need help w/ boominess :(

[elizard]

Well, I just re-arranged my room, and I love it this way (the position i sit in 90% of the time is right in the middle, used to be at a very corner). BUT, a problem came up. I had to place my towers way too close to the corner (1' from the back wall, 1' from the side walls) .. and its too boomy now.

What can I do to fix this??? I need a cheap method of course, but something that would work decent .. I don't like the boomy sound, but the rest is awesome!

Btw, my room is TINY, and its got a 27" tv, a computer desk and a queen sized bed in it .. not great for listening by any means, but its all i got

[Nappylady]

I had about the same situation for a while at my dad's house. The solution I found? Lose the bed.

General Army Navy Surplus carries these nice blocks of foam in the range of 6 feet by 3 feet by 3 inches... a couple of those and a blanket are really all you need to sleep on.

Or, you could come up with some kind of filter to remove the offensive bass frequencies. You mention a computer... is there maybe a Soundblaster Live! in it? If so, you could use that as a line-level filter with all kinds of bells and whistles... if that's an option for you, I can post more details... but for now I need sleep.

Good luck to you!

[elizard]

I kinda need the bed to sleep on. Plus I just blew almost $1000 on it recently, no way I'm losing it lol.

Also the computer is only used as a source when I'm playing mp3's. So any critical listening doesn't really involve the computer itself.

Maybe an EQ, but that costs $$$, and I like my things simple with as few components as possible.

Maybe some damping in the corner would help? I just gotta figure something out that's a little attractive

[c]

............ Perish the thought.......... But have you considered, (only if you have them subs inside your towers that have a hole round the back for the sound to escape ) ... tried getting some of those big foam blocks, like the ones you get hardware wrapped in when you order stuff and it arrives boxed, cutting it to the circular shape of the hole, then WEDGING it in as tight as it'll go? Not saying it's the best principle, but then you can sorta poke holes in the foam to get nuff bass out without there being too much (if you don't wanna turn the bass all the way down on your amp or other input) ... and it did work for me once when I was trying to get rid of boominess on my 5.1 kit in my room.



Kind of a bodge fix, and not quite a pro (or permanent, at that) solution either but hey, it worked for me once. Might work for you if you have that type of tower speakers.

[kelticwizard]

The above post suggests making a ported system into a sealed system. It is an excellent idea, since plugging the port thins out the bass in a system that was built for a port.

Another idea is to put a tube inside the port to extend it. For instance, make a 4 inch long port into a 12 inch long port. That might also do it.

[elizard]

yeah, i was thinking about plugging the port hole .. so use foam stuff? or what else should i try using?

its funny because couple years ago i wanted more bass from these towers, so i bought a cheap sub .. realized that its cheap and sold it
and now i don't want the bass because its not "good" bass .. not tight, just sort of sloppy and boomy ..

i wanna get new speakers though .. but amps are my priority

[kelticwizard]

Use anything really. Cut out a circle from a piece of plywood and use some rags as a gasket.

I would try tuning the box lower by elongating the port, preferably with a slightly smaller pipe extending farther into the enclosure, if that is possible. The corner loading will be focused on the Fb, so choose a point that is -6 dB down already. That way, the drooping bass splices into the corner loading and room gain.

[sreten]

Another way of retuning the ports is lining, not blocking them with foam.

You need a piece 3 x diameter x port length x 3/8 usually inch thickness.

Tease into place in the port.

Using the pi r squared area calculation, halving the port area
will drop port frequency x ~ 0.7, quartering will drop ~ 0.5.
These are all pretty rough estimates as you get some damping
as well due to the foam.

I've used it several times for reducing boomy bass and extending
bass cut off at the same time, works very well IMO, and much
better than simply blocking the ports generally.

sreten.

[Nappylady]

Socks are a very good place to start--inexpensive, readily available, and give a pretty good indicator of results you can expect.

Just be sure to use clean ones.

[elizard]

Originally posted by Nappylady
Socks are a very good place to start--inexpensive, readily available, and give a pretty good indicator of results you can expect.

Just be sure to use clean ones.

hehe ..
actually i moved them a little, they're not as bad anymore, but they're worse than they were
i'm gonna raise em a bit at some point in time (right now the bottom of the lowest driver is 2-3" above the bed .. not a good thing )

still gotta try listening to them at a higher level (although most of my listening is at a fairly quiet level, damn apartment!) .. we'll see what it sounds like at a bit higher

i gotta say that its a LOT better now that it was before moving the stuff around .. a lot of stuff that i missed before is appearing in music now .. stereo image was non-existent before (or when i'd actually be in the center it was decent at best), now its like .... decent+ .. or maybe good
not great, but good ..

anyway .. gonna try the socks first lol .. i think i got a couple pairs of soccer socks .. they go up to my knee, so they should fill the port nicely