Room Treatments (1 Viewer)

[Blaine_M]

I'm trying to make accoustic improvements to my room. My wife won't let me put accoustic pannels or anything like that on the walls. She will be addign curtains to the room soon. I was thinking about building my own 'diffusor' using fiberglass insulation. What are the accoustic properties of fiberglass insulation. I was thinking about doing some type of pillar type treatments, only mine would be square. I was going to fill them with the fiberglass, then on the back of them attach accoustic foam where it won't be visible. Placement of these will be in the corners behind my speakers. What do you think, will this work?

 

[ThomasW]

What problem are you trying to solve? Have you measured the in-room response?

Just blindly adding room treatments is like having a cold and grabbing anything off any shelf in a pharmacy to cure it. Might get hemorrhoid cream by mistake.........

BTW fiberglass isn't a diffuser, it's an absorber.

Here's a link to get you started

http://www.bobgolds.com/AbsorptionCoefficients.htm

 

[Blaine_M]

My room is what I would call bright. About the only good thing about it is that floor is carpeted. I do have honeycomb style blinds on the large window, other than that all hard flat surfaces all the way around. A lot of the problem seems to be coming from the back corners behind the main speakers. How do I measuer the 'in-room response'? I'm on a fairly limited budget with this project.

 

[ThomasW]

Taming an overly bright room starts by using the mirror trick. But if the wife won't accept panels you might was well just use headphones....

http://www.bryston.ca/newsletters/43_files/vol4is3.html

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...lection+points

 

[Blaine_M]

She might let me use pannels, as long as we can cover them with whatever fabric she would like. Where Can I find those Owen Corning fiberglass pannels? So what is the miror trick? I think I could talk her into a couple 2x4 pannels.

 

[ThomasW]

http://white.hometheatertalk.com/tips/acoustics.htm

 

[Blaine_M]

That looks like somethink I can do, and something I can afford! It would be about $80 or so to get 5 sheets of the 703 stuff. If I use the miror trick you suggest, that would put them exactly where I was thinking would be the best spots for them, one directly behind, and one right to the side. Now to work on getting my wife to go for it......

 

[Ethan Winer]

Blaine,

> What are the accoustic properties of fiberglass insulation. <

For the complete story, see the Acoustics FAQ, second in the list on my Articles page:

www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html

I have to warn you - if your wife won't let you add anything to fix the acoustics, there's no magic bullet solution. You either add enough absorbing material to fix the problems or you don't. However, if you're clever and good with tools, you might be able to hide some of it.

--Ethan

 

[Blaine_M]

I can at least talk her into doing two as shown in the diagram in your 'SIDEBAR: CREATING A REFLECTION FREE ZONE' section. If nothing else those should help shouldn't they? Obviously I'm a novice at this stuff and I really appreciate your help, I don't have a mega bucks system, but I would like to optimize what I have.

 

[Ethan Winer]

Blaine,

> I can at least talk her into doing two ... those should help shouldn't they? <

They'll help improve imaging, but do nothing for bass problems which are at least as important.

Do what I did: sneak a little into the room at a time.

--Ethan

 

[Blaine_M]

I know that I probably have some bass issues, but I have no ideas where to start with that. My room is fairly small, but there is no back wall. The living room opens to a dinette type area, which opens to the kitchen. I am able to sit in either of my couches and the bass seems fine to me. It seems like when people add bass traps from the photo's I've seen that they are often on the opposite wall from the sub, which in my case is not possible since that would be in the kitchen. Or am I way off base here, can you also use the mirror trick with the sub? .....but then again, don't you want some of that to reflect off the walls?

 

[Ethan Winer]

Blaine,

> My room is fairly small, but there is no back wall. <

That solves half the battle right there. With no back wall there are no reflections to skew the low frequency response. Not that an open back gives perfect response, because the side walls and floor and ceiling still contribute reflections. But having no back wall is good for LF response.

--Ethan