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Photos of rooms with acoustic treatment products

Helicopter

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I installed carpet, placed a couch, then piled a layer of toys 12-36" thick behind the couch. When it starts to sound dead I just take a car load of toys to Goodwill.
20210911_093531.jpg


Toys are mostly out of sight when you are actually in the room.
 
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FrantzM

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IMO that's good example of how to not treat a room. Just random placed absorption panels and some simple scattering units with no clear design idea. There is way too much mid and high frequency absorption and no proper diffusion. A room can be designed much better.
How do you determine that the placement is random?
Any information about the dimensions of the room?
measurements before and after treatments?
Goals?
Results?
I could go on...

A bit of a stretch, if you know close to nothing about the room and the goals... Don't you think?

FWIW based on what I have seen measured here. the 83xx1 + W371 are among the best.... Dream speakers? Perhaps. They're dear for sure, but a$30,000 car doesn't elicit much of a response from most car owners so ... for me .. in the ball park of something I would ponder on spending for accurate music reproduction in my abodes. I reckon there are less expensive alternatives... Better? We'll have to wait for reviews from ASR and others... So far what seems to be in their performance' neighborhood, are similarly priced ... So
 

Bjorn

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How do you determine that the placement is random?
Any information about the dimensions of the room?
measurements before and after treatments?
Goals?
Results?
I could go on...

A bit of a stretch, if you know close to nothing about the room and the goals... Don't you think?

FWIW based on what I have seen measured here. the 83xx1 + W371 are among the best.... Dream speakers? Perhaps. They're dear for sure, but a$30,000 car doesn't elicit much of a response from most car owners so ... for me .. in the ball park of something I would ponder on spending for accurate music reproduction in my abodes. I reckon there are less expensive alternatives... Better? We'll have to wait for reviews from ASR and others... So far what seems to be in their performance' neighborhood, are similarly priced ... So
That's easily seen from the pictures with the placement of treatment and type. Would take too much to go into details.

With other measurements and better understanding of psycoacoustics there are far better speakers IMHO. A great speaker design needs to measure great placed in many rooms with different placements. Very few speaker design are capable of that. When that goal is reached, other criterias which many overlook become important as well.
 

FrantzM

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That's easily seen from the pictures with the placement of treatment and type. Would take too much to go into details.

With other measurements and better understanding of psycoacoustics there are far better speakers IMHO. A great speaker design needs to measure great placed in many rooms with different placements. Very few speaker design are capable of that. When that goal is reached, other criterias which many overlook become important as well.
"Easily"? ...
Far Better speakers? Care to elaborate?
From what I think I know, those Genelec are seriously good speakers in a variety of rooms. Amir measured recently the GLM and it is a good software ... Genelec own measurements have proven to be accurate.
I/We need more: You raised the points. You need to elaborate.
 

Bjorn

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The short answer in regards to speakers is this. There are speakers that:
- Have a more uniform directivity
- Avoids floor bounce and either avoids or minmizes floor and ceiling reflections
- Have much lower distortion. IMD and modulation distortion are most important here
- Can play much louder without reaching audible distortion

Whether you agree with that subjectively is something you have to decide when you hear both.

In regards to acoustics one needs an understanding small room acoustics and types of treatment. But yes, for someone who has a good understandning of it a glimpse at the pictures of the room and the speaker type is more than enough to understand this hasn't bee treated particularly well. Quite the opposite. Sorry I can't go into more details. To convey something you have learned over years in theory and from practial experience isn't easily shared at a forum in a haste.
 

youngho

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IMO that's good example of how to not treat a room. Just random placed absorption panels and some simple scattering units with no clear design idea. There is way too much mid and high frequency absorption and no proper diffusion. A room can be designed much better.

There are 1D and 2D quadratic and primitive root diffusion elements on the side walls, rear wall, and ceiling. GIK reports the use of Monster traps, which are the cloth-covered absorption panels at 7.3125" thick and may have a range-limiting membrane to reduce mid and high frequency absorption. I have the impression that the binary audio diffusion plate-covered absorption panels are likely 6" thick. The front corner elements are 17" thick absorption.
 
