Room Treatment to get Soundstage, Spaciousness & Imaging?

[OCA]

That is a very interesting statement. Care to elaborate?

Certainly and to be clear, this is simply my perspective, but I find standard room treatment is worse than snake oil. It actively degrades your sound. Based on thousands of room measurements I’ve analyzed, acoustic panels usually just swallow up the mid-range, often unevenly between the left and right speakers, while doing absolutely nothing to fix deep bass dips. Beyond complex and impractical solutions like tuned Helmholtz resonators, basic room treatment just leaves you with a scooped midrange and bloated bass. It basically forces the same V-shaped sound signature as Audyssey Dynamic EQ, which is something I strongly dislike.

 

[OCA]

pure direct mode

I am not sure because I have not tried this myself but "pure direct" mode might be bypassing ART filters completely.

 

[SigbergAudio]

Certainly and to be clear, this is simply my perspective, but I find standard room treatment is worse than snake oil. It actively degrades your sound. Based on thousands of room measurements I’ve analyzed, acoustic panels usually just swallow up the mid-range, often unevenly between the left and right speakers, while doing absolutely nothing to fix deep bass dips. Beyond complex and impractical solutions like tuned Helmholtz resonators, basic room treatment just leaves you with a scooped midrange and bloated bass. It basically forces the same V-shaped sound signature as Audyssey Dynamic EQ, which is something I strongly dislike.

Acoustical treatment is not practical for deep bass (below 150-200hz or so), and anyone selling it should know this. If they claim so, it is indeed snake oil.

But proper room treatment to reduce the general decay level in the room combined with EQ for the bass will be far superior to full range (or even limited frequency) EQ. But you often need thicker treatment and way more treatment than the customer may think. I do respect and believe that you have seen many improperly treated rooms though.

 

[Keith_W]

Certainly and to be clear, this is simply my perspective, but I find standard room treatment is worse than snake oil. It actively degrades your sound. Based on thousands of room measurements I’ve analyzed, acoustic panels usually just swallow up the mid-range, often unevenly between the left and right speakers, while doing absolutely nothing to fix deep bass dips. Beyond complex and impractical solutions like tuned Helmholtz resonators, basic room treatment just leaves you with a scooped midrange and bloated bass. It basically forces the same V-shaped sound signature as Audyssey Dynamic EQ, which is something I strongly dislike.

Totally agree. For bass, it's multiple subwoofers and DSP. Some rooms will have severe bass ringing, in which case intrusive or complex room treatment solutions can be considered. Room treatment should be reserved for upper frequency problems, if there are any.

 

[Cinema40]

Just curious about the dip close to 200hz. Is that a sub integration issue?

No it's definitely SBIR in the 140-200hz range. I am renovating the room and looking to also get rid of that null through absorption.

 

[SigbergAudio]

Totally agree. For bass, it's multiple subwoofers and DSP. Some rooms will have severe bass ringing, in which case intrusive or complex room treatment solutions can be considered. Room treatment should be reserved for upper frequency problems, if there are any.

Almost all normal living rooms (unless decorated and furnished back in the 80s) have upper frequency problems. Getting overall decay down from 4-5-600ms to 250-300ms is a massive difference in sound experience. But not always practical or feasible.

 

[Cinema40]

I am not sure because I have not tried this myself but "pure direct" mode might be bypassing ART filters completely.

You are correct. Green is with Dirac ART running in auto mode (300hz curtain) and Purple is in pure direct mode (No subs, no dirac ART only speaker levels and distances remain from the dirac calibration)

 

[Sokel]

Almost all normal living rooms (unless decorated and furnished back in the 80s) have upper frequency problems. Getting overall decay down from 4-5-600ms to 250-300ms is a massive difference in sound experience. But not always practical or feasible.

That's room-size and genre (taste) depended.

Room treatment is not about the gear, is about the room itself, despite the gear.
Pros don't measure specific speaker in specific positions nor they use the usual test signals we amateurs do.

 

[OCA]

But proper room treatment to reduce the general decay level in the room combined with EQ for the bass will be far superior to full range (or even limited frequency) EQ. But you often need thicker treatment and way more treatment than the customer may think.

I agree and I am sure proper room treatment can work wonders but it's an extremely difficult art to master IMO and is frequently framed as a casual, foolproof first step for every system which is where I have a problem with it.

 

[Cinema40]

I agree and I am sure proper room treatment can work wonders but it's an extremely difficult art to master IMO and is frequently framed as a casual, foolproof first step for every system which is where I have a problem with it.

