Sound Panel Advice (1 Viewer)

[Edwin_H]

I just read another post about a nearly square HT room and how not good it is to have a nearly square HT room. Well, my current HT setup is in a room that is 15.5ft x 14ft x 8ft. I have hardwood floors and all wood paneling in the room as well as one standard window and 2 roughly 6ft high by about 3 ft. wide windows right next to each other. I cannot permanently carpet the floor, are there other options? Would a few DIY sound panels along the walls give a dramatic improvement? I don't know how to post a link to a pic, but I do have a diagram of my room, if someone could please share some advice I can email the diagram to them. Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse on the subject.

Thanks,
Edwin

 

[Josh~H]

Your room is 10% longer than it is wide. Until someone corrects me, I'll claim that it's not really going to be a problem. I think 5% is the boundary you don't want to flirt with.

I can't answer with certainty whether a few DIY (or store-bought for that matter) panels will make a big improvment in your room. But it's probably safe to say they will add some benefit. The windows, hardwood floors, and wood paneling are all very reflective surfaces for higher frequencies, so I'd imagine your HT has a bit too much reverberation going on. Do you get listening-fatigue while watching movies or listening to music? Is dialog in movies hard to make out clearly? If not -- i.e., if you're already happy with the way it sounds -- then you don't need to do anything, right?

I'm trying to tame the reverberations in my basement HT, and I've gotten several suggestions so far. I've put down an area rug, I'm building some DIY panels for 1st reflection points, and I might build curtains to make the room more rectangular. I've also heard that bookshelves with books or other odd-shaped items can help diffuse the sound. Are your wood panel walls bare at the moment? I would think that substantial book-shelving or DIY panels would probably help. Do your windows have fabric treatments? Short of opening the window, adding thick curtains is about all you can do there. Can you add an attractive, not-overbearing area rug between the seating position and the screen?

Good luck!

 

[Shane Morales]

They say bookshelves filled with randomly sized books/items are really good for this. Maybe you can relocate some bookshelves from other parts of the house, or buy some at IKEA?

Put a throw rug on the floor, that'll help, I bet. And put up some drapes over the windows. Maybe after all that you can put some acoustic tiles on the ceiling.

 

[Terry Montlick]

Shane,

They say bookshelves filled with randomly sized books/items are really good for this. Maybe you can relocate some bookshelves from other parts of the house, or buy some at IKEA?

This technique has an interesting heritage. It is a poor-man's "number theory" diffuser, of the sort sold for the last couple of decades by diffuser pioneer RPG Diffusors. These have worked wonders for concert halls, since high diffusion makes performance spaces sound very rich and even.

Anyway, it turns out that this type of diffuser has significant sound absorption qualities that were not previously known. Reverberations times plummeted (surround sound theaters - good; concert halls - bad!), and as a result, some rooms had to be redone, pulling out a number of the diffusers.

So if your HT decor is conducive to bookshelves and books, they are a nice general tonic (though not a cure-all) for your acoustics.

Regards,
Terry