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Room treatment, advice

ChristianN

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Hi All

Im looking for some advice or comments on my room treatment plan for a lounge area / storage. It may not be a super common combination, but we need to accomodate for plenty of 2 meter high closets, while at the same time trying to make the best lounge area for 2.2 channel music listening and the occational movie.

The room is at cellar level and will be 4,2 meters x 5,9 meters x 2,2 meter after cabinets are installed, there is allready 15mm rockfon suspended ceiling in the entire room and 5cm space above that, if more rockfon could benefit in certain areas. All walls are bare concrete right now. A carpet will go in in the main area, otherwise there is wooden floor.

I would like to install basstraps on the 4 corners and 2 diffuser areas in front beside a 65" television. But the WAF is not very good! So I plan to build a light wall of acustic panels in front of that, consisting of 25mm wood strips, 10 space and some 9mm filt on the back ( there is no back board ) and place it all, in front of the basstraps and diffusers as an artifical wall. the panels should allow for some sounds to go though and some to diffuse. It may not be optimal but could it work and will the basstraps have effect ?

On the back wall there will be a row of cabinets and I plan to allow for a 25cm gab at each corner to fill it with rockwoll to act as a basstrap and similarly on top of the cabinets, both in a depth of 60cm, they will be covered with the same acutic panels and the cabinet sliding doors will be made with the panels as well, allowing for whatever that is in those cabinets to act as absorber/diffuser in a random way. Could that work, especially the recessed bass traps at the corners ?

Its also possible to install a 20cm x 20cm, x 4,2 meter rockwool strip along the ceiling in front behind the acustic wall if deemed beneficial ?

See drawing of the room attached to the post, for the placements. here is also an external link: https://i.postimg.cc/NGSS66mp/room2.jpg

link to an example of the type of panel: https://www.bauhaus.dk/fibrotech-akustikpanel-valnod-22x605x2440-mm
room2.jpg
Any comments are welcome.
 
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ChristianN

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Not as many comments it seems ;)
Well can anyony say if a basstrap will work if not actually filling up the corner, but instead recessed in the wall behind a corner, so the presseure can escape into the soft material ?
 

somebodyelse

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Perhaps not many people feeling qualified to comment given the somewhat unusual proposal?
 

Tim Link

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With all concrete walls the bass traps are a very good idea. The recessed bass traps on the sides of the cabinets will work perfectly well. Turning the cabinets into bass traps by making the cabinet doors out of rigid fiberglass panels can be very effective.
It may be sonically better to turn the room around so that the speakers are not playing at the end with the hallway. That will make the front end of the room more symmetrical for better imaging. Also it's better to have a reverberant space like that hallway on your seating end than the speaker's end where they will be shooting sound straight into it. I guess that might mean moving the cabinets over to that side as well - if that's doable. Bass trapping in the gap between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling is also a good idea.
 
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ChristianN

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Hi thanks for the input.
I´m glad to hear that the recessed option is doable.
I am also aware the the room would work better if turning the listening position 180 degress, but its very impractical, that way, to accomodate for cabinets access and a 65-75" screen in front of those same cabinets. But could I reduce the effect of the hallway with either a diffuser or absorber at the back wall of the hallway, whatever would be more appropriate, as all sound must hit the end before returning into the mail room I wonder ?
 

Tim Link

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Hi thanks for the input.
I´m glad to hear that the recessed option is doable.
I am also aware the the room would work better if turning the listening position 180 degress, but its very impractical, that way, to accomodate for cabinets access and a 65-75" screen in front of those same cabinets. But could I reduce the effect of the hallway with either a diffuser or absorber at the back wall of the hallway, whatever would be more appropriate, as all sound must hit the end before returning into the mail room I wonder ?
Yes, if you need to be set up in that orientation then using diffusion and absorption at the end of the hall will be helpful. Even all along the hall it will help because the sound will bounce around in there before it gets back out.
 
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ChristianN

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Ok, that can be done.

Would you think that absorbers on the wall will work even if not placed in direct sight of the speakers but inside an open cabinet, like in the illustration ?
cabinets.jpg
 

Tim Link

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Those are still going to have an effect because sound that enters those cabinet openings will get attenuated before it can bounce back out. It's harder to guess if you will perceive that as a good effect or not. If you take too much of the treble reverb out of the room it can sound overly dead. The trick is to damp the bass reverb adequately for good clarity and speed while maintaining adequate treble reflection and diffusion so that the room still sounds lively and spacious. It can be easy to end up absorbing too much treble and not enough bass because treble is so much easier to absorb. To absorb the bass more effectively you want a large air space behind the absorber panel. Those cabinets could make more effective bass absorbers if the cabinet doors were turned into absorber panels, perhaps with a reflective harder frame work grid of some kind in front of them to hold them in place and provide some high frequency diffusion.
 

JohnnyHonda

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I don’t have sophisticated measurements but I did just as you said. I added fiberglass covered by acoustic fabric (Guilford) behind cabinets, in cabinets, in corners and also put diffusion/absorption on the ceiling and back walls. It strongly reduced the bass standing waves and greatly improved the sound.
 

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ChristianN

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Hi

it seems then that I have many options, of either adding the fiberglass at the botton or even better at the front of the cabinet. Its just more tricky at the front as it would create a rather thick cabinet door. I will only be using the cabinet/absorber combination at the 1. reflection point, to allow for diffusion as well and not overly dampen the room. Im inspired to go for someting like this when it comes to the side cabinet wall. https://www.mbakustik.de/en/projekt/hoerraum-mit-akustischer-schrankwand/ link

The front and back wall would have quite a lot of diffusion so i hope for a good balance.

And thanks Jhonny for the pictures, its inspirering to see that it can be implemented so discretely, that is also my goal.
 
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