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FeddyLost

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that's good example of how to not treat a room
It's 2L.no studio ... I hope this treatment did not prevent much from getting 36 Grammys ...
For multichannel room typical recommended RT is around 250 ms, so I think it's OK to have a lot of absorption in big room.

There are speakers that:
- Have a more uniform directivity
- Avoids floor bounce and either avoids or minmizes floor and ceiling reflections
- Have much lower distortion. IMD and modulation distortion are most important here
- Can play much louder without reaching audible distortion
I'd like to know what are these speakers.
If they can be bought for decent price and have confirmation measurements, that would be kind of Holy Grail if they are really significantly better than Gen Ones with 371 coffins ...
 

FrantzM

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The short answer in regards to speakers is this. There are speakers that:
- Have a more uniform directivity
- Avoids floor bounce and either avoids or minmizes floor and ceiling reflections
- Have much lower distortion. IMD and modulation distortion are most important here
- Can play much louder without reaching audible distortion

Whether you agree with that subjectively is something you have to decide when you hear both.

In regards to acoustics one needs an understanding small room acoustics and types of treatment. But yes, for someone who has a good understandning of it a glimpse at the pictures of the room and the speaker type is more than enough to understand this hasn't bee treated particularly well. Quite the opposite. Sorry I can't go into more details. To convey something you have learned over years in theory and from practial experience isn't easily shared at a forum in a haste.
Hi

Try as much as I might. i need more than this cryptic reply. There are probably better speakers but these IMHO represents amongst the best, an audiophile can purchase.
Floor bounce? Ok! these or their siblings were tested here and their in-room response seemed to be very good...
Louder? True... There are some , the JBL M2 comes to mind, yet I would think such a complement of speakers the Genelec 8351 + W371A would be quite capable in the SPL department. I am sure my ears would give up before they do. My own ultra-cheap but high ROI JBL 308 (LCR) + JBL 305 for surrounds and Atmos, had me running out of the room when all of the speakers, started something on a request from ASR, I have it somewhere...

As for the acoustics you can, perhaps even should give us the short version of what is wrong about this room... You raised the point, you may have to bear the burden of proofs. I confess my ignoramus status for small room acoustics, I am here to learn and have fun.

peace.
 

Bjorn

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RTx is an invalid measurement in such rooms. It gives us no worthile information. This examplifies exactly why it's so difficult to discuss and explain these matters at forums. People already have a misunderstaning of much of the basics, which makes serious discussions very challenging. One easily just ends arguing over basic principles and get stuck. That's also generally why you don't see many small room experts engange at forums. The text below may give some enlightenment.
https://www.lydogakustikk.no/sma-rom-og-etterklangstid/

About speakers. Take a look at the Harman estimated room response graphs and do an actual comparison with the same speakers measured in a room. If one sees a pretty strong deviation, that's an indication that the measurements are not as valid as one might first think. Especially with Genelece, who has a software for correction, there are a lot of in room responses to google. And keep in mind these are quite heavily smoothed too.
That's just one area where differences start to become large between speaker designs. Another aspect is whether they are able to give you a true innlusion of listening to real instruments and voices (if the recording is decent) or if they simply sound like good hifi.
 

youngho

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Hi
Try as much as I might. i need more than this cryptic reply. There are probably better speakers but these IMHO represents amongst the best, an audiophile can purchase.
Floor bounce? Ok! these or their siblings were tested here and their in-room response seemed to be very good...
Louder? True... There are some , the JBL M2 comes to mind, yet I would think such a complement of speakers the Genelec 8351 + W371A would be quite capable in the SPL department. I am sure my ears would give up before they do. My own ultra-cheap but high ROI JBL 308 (LCR) + JBL 305 for surrounds and Atmos, had me running out of the room when all of the speakers, started something on a request from ASR, I have it somewhere...

As for the acoustics you can, perhaps even should give us the short version of what is wrong about this room... You raised the point, you may have to bear the burden of proofs. I confess my ignoramus status for small room acoustics, I am here to learn and have fun.

