PSI Audio Avaa C20 experience

[MengW]

from the posted research. The whole thing is a fun read, even if I don't understand 99,9% of it lol

View attachment 289149

I had 4 AVAAs for 26.5m² living room of another apartment from 2019.
For my current small room of 13m² , I think 2 or 3 AVAAs and polyester are enough to decay the sub bass energy, the fourth avaa position is still not the best and most effective position now.

 

[MengW]

They announced it but it's not available as far I know, more expensive, smaller but more effective so the final result is about the same, I had one C20 before - there was really no point for me to wait for the new one, though I'm certainly curious how they compare

Although, I don't think C214 looks better than C20, but I am waiting for try it for fun and report the result.

Now, there is only one rented small room, so I think that the W371+AVAA should be the best and easiest and expensive solution for me, and then they did give me this magical and amazing result.

 

[MengW]

Well mineral wool is a poor choice for deep bass, you want something with lower density, so the sound waves can penetrate the material and achieve higher overall absorption.

Porous Absorber Calculator

Typical mineral wool is about 8-10K Pa.s/m2, at which density going beyond 12" of thickness offers minimal benefit, and getting more than 50% absorption at 50Hz doesn't work. If you drop down to about 4K Pa.s/m2, a 2ft thick absorber can be 70% effective at 50Hz.

The AVAA is definitely worth the money for small and medium rooms, where losing 1-2ft of space per wall is unacceptable.

I have some doubts about this point of view to reduce the flow resistance for larger dimension thicknesses, because I did try to compare 3.5k and 10k Pa*s/m² in COMSOL simulation, and can not get the result.

Do you know, in addition to this page, is there any research or reference material for the thinkness and flow resistivity?

Rock wool, glass wool, hemp - which material is best suited for absorbers? — Jochen Schulz

Are you determined to improve the acoustics in your recording studio or home theater? Then a broadband absorber is the first choice! The only question is which material do you use best? I will use examples for different absorber depths to show you which flow resistance achieves the best absorption a

www.jochenschulz.me

I found out this research paper of 90mm thnkness polyester, the 40 kg/m3 is better than 80kg/m3.
But it's hard to think that 20 kg/m3 is better than 40kg/m3 for larger thicknesses for bass absorption.

 

[hemiutut]

If you do the test and put a whole cylinder of wadding (wadding polyester) or make panels of 45 to 80 cm thick soffit type for bass traps, as for broadband porous absorbing panels with a thickness from 20-25 cm onwards, you will get the best result for bass frequencies.

Wadding roll T 250g/m2 x 1.63m
Wadding thickness............2.5 - cm
Roll width.................1.63m
Roll length............40m
Total weights............................18.3kg

60 cm thick panels

Written with translator

Greetings

 

[juliangst]

Will active bass traps like the PSI still be relevant when Dirac ART becomes widely available?

If I had to chose between 4x2700€ PSI AVAA in all four corners or 4 capable subwoofers that actively cancel out reverberation together with the mains I would go for the latter option.

 

[holdingpants01]

Will active bass traps like the PSI still be relevant when Dirac ART becomes widely available?

If I had to chose between 4x2700€ PSI AVAA in all four corners or 4 capable subwoofers that actively cancel out reverberation together with the mains I would go for the latter option.

If ART is effective below 40Hz then for many AVAA won't be of any use with this kind of setup. I saw that ART works very good around 100Hz where AVAA does nothing, so maybe they'll be complementary, or AVAA will be for people who still wants more traditional stereo setups. In the studio world ART won't be useful for years, at least until they release PC software version and assuming it will have low enough latency

 

[holdingpants01]

I have a null in the left speaker at 55.5Hz and almost 10dB deep. I played 55.5Hz tone and found that by ear that in the window hole near the speaker it's the loudest, I put one AVAA there and here you go, brown line is with AVAA on, null filled by 8dB, placement is everything

 

[aerochrome2]

Hi all! I am not sure if I am hijacking this thread but I am looking for advice on whether a single AVAA help in my setup / be a waste of money.

I have LS50 Metas / single SVS 1000 pro sub and a similar quality chain in a non dedicated listening room.

My room is terrible (acoustically) in that it has lowish ceilings, 3 sides are floor to ceiling glass and the 4th is painted cinderblock. I have 4 GIK bass traps where I can hide them but my treatment options are limited from there. Room dimensions are 18x10. The rear wall is one of the glass walls and I could probably swap the corner bass trap there for the AVVA depending on power cord length.

As you can see in the attached measurements, I have two large stubborn nulls.

So my question is, will an AVVA help and is that the best bang for my buck given my setup (it feels weird to spend more on this than my speakers and sub combined)

 

[Purité Audio]

I would explore REW’s ‘room simulation’ feature, just enter your room’s dimensions you and your speakers positions.
Keith

 

[aerochrome2]

I would explore REW’s ‘room simulation’ feature, just enter your room’s dimensions you and your speakers positions.
Keith

Can that take the Avaa into account? What am I looking for?

 

[Purité Audio]

It will help you discover the cause of your nulls as you virtually move the positions of you and your speakers.
Keith

 

[DJBonoBobo]

Hi all! I am not sure if I am hijacking this thread but I am looking for advice on whether a single AVAA help in my setup / be a waste of money.

I have LS50 Metas / single SVS 1000 pro sub and a similar quality chain in a non dedicated listening room.

My room is terrible (acoustically) in that it has lowish ceilings, 3 sides are floor to ceiling glass and the 4th is painted cinderblock. I have 4 GIK bass traps where I can hide them but my treatment options are limited from there. Room dimensions are 18x10. The rear wall is one of the glass walls and I could probably swap the corner bass trap there for the AVVA depending on power cord length.

