Post by Graham on Mar 20, 2017 10:43:37 GMT 12
I'm lucky to have a quite large room in the base of our home that I have set up as my Music Room/Office/ Man Cave. It even has a soundproof door separating it from the rest of the house much to the delight of SHMBO. It is however a rather strange shape with the righthand wall being mainly glass and sweeping around in a curve, and a rather strange entrance landing in the front left corner. Probably because of this size and shape it makes my fairly humble system sound wonderful. Proving that a basic system in a good room will sound better than an exotic system in a bad room. Room acoustics play a much greater part in producing good sound than a lot of people realise. So I am looking at ways to improve this. I have run a test CD from Real Traps that produces tones from 20 to 300 Hz at 10 Hz steps. This is generally pretty flat when put onto a graph but does have a 6db peak at 100Hz, a 4db peak at 210Hz, and a 10db null at 170Hz. I'm considering adding some bass traps but frankly due to the room shape I don't really know where would be the best place to have them. The width of the room make side reflections pretty much non existent and the angled 'back' wall must deflect sound rather than bounce it back. I don't really have any front corners as such due to the corner window and the landing area. !! Any suggestions ??
I guess I should provide some dimensions. Room is 7M wide and 6.4M long to behind the seating position but as mentioned is angled so 7.5M at maximum position. Speakers are 2m apart and 700mm from front face to the wall behind. ( Ignore the speakers on the TV, they are for Home Theatre only) Sweet listening spot is 2.6M from speakers.
Cheers Graham
PS - Yes I know the Oracle is very close to the speaker but it doesn't seem to care.
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Post by Owen Y on Mar 20, 2017 11:17:50 GMT 12
Looks inviting  If it ain't broke..... Seriously, unless you are troubled by anything (bass boom, dullness/lack of HF, etc), there's always a danger of killing the 'life' of a room by over-dampening - no one ever enjoyed music in an anechoic chamber BTW those settees & recesses up the steps, are pretty good looking bass-traps. The angles, esp with drapes (at night esp?) would suppress the main WxL room modes & floor-ceiling is damped by carpet & part-sloping . I'd expect you would not suffer the usual issues with smaller, rectangular rooms - room-boom & flutter echo. If it was my room, I might experiment with spkr & listening seat placement - but you are probably getting good front wall LF reinforcement (without rear/side wall standing wave/resonances) in such a big, likely low-resonance room. But by all means experiment. PS. do you mean 'dB' peaks & nulls? PPS. Is that a sub?
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Post by Graham on Mar 20, 2017 11:33:20 GMT 12
Ah, good spotting Owen. Yes it should be db, I have now corrected this.
The little sub is only used with the home theatre speaker set up with the small speakers.
You may have noticed the lack of a centre speaker, I find HT sound better with a phantom set up.
Vinyl and CD listening is through the Monitor Audio speakers only as 2 channel.
Yes maybe I should leave well enough alone but you know I am a incurable tweaker. I have spent many wasted hours moving speakers and seating position and have found the current layout sounds best.
Cheers
Graham
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Post by michaelw on Mar 20, 2017 12:16:47 GMT 12
yah for phantom centre ! looks like a cosy setup. you have heaps of room, only suggestions are to move the couches away and move the main speakers further into the room, away from the tv and equipment rack.
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Post by Owen Y on Mar 20, 2017 12:24:23 GMT 12
It's a disease, Graham! IME curable usually only by 'burnout'  What does your freq resp plot look like? LF in-room resp in particular. I am assuming that, as you get signif resonance pks at 200 & 100Hz, but none at 50Hz, that (i) in-rm resp isn't strong that low (ii) measuring setup is not measuring flat down there, or....? How would you describe the overall sound, overall tonal balance? Pretty good?
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Post by Graham on Mar 20, 2017 20:26:21 GMT 12
Below is my low tech graph of the recorded sound levels.