Not to speak for Bjorn, but I suspect that he's talking about CBT speakers, which have a very wide and uniform radiation pattern. I'm not sure if he's considering the potentially cardioid and null-steering aspects of design of the W371A here or simply looking at the visible woofer and assuming a path length-related cancellation resulting from the floor reflection. CBT designs can also potentially minimize floor and ceiling reflections.

I know very little about this subject, but my understanding is that coaxial speakers can have IMD, which does not show up in the measurements on ASR. Toole wrote about one Kef speaker which measured very well on the Spin-o-rama but suffered in preference testing due to IMD.

One thing to keep in mind about the Genelec (and Kef) speakers is that they have a steadily rising directivity index. When placed in rooms, the off-axis reflections will have a different frequency spectrum compared with the direct signal. Compare with the Revel 228Be, for example, which has a much more constant directivity index between several hundred and several thousand hertz. I have an informal theory that listeners who are more sensitive to timbre may prefer a flatter DI in this range.
 

abdo123

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Whether you agree with that subjectively is something you have to decide when you hear both.

Just to be clear here, the speakers in the picture are Genelec 'The Ones' with the accompanying W371 subwoofers. This combination is considered one of the best in the world, if not actually the best, in ALL the criteria you mentioned.

If you think these speakers are subpar then i sincerely hope you have some series line array speakers in your room or some 6 figured Danley Labs Synergy horn.
 

abdo123

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IMO that's good example of how to not treat a room. Just random placed absorption panels and some simple scattering units with no clear design idea. There is way too much mid and high frequency absorption and no proper diffusion. A room can be designed much better.

It's imortant to keep in mind That the Studio is an Atmos mixing studio that specializes in recording and mixing of classical music orchestras in large venues.

So:

A) the venue of recording's acoustical signature must be preserved in the mixing
B) there are 16 speakers in that room, you don't rely on the room anymore at the point to provide ambience, the speakers do that from all directions.

So because of that special situation (Atmos + Live recording of an orchestra) makes it so that the room must be as dead as possible, he could even mix in anechoic room at that point.

I'm not a producer though, so feel free to correct me. Just my 'hobbyist' opinion.
 

youngho

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About speakers. Take a look at the Harman estimated room response graphs and do an actual comparison with the same speakers measured in a room. If one sees a pretty strong deviation, that's an indication that the measurements are not as valid as one might first think.

This doesn't exactly answer what you're raising, but the original Predicted In-room Response was a weighted function of on-axis, early reflections, and sound power curves (the current estimated in-room response now uses listening window, instead of on-axis). From Toole:

"As explained in the figure, below about 250 Hz, the anechoic data cease to reflect accurately what is heard in the listening room; it will be less smooth and signifi cantly higher in amplitude in the room. This is shown in (d), the average error between PIR (from anechoic data) and in-room measurements. From Olive, 2004b, Figure 7."

Screen Shot 2021-09-11 at 4.06.49 PM.png
 

youngho

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It's imortant to keep in mind That the Studio is an Atmos mixing studio that specializes in recording and mixing of classical music orchestras in large venues.

So:

A) the venue of recording's acoustical signature must be preserved in the mixing
B) there are 16 speakers in that room, you don't rely on the room anymore at the point to provide ambience, the speakers do that from all directions.

So because of that special situation (Atmos + Live recording of an orchestra) makes it so that the room must be as dead as possible, he could even mix in anechoic room at that point.

I'm not a producer though, so feel free to correct me. Just my 'hobbyist' opinion.

I'm curious to learn more about this, myself. Just to give you some context of what I've run across, you might take a look at:

SOS on control room design
SOS on ESS (for historical context)
NARAS recs on surround sound production: "A neutral, as opposed to absorptive, monitoring room is optimum. To as great a degree as possible, early reflections should be suppressed... Appropriate amounts of low-frequency absorption should be deployed at least on the ceiling and on two of the four walls. In addition, there should be as much diffusion as a budget will allow..To summarize: the more uniform (diffuse) the ambience in the professional mixing environment, the more site-independent the resultant mixes will be."
D'antonio interview

I don't know anything about current trends and preferences, however.