As you can see in the attached measurements, I have two large stubborn nulls.

So my question is, will an AVVA help and is that the best bang for my buck given my setup (it feels weird to spend more on this than my speakers and sub combined)

1. "Bang for buck" and "AVAA" is hard to fit in one sentence.
2. Your windows already act as absorbers. It is not really possible to predict how exactly an AVAA will behave in that environment.
3. PSI say it is best to put AVAAs on the most solid walls or in corners of solid walls. They probably work less effective surrounded by glass.
4. They are a unique product with interesting features relative to their size. Most impressive how they can actually do something below 30Hz, unlike most other (broadband) absorbers. But how much of this is really audible if you take DSP into account?
5. I don't know what 1 AVAA would do in your room, but even if they are impressive for their size, they are not magical devices that can flatten your FR up to 150Hz. Maybe you gain a few dB in one of you nulls or something like that with 1 AVAA, but i would not expect more. This is difficult to achieve with absorbers, but there is a good chance you are way better off with more subs and/or optimizing positions.
6. So i don't recommend an AVAA for you, based on my experience. If you are still thinking about is, try testing one in advance in your room at least.

 

[holdingpants01]

1. "Bang for buck" and "AVAA" is hard to fit in one sentence.
2. Your windows already act as absorbers. It is not really possible to predict how exactly an AVAA will behave in that environment.
3. PSI say it is best to put AVAAs on the most solid walls or in corners of solid walls. They probably work less effective surrounded by glass.
4. They are a unique product with interesting features relative to their size. Most impressive how they can actually do something below 30Hz, unlike most other (broadband) absorbers. But how much of this is really audible if you take DSP into account?
5. I don't know what 1 AVAA would do in your room, but even if they are impressive for their size, they are not magical devices that can flatten your FR up to 150Hz. Maybe you gain a few dB in one of you nulls or something like that with 1 AVAA, but i would not expect more. This is difficult to achieve with absorbers, but there is a good chance you are way better off with more subs and/or optimizing positions.
6. So i don't recommend an AVAA for you, based on my experience. If you are still thinking about is, try testing one in advance in your room at least.

I agree on all of it, if you already use one sub then going with multiple subs will be much more effective for nulls, plus it will give you more headroom and more uniform room coverage. As for the bang for buck, you can get five SVS SB-1000 Pro's for the price of one AVAA.
BTW I sold two of three of the AVAAs I had, I swapped subs for W371A and used some more targeted passive traps, hardly a cost effective option but the results are better besides one dip at 55Hz and a longer decay between 20-30Hz

 

[aerochrome2]

1. "Bang for buck" and "AVAA" is hard to fit in one sentence.
2. Your windows already act as absorbers. It is not really possible to predict how exactly an AVAA will behave in that environment.
3. PSI say it is best to put AVAAs on the most solid walls or in corners of solid walls. They probably work less effective surrounded by glass.
4. They are a unique product with interesting features relative to their size. Most impressive how they can actually do something below 30Hz, unlike most other (broadband) absorbers. But how much of this is really audible if you take DSP into account?
5. I don't know what 1 AVAA would do in your room, but even if they are impressive for their size, they are not magical devices that can flatten your FR up to 150Hz. Maybe you gain a few dB in one of you nulls or something like that with 1 AVAA, but i would not expect more. This is difficult to achieve with absorbers, but there is a good chance you are way better off with more subs and/or optimizing positions.
6. So i don't recommend an AVAA for you, based on my experience. If you are still thinking about is, try testing one in advance in your room at least.

Thanks so much. I was hoping not to deal with the hassle of integrating multiple subs, but I'll look into that more. I still would love to trial one of these...

 

[aerochrome2]

I agree on all of it, if you already use one sub then going with multiple subs will be much more effective for nulls, plus it will give you more headroom and more uniform room coverage. As for the bang for buck, you can get five SVS SB-1000 Pro's for the price of one AVAA.
BTW I sold two of three of the AVAAs I had, I swapped subs for W371A and used some more targeted passive traps, hardly a cost effective option but the results are better besides one dip at 55Hz and a longer decay between 20-30Hz

Good to know.

(For what it is worth, another reason I liked this option is I am otherwise unable to continue to put up passive acoustic treatment since it is a shared room.)

 

[juliangst]

I would honestly just wait for Dirac ART.
Get a supported device with a Dirac ART license and a few small subs.
This will deal with a lot more room modes than a single AVAA could possibly do and reduce bass ringing across the whole range up to 150hz. Might also be cheaper

 

[Purité Audio]

The very first step is to discover the source of your nulls, ‘room sim’ is really useful you literally see the fr changing as you move the speakers and yourself around the room.
Keith

 

[aerochrome2]

I would honestly just wait for Dirac ART.
Get a supported device with a Dirac ART license and a few small subs.
This will deal with a lot more room modes than a single AVAA could possibly do and reduce bass ringing across the whole range up to 150hz. Might also be cheaper

Need to read up on that, but unless it hits minidsp or similar that will end up being a more expensive solution

 

[aerochrome2]

I took the plunge and will try to offer up some measurements when it arrives in a few weeks.

In the meantime, I'm curious whether I should re run my anthem arc room correction calibration with the Avaa powered on once I get the unit set up? That would seem to be the way to go, but I can't find anywhere where people discuss the interaction between ARC/Dirac and Avaa.

 

[Purité Audio]

I am afraid you are going to be disappointed, I tried one and then two and there was a small improvement but I would have needed at least four probably eight to really resolve the issue here.
You should discover the cause of the null before you any purchase anything.
Keith