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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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In Reply to: you convinced me...but application ? abounds posted by rhyno on January 1, 2009 at 13:30:38:
OK, RPG skyline vs Auralex: depth and the differing heights of the different surface areas will have a big impact on effectiveness. The Skyline is a much deeper product with more height variation and that will produce more scattering. The layout of the different pieces is calculated according to formulae known to produce effective diffusion. The low height Auralex products I've seen just look like a series of equal height wedges with the angled faces oriented in 4 different directions. They'll scatter the sound but not over the same angle so diffusion won't develop as fast. There will probably also be differences in the frequency bandwidth over which diffusion occurs because of the differences in depth of the RPG and Auralex products.
Small rooms: it's tempting to think of diffusion at first reflection points but diffusion takes space in which to develop and first reflection points are on the shortest reflection path to you so you give the diffusion minimum space in which to develop before the sound from the diffusor reaches you. What you'll hear will be a reflection that's weaker than an untreated reflection but a diffusor at a first reflection point tends not to be as effective as absorption in my view. You won't get most benefit from them there. You get more benefit from them placed elsewhere, where the sound diffused from them is largely going to reflect one or more times before reaching you so that there's a lot more space for the diffusion to develop in. Floyd Toole in his recent book "Sound Reproduction" recommends diffusion on the back wall and he's an acoustics researcher with a strong interest in listening rooms. The Rives people tend to like diffusion on the front wall because it helps produce an expansiveness to the sound somewhat like concert halls have, but I find that diffusion there tends to broaden images too much for my tastes so I prefer absorption on the front wall at the first reflection points.
Which brings up an important point: there are disagreements about where to place diffusion, and about where and how much absorption to use also for that matter. Different people swear by quite different recommendations but those recommendations are producing very different results and different people are looking for different things. It's easy to follow someone's treatment recommendations but you may not like the same result they like. Would you simply copy someone else's component choices or do you prefer to select components that suit your tastes in sound? A similar principle is involved.
You're obviously thinking of treating your room. Why do you want to treat it? Are there some specific problems you want to eliminate or are you aiming for a particular sort of result? What are the limitations on what you can do in the room and where you can put things? What's the size of the room and what's the setup for speakers and listening position, plus other furniture. Where are the windows and doors? Are there open archway entrances? What kind of speakers are you using (box speakers, dipoles, bipoles, horns, whatever)? What kind of sound do you like? All of those things need to be taken into account. Take a look at the way different concert halls are treated and the way they strive for different results in opera venues, symphonic halls, and in churches. The aim of acoustic treatment isn't to produce identical results in every space, it's to produce a result which suits the music being listened to in those different spaces and, if it's for a listening room at home, the tastes of the room's owner. Treatment is not a one size fits all sort of thing.
You need to be clear about what you're trying to obtain in your room in order to determine the best way to go about getting that, and if you're going to ask people for advice you need to be able to give them information about the room and what you're trying to achieve.
It's easy to produce changes in the way music sounds in a room. The issue is producing the changes that you want to hear.
David Aiken
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- RE: you convinced me...but application ? abounds - David Aiken 18:24:01 01/01/09 (0)
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