Young-Ho
 

Kvalsvoll

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"Easily"? ...
Far Better speakers? Care to elaborate?
From what I think I know, those Genelec are seriously good speakers in a variety of rooms. Amir measured recently the GLM and it is a good software ... Genelec own measurements have proven to be accurate.
I/We need more: You raised the points. You need to elaborate.

The pictures shown from this room can be perceived different depending on knowledge and experience in room acoustic designs. The room may look nice to some people, while others are left wondering why they did it like this. Many rooms designed by professionals are built with acoustic treatment mostly not visible, simply because just mounting panels on walls can not achieve proper acoustic treatement.
 

Sancus

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- Have a more uniform directivity
- Avoids floor bounce and either avoids or minmizes floor and ceiling reflections
- Have much lower distortion. IMD and modulation distortion are most important here
- Can play much louder without reaching audible distortion

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but if you don't cite specific examples with measurements in a post like this, it's hard to see what the point of the post is. No meaningful information was added to the discussion at all.
 

Bjorn

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It's imortant to keep in mind That the Studio is an Atmos mixing studio that specializes in recording and mixing of classical music orchestras in large venues.

So:

A) the venue of recording's acoustical signature must be preserved in the mixing
B) there are 16 speakers in that room, you don't rely on the room anymore at the point to provide ambience, the speakers do that from all directions.

So because of that special situation (Atmos + Live recording of an orchestra) makes it so that the room must be as dead as possible, he could even mix in anechoic room at that point.

I'm not a producer though, so feel free to correct me. Just my 'hobbyist' opinion.
That's not that case for such rooms and you've misunderstand what it means to preserve the recorded signal. An anechoic or semi-anechoic room isn't really accurate due to how how brain and the psycoacoustics works. Those types of rooms were something the small room expertise left already in the 70s. It's true however, that you want part of signal anechoic for accuracy and that multichannels requires more treatment, but that doesn't mean an anechoic or "dead room". And even if you wanted to make the room anechoic or simply very dead, you wouldn't treat like this anyway. This room is netiher.

When is it ever beneficial to use products which distributes the sound in an uneven fashion, which leads to lobing and comb filtering? Just like you don't want that from a speaker, you avoid that with the treatment as well.
 
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Bjorn

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Just to be clear here, the speakers in the picture are Genelec 'The Ones' with the accompanying W371 subwoofers. This combination is considered one of the best in the world, if not actually the best, in ALL the criteria you mentioned.
Off-topic but I think it's important to understand that they and certain other speakers that meausre well in spinoramas are considered among the the best by a certain group or circle.

For those who focuses more on actual in room response from a speaker or how the speaker interacts with the room, vertical directivity and how it influences the sound quality, how the speaker operates with SBIR, thermal distortion/compression, IMD and modulation distortion, impulse response and time domain behaviour of the drivers, distortion from electronics, cabinet resonances etc. the opinions are very different.

Let's take the playback from the kick drum as an example. Most speakers are simply not capable of reproducing it realisticially. It's simply not possible with a front firing woofer(s) of this size. Dynamic compression, and distortion kicks in too early. At least with the drivers we've had up to this day. It takes something else and some speaker designs are truly capable of it, and it makes a big audible difference. And you can go like this in many other aspects.

Some measurements and tests are simply not adequate to distinguish many differences. If you told the above to a group of people who have worked with large constant directivity horns with beryllium drivers and top notch horn loaded woofers, they are likely to laugh. Everything is relalative and depends on what's being testet and experienced.
 
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abdo123

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Most speakers are simply not capable of reproducing it realisticially.

Well the W371A has one 12" subwoofer in the back and one 14" subwoofer in the front, With 2*400W Amplification, capable of 120 dB peaks with an anechoic F6 of 23Hz.

now EACH speaker has one of these, yet you seem to throw words left and right implying that they're not adequate?

I'm sorry but you need to substantiate your claims of mediocrity of the Genelecs The Ones series.
 
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