subsekt

The winter is coming so it's nice to work inside and make your own acoustic panels (if you have DIY skills of course).

remykruyer wrote:My budget was €1500, i've got 4 monster basstraps, 4 224 panels and 2 alpha panels. 2 monster basstraps are on my ceiling, 2 on the back of the wall. The 224 panels are left and right of my listening position and the alpha panels are in the corner for early reflections. Just contact them and see what they can do, the advice is free of charge.

That doesn't sound not too bad. I contacted them and will send a 3d model of the room now. If the room can be done with that investment that it will be useable I might save for it actually.
I thought about DIY as well but as someone said above there is so much info you need to learn plus not having a proper space to do the work makes this appear a good solution.
Still a lot of money but I expected it to be more expensive.

For €1500 you get better treatment then most. Considering a lot of people just use some foam bought products from Thomann for £100

yentz wrote:

remykruyer wrote:My budget was €1500, i've got 4 monster basstraps, 4 224 panels and 2 alpha panels. 2 monster basstraps are on my ceiling, 2 on the back of the wall. The 224 panels are left and right of my listening position and the alpha panels are in the corner for early reflections. Just contact them and see what they can do, the advice is free of charge.

That doesn't sound not too bad. I contacted them and will send a 3d model of the room now. If the room can be done with that investment that it will be useable I might save for it actually.
I thought about DIY as well but as someone said above there is so much info you need to learn plus not having a proper space to do the work makes this appear a good solution.
Still a lot of money but I expected it to be more expensive.

Diy bass traps are not worth it. Making tuned resonators/membranes is not an easy task, and a straight thick ass diy wedge of rockwool tyoe trap is mind of a wast of money to really deal with low end properly.

Mattias wrote:Considering a lot of people just use some foam bought products from Thomann for £100

Placebo acoustic treatment

WOLF! wrote:

Mattias wrote:Considering a lot of people just use some foam bought products from Thomann for £100

Placebo acoustic treatment

I use egg cartons, perfect placebo treatment, doesn't cost much and you get eggs as a bonus! Yummy!

I also wrap tin foil around my head when I'm making music, keeps those pesky aliens from contacting me with their mental beams. It can be quite a distraction.

Barfunkel wrote:

WOLF! wrote:

Mattias wrote:Considering a lot of people just use some foam bought products from Thomann for £100

Placebo acoustic treatment

I use egg cartons, perfect placebo treatment, doesn't cost much and you get eggs as a bonus! Yummy!

I also wrap tin foil around my head when I'm making music, keeps those pesky aliens from contacting me with their mental beams. It can be quite a distraction.

Considering your avatar you need you need lots of protein .

Very funny everyone keeps mentioning the egg carton (shaped foam).
I did see a test measurement with egg cartons shaped foam and it was (a shitty bit) more effective when installed reversed(because of the air gap), but basically it's just a waste of money.

Lost to the Void wrote:

yentz wrote:

remykruyer wrote:My budget was €1500, i've got 4 monster basstraps, 4 224 panels and 2 alpha panels. 2 monster basstraps are on my ceiling, 2 on the back of the wall. The 224 panels are left and right of my listening position and the alpha panels are in the corner for early reflections. Just contact them and see what they can do, the advice is free of charge.

That doesn't sound not too bad. I contacted them and will send a 3d model of the room now. If the room can be done with that investment that it will be useable I might save for it actually.
I thought about DIY as well but as someone said above there is so much info you need to learn plus not having a proper space to do the work makes this appear a good solution.
Still a lot of money but I expected it to be more expensive.

Diy bass traps are not worth it. Making tuned resonators/membranes is not an easy task, and a straight thick ass diy wedge of rockwool tyoe trap is mind of a wast of money to really deal with low end properly.

I have not moved into my new room yet, so i dont know how it will sound or what the problems are, but im reading and planning for the treatment. Would you say its a good idea to start with diy broadband absorbers, and get some tuned basstraps depending on the results?

Also, can i somehow calculate the acoustic properties of the room? Or am i best of measuring? If so, does anyone have any recommendations on a cheap and simple, but reliable, microphone/program to get some graphs?

pimo wrote: Also, can i somehow calculate the acoustic properties of the room? Or am i best of measuring? If so, does anyone have any recommendations on a cheap and simple, but reliable, microphone/program to get some graphs?

http://amroc.andymel.eu/?l=300&w=290&h=240&r60=0.6

Frequency charts aren`t really the best thing for room measurement, it`s not giving you the full picture.
You need to be looking at time domain, signals can build, waves take time to unfold etc, rooms have decay.

a waterfall chart is best if you want to do things right.

http://www.roomeqwizard.com/

yentz wrote:

remykruyer wrote:My budget was €1500, i've got 4 monster basstraps, 4 224 panels and 2 alpha panels. 2 monster basstraps are on my ceiling, 2 on the back of the wall. The 224 panels are left and right of my listening position and the alpha panels are in the corner for early reflections. Just contact them and see what they can do, the advice is free of charge.

That doesn't sound not too bad. I contacted them and will send a 3d model of the room now. If the room can be done with that investment that it will be useable I might save for it actually.
I thought about DIY as well but as someone said above there is so much info you need to learn plus not having a proper space to do the work makes this appear a good solution.
Still a lot of money but I expected it to be more expensive.

