Monday, September 13, 2010

My Room Acoustics




 Ceiling treatment behind listener

It's not often one writes about his/her own hifi setup, details of the gears or even about the room where most part of the listening are done. However, after all a blog is like one's diary in which case a written records of one's hifi journey, seems quite proper, irrespective of whether any readers may or may not like what he/she reads or find the article not of any use at all, or even at times deemed offending to some particular readers!

 From listener's position

What I have in mind is a brief write up of my hifi journey in room acoustics. It may not be any readers' idea of room acoustics, and may even be deemed doubtful as to its effectiveness for the purpose of enhancing the listening pleasure of any listeners in the room! No 2 ears are the same, so probably no 2 persons could agree on what he/she may perceived of the sound. And lastly I'm not here to suggest that having a room made acoustically 'comfortable' for even a brief period of listening can replace the need for really good sounding hifi equipments and any ancillaries used with those hifi gears! So if one thinks getting the best equipments one could afford is the first and foremost the most important factor over room acoustics or nevermind the room acoustics, and the need for room acoustics treatments are not that important to him, there is no need to argue on this till the cows come home. It's your listening time, you could do whatever 'floats your boat'!

My involvements with room acoustics started with the need to address the already bad echoes and bass sound in my 8ft by 14ft smallish room with a sloping ceiling. The cross section of which depicts the shape of a true trapezium! There I was deciding to live with the disturbing sound from the system's playback, or do something about it! Doing something would seems to, going to take forever........a really daunting idea, and really frightening at that time!!! So it was decided, at some time 3 years ago, that I would do the surface treatments of the ceiling as there isn't enough floor space in the room to do anything really significant. Neither could I do anything much to the walls of the room because of the width of the room, though the first reflection points in the room as regards to the placement of the speakers have to be addressed properly, accurately or not, I thought that may be another issue.











Off I went to collect recyclable materials of cardboard, pieces of wood and even foams made from different materials, from electrical shops, and asked friends for these recyclable stuffs. When I have gathered enough of these materials, it was time to sit down to look at them and to get ideas and raked thru the brain for any useful data and information. Took about a couple of weeks of material collections and doing google search of information on room acoustics to finally come up with some idea of doing ceiling treatments. Then the need to have those designs hold up to the ceiling permanently, and came up with the idea of using very thin metal wires to hold them against the ceiling surface, and should be removable in the event of wrong placement or the wrong design and to even cover the worst of my thoughts, to have them removed and reused in the event that I have to shift house!!!










Side panels: Composite design

So after much experimentations, with design and choice of placements, finally came up with a design that was kept till this day. All in all it took just about 100 manhours to complete the task of doing the ceiling treatments. So far the room could now 'support' the use of multiple subwoofers reasonably well(meaning it's just about tolerable), I could do better if I had tried other ways, but there is no way to find out now for sure, I thought. So ended the 1 major project I have ever undertaken, and I considered it 1 big step for me along the way of my hifi journey.


 Written by Uncle Vic

26 comments:

  1. Hi Kenneth.
    I'm playing hifi in a small bedroom of typical double storey house.
    I recently found out that my room has echoes whenever i clap my hands n cough.

    Is it an bad issue i need to remedy? thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Albertwui, if and only if u can live with the echoes, then there isn't a need to go into really elaborate room treatments, even if your significant half(just assuming u are married already) do agree to let u turn your bedroom sanctuary into a studio like listening room! If u have to do something about it then, maybe some soft linens over the windows plus some soft cushions on chairs or even carpeting may help reduce the echoes.

    If u still think of attempting room acoustics, try different materials at the 1st reflection point from the main speakers,(if u are talking about a spare room u are using for hifi listening purpose) and observe any significant changes to the sound. Learn to remember the various changes to the playback sound and have some close hifi buddies give u some feedbacks as 2nd opinions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Albert,

    Even golden ratio room need some kind of treatment.The clapping test that you are asking are normally refer to the mid or high frequency reflection.

    Normally when you hear echo when clapping hand there is too much reflection and you can do absorb using soft material like foam,thick fabric or diffuse using diffusor.For a quick test just take a few of your shirt and hang around the room.Make sure it is put in symetrical position and near tha level of the speaker.Let me know the result.


    cheers
    KLau

    ReplyDelete
  4. continue

    and what Vic doing is actually diffuse.I also much prefer diffuse rather than absorb.


    Klau

    ReplyDelete
  5. thanks for the suggestion from both sifus.
    im single but too bad i share room with brother,so transform it to hifi room is a no no for current state.
    ya the clapping hand give me very clear echoes.

    What is 1st reflection point?

    I put my setup right in front of window with curtain. Quite close to side walls also, half a feet.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unker Vic, my room is totally different than what you have in a sense that there is no elaborate treatment. Just window curtain, carpet and wall curtain. No bass boom or any room nasties whatsoever. No resonators in or outside room as well :-) This is another frontier in my hifi journey.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi GCK, The carpets on the floor can be considered a surface treatment of 1 of the 6 sides(or surfaces) of a room. So will wall curtains and window curtains treat another 2 more surfaces of the room. That makes 3 surfaces already, out of the total of 6 sides. Good work,GCK!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Albert, the 1st reflection point is where the sound/energy from the side of speaker drivers radiate to the nearest side wall surfaces, on the left and the right wall. That's assuming u have placed the speakers symmetrically with equal distant from the side wall. It's here that placing any object of different materials will impart a different sound to the listener at the sweet spot.

    The closer u place the speakers to the side walls, the more prominent the changes in the resultant sound with whatever objects u have at that spot.

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