How effective would heavy ceiling treatment work here?

[Justdafactsmaam]

Ah yes, the BACCH guy, you were touting him elsewhere on ASR.

Can you summarize the amount of fatigue my brain can be expected to endure if I don't damp early reflections? (For the record: I do, but its because my room has hellacious flutter echo if I don't)

You want an anecdotal account from me? More than you realize until you live without that fatigue.

If you want a more objective account I suggest asking Edgar himself. He and his team did the research.

If you want to know first hand just audition it yourself

...aaaand....off we go on crosstalk cancellation again:

Yeah, it continues to be a major break through. It’s funny how reality continues to be relevant. I see the same responses from audiophiles who believe in snake oil whenever DBTs are brought up. “Here we go again…” Yup here we go again…for good reason.

Ethan is a nice guy, but he sells wall treatments and he's definitely not at JJ's level; pairing them does your argument no service, to me.

Ok. Ask JJ yourself and pay no attention to Ethan. That’s what I did.

All these guys deserve respect, JJ, Floyd Toole, Ethan Winer, Edgar Choueiri and others who do legitimate research in audio. They just don’t always agree with each other. They are all experts but none of them are authorities.

And as technologies advance some research becomes dated.

 

[tmtomh]

Have a candy bar and you will reward your brain with all the calories it needs for that work.

You must be going crazy listening to your loved ones talking in rooms with all those reflections. I suggest buying a lot more candy bars to reward it.

How is your brain deriving more enjoyment with reflections if according to your concept it is struggling with it? Surely that is a reward that it likes to see...

Well, I'll certainly take a candy bar over an acoustic panel on cost, labor required, and taste!

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Have a candy bar and you will reward your brain with all the calories it needs for that work.

I’m on a strict keto diet so that’s not an option. But listening to better playback that doesn’t force my brain to work overtime to sort the source material cues from the listening room cues solves the problem and makes for much better listening experience. YMMV. I won’t argue preferences

You must be going crazy listening to your loved ones talking in rooms with all those reflections. I suggest buying a lot more candy bars to reward it.

Candy bars may bring you some personal joy and relief but it doesn’t reduce the work you have to do to steer your focus on conversations in a reverberant environment when trying to understand what someone is saying.

Is this really news to you? That definitely is an issue and is fatiguing.

How is your brain deriving more enjoyment with reflections if according to your concept it is struggling with it? Surely that is a reward that it likes to see...

First point. Nothing I am saying comes from personal concepts. I refer to experts and their research just as much as you do.

Are you talking about the sound we like from concert halls?

If so it should be pretty obvious. See my previous post about *conflicting* cues between the recording and the listening room and think about how that *doesn’t* apply to live acoustic music in a concert hall.

And consider that even with concert halls excessive reverb is subjectively undesirable because it conflicts with clarity.

If that wasn’t what you were talking about please feel free to elaborate

 

[Timcognito]

I'm way over my expertise but architectural design and fab have been a hobby of mine since college. A bigger rug with sound absorbing rug pad and some attractive rugs or tapestries mounted on some acoustic panels might add some flair as well as tame some reflections. Depending on the view downward, maybe 4 ft Shoji panels along the window walls could help with some frequencies depending on the material in the frames. Also open back speakers for the stereo L&R speakers could cancel side firing sound. Those panels sold for sound absortion are too Plain Jane for this nice room. Just food for thought.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I'm way over my expertise but architectural design and fab have been a hobby of mine since college. A bigger rug with sound absorbing rug pad and some attractive rugs or tapestries mounted on some acoustic panels might add some flair as well as tame some reflections. Depending on the view downward, maybe 4 ft Shoji panels along the window walls could help with some frequencies depending on the material in the frames. Also open back speakers for the stereo L&R speakers could cancel side firing sound. Those panels sold for sound absortion are too Plain Jane for this nice room. Just food for thought.

It can also act as a passive equalizer. There is a common misconception that rooms are often dull because they are over treated when they are actually dull because they are unevenly treated. Absorption needs to absorb the full frequency of directional sound waves to avoid becoming passive equalizers.

Bass is a separate set of issues

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Thanks, I haven't tried significant toe-in just yet. With DLBC, overall it sounds good to me but I can definitely hear the echo (as one would expect). Basically, there is no rear wall - it opens into another room (attached). Very much hoping ART lives up to marketing, but as of yet not available at any reasonable price.

Ok, certainly thick rug, get a felt pad for under.

One thing you can try is to angle your speakers very slightly upward. If they are not already. It might mean lowering them slightly was well.

The idea is that you use shallow angles to reflect sound up towards the beams, but try to make it take a few bounces before it hits the beams/ceiling. Maybe you can use the ceiling area behind the listening position to "trap" some reflected sound for a while before it comes back to your ear (at lower volume?) Not sure if that would work or not from the photos.

It won't hurt to play around and see what that does. Likely some good, some bad.

 

[Bjorn]

Can you summarize the amount of fatigue my brain can be expected to endure if I don't damp early reflections? (For the record: I do, but its because my room has hellacious flutter echo if I don't)

The best is do the AB comparison yourself and find out. We need to experience for ourselves, that's very important. No research is going to give all answers for everyone with all music material, for all types of rooms and how we respond over time.

I very much agree here concerning listening fatigue, and I actually started listening in a room with bare reflective walls last night. Despite that the speakers have a very constant directivity (and wide) it became very evident to me that listening fatigue creeped very early and I couldn't listen particular loud. Some frequencies became very pronounced and annoying. I set up two thick absorbers, one on side wall to dampen the earliest side walls reflections, and it changed very much to my ears. I could both listen louder and long without listening fatigue after that. It's cheap too if you build the absorbers yourself.

