Room advise, new to all of this

[ozzy9832001]

Hi all,

First time poster, but long time reader. I recently took the plunge and decided to upgrade my audio experience. I purchased the Kanto YU6 speakers and Kanto SUB 6 subwoofer and for the most part am very happy with how they sound. They are currently hooked up through my computer.

This house, unfortunately, was not designed with any sort of acoustic help whatsoever. The room my wife has designated as my office is probably one of the worst rooms on the planet.

--D---------------|
| S S |
C W
C W
|----------- W W |

Sorry for the horrid mock drawing of the room, but that's the basic layout. The dimensions are 11.5'x9.5'x8'. D = Door, W = Window and C = Closet. I'm not sure who designed this room and the adjacent one, but they had a thing for windows. There are 4 of them, about 2/3 of the sidewall is windows and about half the rear is as well. The closet has no doors on it because I've been lazy. Entrance to the room is in the left corner. Outer walls are stucco/concrete. House is 1 story on a concrete slab. Floor is raised about 3" by previous owner since they didn't want to rip up the 9x9 titles that are in every single room (asbestos risk).

I've tried so many configurations that I think my wife thinks I've lost my mind, lol. Currently, I have the speakers (S on drawing) along the long wall between the door and the sidewall there.

Room has horrible resonances at 105hz-ish,140hz and 180-ish. Speaker measurements in REW look like polar opposites of one another. The right speaker seems to have decent performance though a massive peak at 140 (controllable through EQ); bass performance is OK except a null at about 75hz.

Obviously the room is untreated and I have some stuff on order. My question is this: Is it work even bothering to make this room into something or is it way to far gone?

Appreciate the help and suggestions.

Thanks,

 

[boxerfan88]

Many of us are saddled with imperfect room, we just have to make the best out of them.

May I suggest experimenting moving the speakers to the wall opposite the closet wall, setup the speaker’s in a symmetrical position (same distance from front wall, side wall). See how it sounds and measures…

Can also try toe-in more to increase direct sound vs. reflected sound; thus reducing a little the room impact.

A curtain over the windows can help tame the not so good effects of windows.

Hope these suggestions helps…

 

[Daverz]

This page on Speaker-Boundary Interference (SBIR) might be helpful (their PHP seems to be a bit messed up right now, but the page is still readable).

Speaker Placement 101: Is Speaker-Boundary Interference Killing Your Bass?

Not hearing enough bass through your monitors? The distance between your room boundaries and speakers has a huge impact on your bass performance. This tutorial will show you specific strategies for placing your speakers to get a balanced bass response.

arqen.com

 

[ozzy9832001]

Many of us are saddled with imperfect room, we just have to make the best out of them.

May I suggest experimenting moving the speakers to the wall opposite the closet wall, setup the speaker’s in a symmetrical position (same distance from front wall, side wall). See how it sounds and measures…

Can also try toe-in more to increase direct sound vs. reflected sound; thus reducing a little the room impact.

A curtain over the windows can help tame the not so good effects of windows.

Hope these suggestions helps…

I should have mentioned this in my previous post. I had originally tried to setup along the short wall because I figured that would give me the longest area for the sound to develop; but the corner has another level of difficulty. The resonance at 140hz is awful. Even using an eq, it needs to be brought down nearly -18dB to make it even sound OK and then it seems to be messing with other acoustics as well. I'm imagining it has to do with the concrete and the soundwaves just bouncing back into the room. That's why I settled into the position I did.

As strange as it sounds, any place that seemed obvious or "better" according to common sense, literature or REW room simulator, seemed to be worse for my particular setup. The windows seem to have a very strange resonance about them. I'm assuming it has more to do with the cavity and the aluminum frame/track the window hangs in. Very metallic sound seems to come from them.

I have 4 tri-traps on order from GIK acoustics and once I get them setup I'll re-test against the short wall.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Appreciate the help and suggestions.

Pictures would help better understand your present situation.

 

[ozzy9832001]

Duh, I guess pictures would help. I got busy with work and then I started messing around again, much to the dismay of my wife. After moving stuff around again x2, this is the final configuration which gives me the best overall frequency response and sounds the best to me. I ended up setting up against the long wall. The corner with the windows is behind me and when I setup there the bass response was horrible. The windows seem to act as a massive absorber which isn't exactly what I would have thought.

I do have a question though. When hunting for the best possible position I noticed that no matter where I am in the room, when doing sweeps the 115-125hz frequencies all sound like they are coming from the back left corner by the closet. It's quite a disorienting effect. I'm wondering if they are building near/in the closet and that's just resonating so loudly that it overpowers anywhere else in the room. That's why all the pillows are in there. I wanted to see if that helped it. It sound of did. 115 is marginally better, but 120-125 are still very strong. I'm thinking I'd need serious absorption in there to help that.

I've included my clartity, rt60 waterfall and waterfall.

Thanks,