Let's discuss room correction

[Burning Sounds]

What changes did you make to get improved bass performance in acourate?

I tried adjusting the subsonic setting in Macro 4 first and found it made little difference until I was well away from my original 14 hz setting when it then mangled the step response.

After that it was systematically going through numerous iterations of both lower and upper frequency excess phase settings. I ended up with the same upper frequency settings as before but the lower setting was increased and removed that softness I was hearing. I'm quite happy with the bass now.

Interestingly, I was listening to Roger Waters' Amused to Death last night and found that with Acourate switched in the soundstage width was narrowed so that at its widest point it was just outside the left and right speakers, whilst using IIR filters in JRiver it was considerably wider with the image level with my left and right shoulders. I realise this an unusual album with its Q Sound encoding, but wondered how other folks' experience of the imaging was when playing this album using Acourate, Dirac or other room correction.

 

[oivavoi]

I don't have tube traps in my cinema.

Here's now my acoustician (Ingvar Öhman, Ino Audio-animation/Guru Audio) decided to handle it.
I do have a "traditional" platform stuffed with insulation below the rear seats(open at the front to approx 50%), but most of all I have a fake rear wall that's 1.5' thick:

So the actual room is a bit larger than the used cinema room is:

Stuffed with isulation:

On the cinema side 50% open with horizontal 'diffusion':

And on the other side 50% open with standing 'diffusion':

If you plot the three lowest longitudinal modes of the full room, the back was stands where it will be of good use for all three.

(had there not been a hatch in the ceiling to the attic requiring some special treatment, I would not have mad the equipment slot in the wall at all)

Seriously impressive!

But of course, only possible if you have a dedicated man cave for the hifi.

 

[Nightlord]

Seriously impressive!

But of course, only possible if you have a dedicated man cave for the hifi.

Thanks.

Well... any room where there is a back wall you can take down and replace with a "semi-acustically transparent" one and can give up a foot or two you could do it... and it needn't look very strange afterwards.

 

[Rodney Gold]

My room is entirely clad with a special acoustic panel that is slotted and pierced .. all on battens with rockwool between the panel and the wall..a small airgap
The panels do a little diffusion and absorbtion the ceiling has the same in the void , but for diffusion I use a faux Rockwall .. not the ideal diffusers but they work
in every corner I have both tube and flat bass traps .. tube deep into corner and flat traps straddling them.. behind my listening chair I have 2 absorbtion panels
Carpets on floors , floors are that fake wood , but have acoustic underlay
All windows barring 1 were replaced with glass bricks
Dedicated pure sine wave inverter , 5kw , fed by solar charged batteries supply ultra clean power (here in SA , brownouts and surges is common
No isolation or any tweaks .. my system sits on a coffee table as the rack
Cables and power chords are low on my list of tweaks , I use stock power cables and have a nice digital cable etc and use 1" wide munsdorf silver ribbons as speaker cables , 2 x 7m runs cost me around $400....
My path is simple , Squeezebox into a miniDSP dirac box . AES/EBU to my devialets and then to my speakers
The speakers are on castors .. easyt to move and tweak
My listening chair is a top of the range ergonomic office chair for ergohuman , the Nefil .. tried about 7 listening chairs before I got the ideal one
Roon and Tidal is my computer end of things ...
The double doors to my room are soundproof .. the room is as well .. I can play as loud as I like..my bass has actually cracked the ceiling
I listen to at least 4 hrs of music .. I also do some work from the room
I listen at lifelike levels and beyond .. my tastes in music is catholic .. but not into rap or death metal
Here are some pics of the room etc

My stack

my rack

my room

My "command" chair etc

corner bass trap with tube trap behind

room from listening chair

 

[Cosmik]

Very nice. Would wall-to-wall carpeting give even better acoustics? (but maybe not fashionable these days!)

 

[oivavoi]

Very nice indeed.

 

[Rodney Gold]

the rest of the house has similar flooring or tiles , the room was originally just tiles but not matching the rest of the house so I went for laminated wood atop the original tiles
A carpet would absorb more upper mid and HF and maybe stop flutter echo... but I like the rugs..the aesthetics of the room in my mind didnt include wall to wall carpeting..I never considered it
you have to be real careful you dont kill the room .. a dead sounding room is not that pleasant

 

[Nightlord]

If you should cover only part of the floor, then its along the walls you need the carpets, not in the middle.

 

[DonH56]

No reflections/bounce from the floor? I usually do both... Ceiling too.

 

[Nightlord]

No reflections/bounce from the floor?.

That's nothing a carpet can handle, it will only change level of upper frequencies. A well placed table can, though. Or you can place barriers to block. Have seen it tried but it's uncommon.

 

[DonH56]

Yes, of course anything as thin as a carpet is only going to help high frequencies. I have had problems with first reflections from the floor (and ceiling) as well as walls, depending upon the speaker type and position (and listening position, natch). The post above yours seemed to be talking more about HF issues (flutter and such) so I must have misunderstood, sorry.

 

[Rodney Gold]

What can I say ..I like persian rugs

 

[Nightlord]

Yes, of course anything as thin as a carpet is only going to help high frequencies. I have had problems with first reflections from the floor (and ceiling) as well as walls, depending upon the speaker type and position (and listening position, natch). The post above yours seemed to be talking more about HF issues (flutter and such) so I must have misunderstood, sorry.

Oh, didn't see that post at all until now.

 

[Sal1950]

What can I say ..I like persian rugs

So do I. The room looks extremely attractive and appears you've gone to great lengths in tuning the acoustics. Great job!

 

[Head_Unit]

Last words of the conclusion in the paper:

"Measuring with sweeps is also more natural. After all, bats do not emit MLS to do their acoustic profiling."

I do believe that is an attempt at humor. For the sake of science I hope so ha ha. In any case the truth is still that “transient” measurements are not really being measured at all but calculated from steady state measurements so truly transient phenomena are not captured.

 

[Pogre]

Let me make this simple: below 200-300 Hz, room correction is mandatory. It just is. Without it you have boomy bloated bass as the room over emphasizes some frequencies.

And squashes some others. I agree. It's pretty much mandatory for bass.