How would you suggest i go about room treatment considering the learning curve and my setup? I have the right number of subs and can place them pretty much where i like to take care of issues in the bass region. Where should i go next to fix SBIR effects, general frequency response and get a good soundstage if I'm constrained in terms of speaker placement?

 

[OCA]

How would you suggest i go about room treatment considering the learning curve and my setup? I have the right number of subs and can place them pretty much where i like to take care of issues in the bass region. Where should i go next to fix SBIR effects, general frequency response and get a good soundstage if I'm constrained in terms of speaker placement?

IMO, you have ART and 4 subs. That's your bass sorted to a a near optimal level. What remains to be optimized is your ART curtain frequency, distance between front mains and mains to MLP and toe-in.

 

[Cote Dazur]

The main constraint is that I can't move the speakers forward due to door placement

From what you show as what your room look like and if your goal is better imaging/soundstage, I would move my speaker forward pass the door, create an equilateral triangle with where the sitting position is now.
Does not cost anything and you might be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Puddingbuks]

Certainly and to be clear, this is simply my perspective, but I find standard room treatment is worse than snake oil. It actively degrades your sound. Based on thousands of room measurements I’ve analyzed, acoustic panels usually just swallow up the mid-range, often unevenly between the left and right speakers, while doing absolutely nothing to fix deep bass dips. Beyond complex and impractical solutions like tuned Helmholtz resonators, basic room treatment just leaves you with a scooped midrange and bloated bass. It basically forces the same V-shaped sound signature as Audyssey Dynamic EQ, which is something I strongly dislike.

Maybe this happens with these thin foam like abosrption. I use different panels with a depth of 10, 15 and 40 cm and I really like how the sound in the room turned out and clearly hear (and measured) how the decay times were shortened.

 

[SigbergAudio]

That's room-size and genre (taste) depended.

I have yet to meet someone who prefers a more reverbant and untreated room compared to a properly treated one, but I guess there can be someone out there.

Room treatment is not about the gear, is about the room itself, despite the gear.
Pros don't measure specific speaker in specific positions nor they use the usual test signals we amateurs do.

I don't think I have claimed anything to the contrary?

 

[Cinema40]

If you test this track, can you share how you experience the panning sounds in the beginning?

In this particular song, the sounds pan quite well actually. Theres a presence beyond the speaker boundaries on both sides. Not much in terms of depth though

I use this video to test soundstage but with my current setup, i can't separate the position of the first two and the last two drums.

 

[SigbergAudio]

In this particular song, the sounds pan quite well actually. Theres a presence beyond the speaker boundaries on both sides. Not much in terms of depth though

I use this video to test soundstage but with my current setup, i can't separate the position of the first two and the last two drums.

It primarily tests soundstage width. Seems you have some then at least. In the best systems/rooms (on this particular property), this sound pans 90 degrees out to each side. So it's like the sound is coming from either side of you.

 

[OCA]

In this particular song, the sounds pan quite well actually. Theres a presence beyond the speaker boundaries on both sides. Not much in terms of depth though

I use this video to test soundstage but with my current setup, i can't separate the position of the first two and the last two drums.

Try "Her Majesty" by Beatles for optimal toe-in and distance between speaker. Instructions here:

Critical (Best) Music Tracks for Speaker and Room EQ Testing

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/critical-best-music-tracks-for-speaker-and-room-eq-testing.6/

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Sokel]

I have yet to meet someone who prefers a more reverbant and untreated room compared to a properly treated one, but I guess there can be someone out there.



I don't think I have claimed anything to the contrary?

Big-ish control rooms (250m³ of volume or more) usually have half a second of decay, maybe more, and that after treatment (if we can define the whole construction as treatment) .
The thing is that this decay is uniform, all the way.

And that's more important, the uniformity, than the decay time itself sometimes.
About genres, classical always asks for bigger and more live rooms, even if it's more demanding than the rest of the genres.

 

[SigbergAudio]

Big-ish control rooms (250m³ of volume or more) usually have half a second of decay, maybe more, and that after treatment (if we can define the whole construction as treatment) .
The thing is that this decay is uniform, all the way.

Apparently OPs room is around 70m^3, not 250.

And that's more important, the uniformity, than the decay time itself sometimes.
About genres, classical always asks for bigger and more live rooms, even if it's more demanding than the rest of the genres.

I fail to understand how this is relevant to the OPs situation.

 

[Sokel]

Apparently OPs room is around 70m^3, not 250.



I fail to understand how this is relevant to the OPs situation.

Uniform decay applies to the OP as well, and a smaller room (even if the the rendering is a bit unfortunate, showing a much bigger space) getting dry up-high (with the usual diy "treatment" ) can get claustrophobic.

Openness is what I would prioritize there, a good cloud would help a lot.