For me it was worth every cent, it sounds really really good now. I've got Genelecs with GLM system so the monitors are calbirated to the rooms frequency response.

Awesome. Sent them a link to a 3d rendering as well as a video showing the room. Hope it will be possible to get a decent sound in there.

pimo wrote:does anyone have any recommendations on a cheap and simple, but reliable, microphone/program to get some graphs?

I'm using a Dayton audio EMM-6 measurement (calibrated) microphone in the 'basic plus' version that I purchased from Cross-Spectrum.

Lost to the Void wrote: Try GIK.

Speaking of GIK, they seem to offer these premade packs of acoustic treatment. Are those worth the money or should you always aim higher, get a professional to measure the room and build custom panels and traps?

So if the options are:

1) No treatment at all, 0€

2) DIY stuff (with absolutely no real knowledge, just follow some building instructions online) for 200€-ish

3) A preset pack something like this http://gikacoustics.co.uk/product/gik-a ... package-1/ for about 700€

4) Professional treatment, 1500€-ish and beoynd. I have friends who design and build acoustic treatments though, so I probably will get a discount...


How would you rate the options from a hobbyist POV?

Currently I make music with headphones, don't even own any monitors. Used to have a pair of Focal CMS-65's, but I found that they weren't very useful in an untreated living room, my current hifi speakers that cost me 7€ a pair do the same (ie. slightly useful for double checking, not very useful for actually using while producing). I will get monitors when I move to my own place the next few months though, I'll probably get the Equator D5's, those seem to get good reviews in that price range.

I think those preset packs are fine if they happen to coincide with what you need for your room, but you could end up with less of the stuff you need and more of the stuff you don`t need.

From a hobbyist perspective...

It`s pretty easy to deal with reflections and top end and flutter, foam scatter panels can deal with high frequency problems quite well, and they are cheap.

bass is the real problem, I think it is always best to throw money at proper bass treatment first, it is the most difficult to correct, you can always then throw up diffusors and buy some broadband stuff later, and you can use things in your room to help break up the sound, bookshelves, seating etc.

Lost to the Void wrote:

yentz wrote:

remykruyer wrote:My budget was €1500, i've got 4 monster basstraps, 4 224 panels and 2 alpha panels. 2 monster basstraps are on my ceiling, 2 on the back of the wall. The 224 panels are left and right of my listening position and the alpha panels are in the corner for early reflections. Just contact them and see what they can do, the advice is free of charge.

That doesn't sound not too bad. I contacted them and will send a 3d model of the room now. If the room can be done with that investment that it will be useable I might save for it actually.
I thought about DIY as well but as someone said above there is so much info you need to learn plus not having a proper space to do the work makes this appear a good solution.
Still a lot of money but I expected it to be more expensive.

Diy bass traps are not worth it. Making tuned resonators/membranes is not an easy task, and a straight thick ass diy wedge of rockwool tyoe trap is mind of a wast of money to really deal with low end properly.

I'll have to disagree. Rockwool panels are quite cheap, easy to make, and make a fine job for most people. You can have a very decent, complete broadband isolation for, say 200 euros - the price of a few bass traps. Of course if you're a mastering engineer and you've spent 30 000 bucks on your monitors perhaps you want to go for something a bit fancier.

Rockwool does nothing for troublesome sub 150hz low frequencies, which are the real problem, unless you are making it a meter thick. You literally cannot get down even close to 150 with rockwool, ESPECIALLY if you have your rockwool trap against a wall. It has to be feet away from the wall. And to cover anything under even 250hz it has to be like 4ft from the wall to do anything.

And so to DIY a resonator panel.... Its just cheaper and less hassle to buy some.

off_axis wrote:You can have a very decent, complete broadband isolation for, say 200 euros - the price of a few bass traps.

Yup broadband, but not for bass. That's when the trouble starts and you have to go to the pro companies unless you're an ace constructing acoustical panels yourself.

So what's a good, cheap option for bass traps? GIK has a bunch of options and i'm not sure which one's for me. I don't really have a budget for room treatment so i'm only doing basstraps for the time being.

Steve mentioned EQ Acoustics - Would these also work? https://www.thomann.de/gb/acousti_pro_a ... ap_2er.htm

And do I really just chuck them on the bottom of the corner? I only have two corners which have space for one.

Lost to the Void wrote:Rockwool does nothing for troublesome sub 150hz low frequencies, which are the real problem, unless you are making it a meter thick. You literally cannot get down even close to 150 with rockwool, ESPECIALLY if you have your rockwool trap against a wall. It has to be feet away from the wall. And to cover anything under even 250hz it has to be like 4ft from the wall to do anything.

And so to DIY a resonator panel.... Its just cheaper and less hassle to buy some.

Rockwool isn't optimal but i wouldn't say it does nothing for the very low end. To get optimal results at 100hz, you would have to place the panels at roughly a bit less than a meter, now place them at a realizable distance, say 25 cm, and it will still absorb something, just less. So they still are a noticeable improvement, at least according to soundonsound ("practical bass traps" section).

Recently i took off the twos 20cm wide rockwool panels on the right and left of my monitors and i was surprised to hear the difference it makes in the low end. It's not crazy, but it makes a difference.
Anyway, i wonder how does it compare to commercial bass traps?