This crude but efficient process uses the downloaded tones burned to a CD and then recorded on my digital sound level meter. The meter is set to C weighting and is on a tripod exactly at my listening position.
A white noise signal is used to set the volume at the reference 85 db
The Monitor Audio MX6 speakers claim to go down to 38 Hz so the drop off at 40 Hz is pretty close.
I am very happy with the overall tonal balance of my system. What I listen for is realism and try to imagine the band/singer/orchestra is playing at the end of the room. If I close my eyes I can picture the individual singers and/or instruments and their location on the 'stage'.
I see I've written it wrong on the graph. The top line is Hz and up the lh side is db. Duh.
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Post by Owen Y on Mar 20, 2017 21:55:41 GMT 12
Looks pretty good to me Graham. A bit of a lift around 100Hz probably not a bad thing, some extra warmth. Also the associated 50Hz bump. Bear in mind too that if you are using the Radio Shack SPL meter, there are measured corrections to compensate for meter rolloff in the LFs. (I'm no expert in this sort of work, but I think you'd want to reference it all to 1kHz, in order to get an idea of overall balance.)
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Post by Owen Y on Mar 20, 2017 22:15:15 GMT 12
Graham - I have used the old analogue RShack meter with 1/3 octave tones from an old Stereophile test disk, for rudimentary FResp plots. Then, I thought I'd build one of those Panasonic capsule mics. Then, people started using USB mics with phantom power & without need for mic preamps. Now, you can get decent spkr measurements with your iphone - see - www.studiosixdigital.com/audiotools/(The RTA & FFT tools in particular.) Cheers.
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Post by Graham on Mar 21, 2017 21:10:48 GMT 12
Yeah, its amazing what is available on new-fangled hand held digital devices. The phone feature is almost an afterthought.
My digital db meter is a fairly good quality Digitech model that I bought several years ago when I was heavily involved with racing gas powered model boats. We had to ensure the noise level was less than 87 db to keep local residents and council happy.
The silly thing is the fact that most lawn mowers are louder than that.
Maybe I'll leave well enough alone. Besides SHMBO would not be impressed if some ugly bass traps appeared even though it is supposed to be MY cave.
Cheers
Graham
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Post by Owen Y on Mar 21, 2017 21:43:28 GMT 12
Ohh... I am planning to try those Studio Six tools, I was hoping you'd figure it all out for me! 
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Post by guitardude on Mar 23, 2017 9:21:05 GMT 12
Ineresting stuff, my new Music room is currently under construction, not anywhere near the stage of sorting out acoustics yet and sort of hoping not to have to do too much, as its been a big enough battle sorting out wiring,sockets and circuit breakers.
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Post by Graham on Mar 23, 2017 9:39:02 GMT 12
Owen - Sorry mate, you are on your own with the Studio Six amazing tools. I'm a flat-earther without a Smart phone !! Guitardude - Read up all you can ( if you haven't already) on room acoustics as you have the golden opportunity to incorporate features into your build stage rather than try to modify things later or live with compromises. Room dimensions are critical to prevent incurable room resonance. Cheers Graham 
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2017 9:48:00 GMT 12
You'll be taking those toilet roll cable risers to the new room GD, or will they be seeking a new home?
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Post by guitardude on Mar 23, 2017 11:51:38 GMT 12
You mock my toilet roll cable risers ? Maybe if I gave them a 24 carat gold coating with spiked feet they might suit your sensibilities better ?
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Man Cave Acoustics Mar 23, 2017 12:28:19 GMT 12
via mobile - Edited Mar 23, 2017 12:29:29 GMT 12 by Deleted
Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2017 12:28:19 GMT 12
Mock? I don't mock. Was merely trying to get in ahead of the pack if they were headed for the 2nd hand market... They'd go well with the rest of your cast offs at my place was my thinking...
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Post by guitardude on Mar 23, 2017 13:00:52 GMT 12
I'll think up a price.....
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