into a fantastic one. It's a phenomenal movie-watching venue, and it's really good for music, too.

However, to be truthful, I like other systems in lesser treated or untreated rooms better for most music.

[timc]

Hi TiDome.

I voted for speaker choice, but really i think the 4 first choices together are the most important. If you put them together you end up with "Speaker/room integration". THAT is what i truly think is most important.

My reasoning for choosing "speaker choice", is that if you have a bad room, or perfect room, a bad speaker will still sound bad. If you have a bad room, you have the opportunity to choose a speaker with a directivity that minimizes room interaction.

Cheers!

[Audiobeer]

My only experience with room treatments was with a pair of 4430s. They sounded good before I treated the room reflections. After I treated them they sounded phanphunkintastic.......unbelievable!

[JBL 4645]

Its easy to spend less on treatment to DIY than to pay rip off prices for the same thing that has been designed to do one thing!

I bet you could make a skyline defuse from cheap Lego! and stick it to walls think about it? What is defesuer made of plastic or fibreglass?

Make a model skyline defuse and test it and if it works superglue each block so it doesn’t have any tendency to move then screw the panel to wall its lightweight and shouldn’t need liquid-nails because if you wanted to change it pulling off the wall will make a mess.

[1audiohack]

I don't know about the UK but Lego's are anything but cheap in the US!

[JBL 4645]

I don't know about the UK but Lego's are anything but cheap in the US!

I guess I was misinformed then but it would make an interesting skyline diffuser for room treatment.

Maybe check out the local flea-markets or ebay. I don’t know what the average height of skyline is 4” or the cost thou I don’t want to think about the cost something tells me it would costly for single diffuser.

If the popularity of Lego has increased with STAR WARS Lego themes then I guess the cost as gone up on it?

What about bolster wood then its easy to cut pieces into different lengths and its also lightweight and cheap.

Hanging curtains/drapes on the walls also helps in little way. Fibreglass fitted to the walls covered with fabric for final cosmetic look is appealing for neatness.


Also look around when shopping keep sound in mind sod the food that only feeds the hunger it doesn’t sort the sound issues! Look at anything you might thank that would work as sound diffuser even if it’s a food product a plastic container, umm, egg-boxes have been tried but only work within narrow frequency range.

Is the real listening world absorbed no! Is the real world diffused yes! There are buildings fences walls uneven ground you name it that makes the sound uneven and unique. Places that naturally echo like subways hollow disserted buildings or canyons but the sound system isn’t outside its indoors under controlled conditions, well almost.

I read though Tom Holman’s research that cinemas used to have echo on purpose that helped with films in some manor, but was changed in later years because mixers can create echo effects on the soundtrack and with controlled acoustics it works out fairly well.

Listen to Goldeneye (1995) the scene where Bond meets up with his ole pal 006 in Russian scrap-yard. If you break the channels down muting surrounds and left/right front with centre you hear a dry dialogue start adding the other channels back in and the delay of the dialogue on the other channels within the mix, crates an echo. If the cinema as poor reverb it’s not going to help much with that particular scene