Bass Question (1 Viewer)

[Chris Cash]

I have been reading alot about home theater recomendations. I ran across this and it had me woundering. Here is what I read.


That leaves one additional problem to contend with - standing waves.

Think of standing waves this way: As low bass soundwaves enter the corner of a room, they tend to remain there, piling up unattenuated.

Rooms with standing wave problems will tend to sound "boomy" and will generally lack bass detail. All that uncontrolled bass energy is essentially muddying things up in the bass region.

We need to somehow trap those waves so they cannot reflect back into the room or pile up in corners. This is the job for bass traps. These are areas built into the wall structure of the room that allow bass energy to enter, but not exit.

With traps designed into our room, standing waves are no longer a problem.

My question is, could you help eliminate this problem by radiusing the outer corners of the room. Or should the courners be at 90% angles to pull the waves in and have the bass traps eliminate them.

 

[Andrew Steel]

Hi Chris,
Radiussing the corners may make a slight difference, of course it depends on how big you want to make them. Is there a reason that you don't want to use traps? They work extremely well. Tell me a little about your room - dimentions etc and I may be able to offer more suggestions.

PS where did you read the snip you posted?

Andrew

 

[Chris Cash]

Well, i'm about to move by either spring or fall. Right now I have a double wide that I will be moving to a 5.5 acre lot that I bought. Because I will probably be looking at about 5-10 years before I acn build a house, I figured i'd expand off the back of the trailer. (Alright, no southern jokes!) Because of this I can build a dedcated home theater room to suit my needs. I have already drawn up a plan as to where everything should be and how far apart. I'm going with two rows of seating. I figured my three Berkline theater loungers in the back row and one of the matching love seat with built in recliners in the front. The smallest I seemed to be able to figure was 20'wide x 30'long. Sorry if i'm giving too much info I get kinda excited when I start thinking of it. I have also read where the walls are not supposed to be paralell to one another. So I will probably taper the room with the back being the widest and narrowing toward the front. I have a good bit of experience at framing and woodworking so I will be doing all the work myself. I want to try to cover all the bases before I get started. If I remember i'll scan a copy of my drawing so that I can give you a better idea.

~C.C.~

 

[Chris Cash]

salkht.com Is the website that I got the above info from. Click on "home theater basics" and then "room accoustics"

~C.C.~

 

[Cees Alons]

Chris,

If your walls aren't going to be parallel and you also make sure you apply dampening material (don't forget floor/ceiling reflections!) to diminish reflections, you already made a very good start. Your room dimensions are great: lots of people won't have that amount of space. It will alleviate the potential problem too.

The description on that site you quoted from is very sloppy, to say the least. Most of the 'standing waves' problems arise from sound waves reflecting from hard surfaces. First order standing waves between walls in your room will already be below 50Hz (wavelength approx. 22')!
Of course the height may be lower (you didn't specify that), but a good rug or carpet may do wonders there.

Don't start planning bass traps before you almost finished the room and placed the chairs (and further furniture). Good chairs are bass traps themselves, sort of. Judge the result then.

Cees

 

[Chris Cash]

Thank you both for being so helpful. As for ceiling hieght I figured the standard eight foot ceiling would suffice. I have aded a sketch of how I have outlined the room so far. I would be pleased to hear your opinions on how I have it layed out so far. My main gaol was to build a room tht I wouldn't have to much major tweeking. But I guess I just need to build it and see where I stand from there. This should be interesting. I'm a framer and furniture builder. I have never messed with drywall before.

~C.C.~