How to best reduce echo in smallish home office

[JayGilb]

I didn’t see it mentioned and it probably doesn’t matter, but what components are driving these speakers ?

 

[dualazmak]

Just for your possible interest and reference...
- Identification of sound reflecting plane/wall by strong excitation of SP unit and room acoustics: #498 on my project thread.

 

[Bloomer]

Not possible: Doing so will block the (large) monitor. The room is indeed not ideal for sound; I'm trying to make lemonade with the lemons I've got.

Strictly outside won't work - it'd be in a doorway on one side, and another area I'd need to be able to walk through regularly on the other. I can put them at the end of the alcove (where the other end of the table is), and doing that is absolutely worth trying.

Carpet that's 5 cm thick?!? My brain is exploding thinking about what that'd feel like to walk on. Probably broken ankles...

At least a few decades ago, "a carpet that covers the entire floor" was referred to as "wall to wall carpet." I actually haven't heard "wall to wall carpet" as a phrase for, well, decades, so your phrase works perfectly. It is, however, a perfect chance to repost this comic:

View attachment 494977

And that's considering you now have another 8-10 batts of ROCKWOOL (← Autocorrect did that bit of branding?!?) to make even more panels.

The room (as a whole) is roughly 10 feet / 3m on a side. Other practicalities for the layout are why the desk & monitor are in the alcove, instead of, well, anywhere else.

To me, headphones are kind of a huge hassle as well. For one, I wear headphones 8 hours a day for half of my workdays, and by the time my workday is done, I can't wait to be rid of them.

Being able to use speakers and take the #%@& headphones off has been the best part of the home office. My most comfortable open-back headphones (Sennheiser HD-6XX's), while a world better than anything else I have, they're still fairly stuffy, hot, and uncomfortable to me. I also have issues with IEM's and other headphone form factors.

Another factor is I was born with tinnitus (I've never known a day without hearing it), and most headphones use either passive isolation or active noise cancelling... which makes my tinnitus worse.

So yeah... headphones are on paper a good idea, but far less so in my particular case.

There is carpet covering the entire floor, but that's a good idea: I am definitely going to try putting up pillows, plush animals, piles of just-cleaned laundry, etc. to try out how that works. I realize they don't have the mass of some acoustic panels, but it'd definitely give a hint as to what may or may not work.


I mean, yeah, there may be reflections, but as I said originally, perhaps not with enough emphasis: I can play exclusively through the center, and it sounds fine. Then I can disconnect the center and use the stereo L/R speakers, and that's when I hear the echoing. I'm not sure what disconnecting the center speaker would help as I've already tested that option. I'm game to learn, of course, but I just don't see it with what I've tested & observed.

Seems like you have a good handle on this. Maybe I missed it but what is driving the speakers? A long shot: Are there any sonic effects being applied to the signal? Windows has a headphone binaural expander something that I've had auto applied to speakers, somehow.

I have 2 pairs of the same 'phones; they are excellent but kinda a bear to wear for extended periods. Those sticky cords, wow!

 

[Pariah Zero]

Seems like you have a good handle on this. Maybe I missed it but what is driving the speakers? A long shot: Are there any sonic effects being applied to the signal?

It's an "old" AVR; Yamaha RX-V461. It can accept Dolby Digital or DTS encoding over TOSLINK or SPDIF, but that's about the limits of its digital inputs.

So I have:
* A computer shooting audio+video to the TV over HDMI,
* The TV then sends the PCM left and right channels over TOSLINK to the AVR.

Pity computers don't encode to Dolby, as that limits me to TOSLINK's stereo PCM, instead of Dolby Digital surround. I guess that's a different upgrade opportunity.

Good thought on if the source is applying something: the AVR does have modes which can apply those cheesy DSP effects to 'make it sound like you're at a live event', but obviously I make sure that is turned off, as well as anything else.

The echo from the right and left speakers still happens when I use the "straight through" setting which disables any Dolby/DTS decoding and/or DSP.

 

[JayGilb]

It's an "old" AVR; Yamaha RX-V461. It can accept Dolby Digital or DTS encoding over TOSLINK or SPDIF, but that's about the limits of its digital inputs.

So I have:
* A computer shooting audio+video to the TV over HDMI,
* The TV then sends the PCM left and right channels over TOSLINK to the AVR.

Pity computers don't encode to Dolby, as that limits me to TOSLINK's stereo PCM, instead of Dolby Digital surround. I guess that's a different upgrade opportunity.

Good thought on if the source is applying something: the AVR does have modes which can apply those cheesy DSP effects to 'make it sound like you're at a live event', but obviously I make sure that is turned off, as well as anything else.

The echo from the right and left speakers still happens when I use the "straight through" setting which disables any Dolby/DTS decoding and/or DSP.

Have you tested it without any signal from the tv (AVR's fm radio) to verify there are no pc audio settings causing a problem ?

 

[Pariah Zero]

Have you tested it without any signal from the tv (AVR's fm radio) to verify there are no pc audio settings causing a problem ?

I can guarantee the computer audio settings are not doing anything. It's not hard to connect any of my lab equipment to the AVR (signal generators, a CD player with a test signal disc, recording audio interfaces, and so on.)

Alternatively, I can push out test signals through my DAW, and then validate the output in a poor-man's version of Amir's Audio Precision workstation. (Obviously measuring the electrical output from the AVR, not what the speaker produces. I could do some things with an oscilloscope, but really, there are more options using a DAW with something that's passed through an ADC)

I wouldn't claim to have the kind of signal-to-noise measuring ability of the Audio Precision, but a "mere" 14-bit/48 kHz ADC is more than enough to determine if there's much corruption if the input signal. (i.e. you don't need to eat the whole turd to know it ain't chocolate.)

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Not possible: Doing so will block the (large) monitor. The room is indeed not ideal for sound; I'm trying to make lemonade with the lemons I've got.

I was suggesting a very short term diagnostic test. Not a solution.