Nick S.

Acoustical Treatment

With new construction on a 13'x20'x9' dedicated ht, what have other members experienced in regards to acoustical treatments? Do I wait until I hear problems or plan and purchase now. Money is an object. What have people found is most important bass traps, FO reflections, etc? In the gallery it appears that most rooms don't have the amount of treatment (if any) manufacturers recommend. Are there things I should do now and wait for others? I worry about a "dry" space. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Ethan Winer

Nick,

For a good overview of acoustic treatment see the Acoustics FAQ, second in the list on my Articles page:

www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html

--Ethan

http://www.realtraps.com
The acoustic treatment experts

Ron-P

In my first theater I had bare walls, that sounded like crap. Bad reflections all around. I then built some acoustical wall panels with 1" thick insulation from Home Depot and covered them with felt. I hung those at reflection points on the sidewalls, on the front wall behind the mains and center and also hung drapes along the entire back wall. This worked very well. But not quite enough. Soon after I replaced all the acoustical panels and completely covered the walls with rubber-back felt from Home Depot. This worked perfectly. No more reflections. It did not over damped the room and destroy acoustics either.

My new HT room, the Driftwood, is bigger but all the walls are covered with the same felt and drapes line the entire back wall. For smaller HT rooms I cannot recommend enough covering the walls with a simple, thin fabric or felt.

But, if you don't want to go to that extreme, panels made inexpensively with Home Depot materials work very well too.

Sometime's you reach what's real by making believe.

Nick S.

I appreciate the info from you both, even though it was not exactly what I wanted to hear but knew was the case. Perhaps in the back of my mind I was hoping the responses would be " It doesn't matter that much, go ahead and spend the money on something else." I would hate to spend the money I did on equipment and have it sound like crap. Thanks for the help. Any other takers?

Foster Gullett

I know Nick S. started this thread however, I was also wondering something as far as acoustical treatments. In some commercial theaters you see the floor carpet go up the wall about 4-6 feet(depending on the size of the room). I was wondering if this would be a practicle solution to reflection/absorbtion problems in personal home theater.

Nick, sorry to take away from what you were asking, I just wanted to know the same information just regarding something a little different.

When in doubt, ask God.

Ethan Winer

Foster,

> In some commercial theaters you see the floor carpet go up the wall about 4-6 feet <

That's more to keep children from scuffing the walls than for acoustics. Thin materials are not good as acoustic treatment because they absorb only the highest frequencies. So you risk making the room too dead yet it will still be boomy at low frequencies.

What you really want is absorption that's effective to as low a frequency as possible. Have a look at the Acoustics FAQ I linked above. It explains all of this in detail.

--Ethan

http://www.realtraps.com
The acoustic treatment experts

Foster Gullett

Ethan,
You website provides some extremely invaluable material. It definately answered many of the questions I had regarding overall acoustic treatment that I have been desperate to find.

As for anyone who may stumble across this, read Ethan's webpage and apply it to your theater as I will be doing in the next couple of months.

Thank you.

When in doubt, ask God.

Ron-P

A great read and some very good info. I lucked out you could say as I had no bass problems in my threater it was all high-end reflection.

Although, it does make me want to try a thicker material on walls. But, that would be an expensive test.

Sometime's you reach what's real by making believe.