 

[dlovesmusic]

Good morning everyone. Great thread!!! I have exactly the same question for my listening room but wonder if I should post my measurements and pics of my room here in fear of hijacking the OP's thread or I should start a new thread for the exact same question?

Cheers

 

[ZolaIII]

Good morning everyone. Great thread!!! I have exactly the same question for my listening room but wonder if I should post my measurements and pics of my room here in fear of hijacking the OP's thread or I should start a new thread for the exact same question?

Cheers

Better (hire) than duplicating it, answers are the same.

 

[dlovesmusic]

Better (hire) than duplicating it, answers are the same.

The room is not (the same)?

 

[dlovesmusic]

Hello folks,

My room is a bit of a weird layout - long and narrow 14’ x 33, and as you can see from the picture the right side of the front of the room is open to another section so it is like a L shape. The main area where I sit and the front speakers are located has a funny Cathedral shaped ceiling as well…

The last picture is my audiolense estimated response with convolution.

I have spoken to a GIK consultant and sent along these pictures and measurements and his comment was "I wouldn't bother to do anything further, but theoretically you can put GIK 7" monster trap panels up in the ceiling, and you will need a lot of them to have an impact on some of the resonances..."

After that conversation, I have been curious about what having those 7" monster trap panels in the ceiling will do effectively...

Cheers

 

[Timcognito]

What can carpet and pads can do?

https://www.antares.net.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CRI-Acostical-Characteristics-of-Carpet.pdf

 

[tifune]

View attachment 352695

Can't say from just looking at a glance at these two measurements (complex sum) which boundary(ies) or secondary source exactly is the principal culprit. But try measuring while pulling your mains forward a few inches at a time in spaced increments -- you need to turn off the sub or measure each speaker separately to isolate the issue further.

Because I can't change the location of the speakers, I thought it might be useful to try different speakers instead. I'm not sure why the output is so much lower in these sweeps, any higher and REW gave me clipping warning, but I think it illustrates the effect is still present even with cardioid assistance

If that were my room, I would play with the toe of the speakers. Maybe crossing in front of the listener, to bring down sidewall first reflections,

I also tried this, but because I'm using subs as speaker stands I will not be able to leave it this way.

 

[ZolaIII]

@dlovesmusic where first peak is (first three peeks and deaps) is influenced mainly by room length. That's why your is so low. You have great RT60 decay times, seams room is over dumped already in the uper bass and lower mids. Try to get horizontal angles of speakers better at least to minimise that hole in highs it's probably phase shift. Use the 30 Hz peek in your advantage and PEQ it in two passes, first by hand to waterfall plot and aiming to minimise resonance (bottom of waterfal plot) and then in second one let room correction handle it automatically.

 

[dlovesmusic]

@dlovesmusic where first peak is (first three peeks and deaps) is influenced mainly by room length. That's why your is so low. You have great RT60 decay times, seams room is over dumped already in the uper bass and lower mids. Try to get horizontal angles of speakers better at least to minimise that hole in highs it's probably phase shift. Use the 30 Hz peek in your advantage and PEQ it in two passes, first by hand to waterfall plot and aiming to minimise resonance (bottom of waterfal plot) and then in second one let room correction handle it automatically.

Thanks for pointing out about that hole in the high and potential phase shift, the speakers are currently slightly off-axis, I could try to toe-in a bit more. I have also attached a FR graph from Audiolense with measured FR and estimated correction after convolution. Wonder the dips around 50hz - 100 and between 150hz - 180hz can be addressed with more acoustic treatments?

 

[dfuller]

The only panels I'd recommend from GIK are the Monster Traps - they are thick enough to be effective into the transition region.

 

[dlovesmusic]

The only panels I'd recommend from GIK are the Monster Traps - they are thick enough to be effective into the transition region.

That was the response I got from GIK that I can potentially cover the ceiling with the 7” thick monster traps

 

[ernestcarl]

Because I can't change the location of the speakers, I thought it might be useful to try different speakers instead. I'm not sure why the output is so much lower in these sweeps, any higher and REW gave me clipping warning, but I think it illustrates the effect is still present even with cardioid assistance

It appears the cardioid speakers perform better *overall:

 

[tifune]

It appears the cardioid speakers perform better *overall:

View attachment 353114 View attachment 353115 View attachment 353116

thanks! is it possible to illustrate how you generated those views?

 

[ernestcarl]

thanks! is it possible to illustrate how you generated those views?

Sure... some of the other steps below is just to improve readability of the measurements:

1) Apply some smoothing to make the magnitude and phase readable


2) If the phases aren't aligned, apply 'cross corr align' before vector averaging the left and right measurements -- I just don't want to look at each channel individually for the sake of expediency!


3) If the phase and IR timing still looks off, apply 'estimate IR delay' and/or 'invert polarity'


4) Let REW calculate or create a 'minimum phase version' copy of the LR vector averaged measurement


5) Apply frequency dependent windowing (the 'IR Windows' button right beside 'SPL meter') to both original and MP version copy


Dips or reduction in level occurs when delayed pressure/energy outside the specified window is removed -- usually caused by reflections. The MP version is what the transfer function would be if the (peak) "energy" along the time domain axis were theoretically pulled in or compressed much closer t=0 i.e. as if the measurement were converted to its minimum phase equivalent and excess phase were removed. The larger the dip, the greater the delay in that frequency range and/or 'smearing' of sound across time.



*In general, when using FDW for EQ purposes -- in order to avoid over-correcting or under-correcting -- more cycles (e.g. 15) should be applied to the lower half of the response while fewer cycles should be used when approaching the highest frequencies.

**Oh, yeah, you're supposed to avoid filling-in such dips as that will only increase/worsen the problematic non-minimum phase or the reflected-delayed energy!