Hi - I am in a rental house, but expect to be here for at least a few more years. As in, I don't want to spend huge money or things that will require a lot of holes in the wall (though some are fine...I can patch and paint).
I am about to ditch the 14 year old (really!) Sharp 70" TV for a 85" Sony which will be mounted, and the gear will be taken off the floor for its dignity and easier use.
Room is 18 feet long, 14 feet wide, 8 foot ceilings. Semi-submerged room, so about 50% of the walls are concrete, as is the floor. Fairly thick carpeting, and standard sheet rock ceiling (the images make it look bad, it is just standard but thick stucco-like texture)
When I moved in, obviously an empty room...and it sounded TERRIBLE. I spent a few hundred dollars and hung curtains (as you can see) which was TRANSFORMATIONAL and made the room sound pretty dang good. If I clap in the room, very well dampened...is has the acoustics of a movie theater more or less.
I feel I have mostly tamed the excessive highs. Bass is good (there is a big REL hiding in the corner, and it will shake the entire house).
Where I seem to have a little issue is some mid-bass resonance...think a few hundred hertz. I also would have no issue continuing to tame the highs a bit more.
Maybe I am leading the witness, but I keep thinking the ceiling could do with some acoustic paneling.
--Can't do anything to the floor, but it has thick carpeting, so that helps
--I do have a queen size comforter hung behind the curtain on the right-side wall (the biggest piece), and could certainly do more of that in the rear. The left side wall has a window, so I can do some but not all
--Not much I can do with the front wall, but it is fairly 'busy' with stuff so hopefully that helps
--If that back corner is a concern (where the black safe is), I could certainly put something there.
Suggestions for the ceiling...if anything at all? I would have no issue installing some lightweight panels (drilling, not gluing).
Thoughts, suggestions? Thanks!!!
I am about to ditch the 14 year old (really!) Sharp 70" TV for a 85" Sony which will be mounted, and the gear will be taken off the floor for its dignity and easier use.
Room is 18 feet long, 14 feet wide, 8 foot ceilings. Semi-submerged room, so about 50% of the walls are concrete, as is the floor. Fairly thick carpeting, and standard sheet rock ceiling (the images make it look bad, it is just standard but thick stucco-like texture)
When I moved in, obviously an empty room...and it sounded TERRIBLE. I spent a few hundred dollars and hung curtains (as you can see) which was TRANSFORMATIONAL and made the room sound pretty dang good. If I clap in the room, very well dampened...is has the acoustics of a movie theater more or less.
I feel I have mostly tamed the excessive highs. Bass is good (there is a big REL hiding in the corner, and it will shake the entire house).
Where I seem to have a little issue is some mid-bass resonance...think a few hundred hertz. I also would have no issue continuing to tame the highs a bit more.
Maybe I am leading the witness, but I keep thinking the ceiling could do with some acoustic paneling.
--Can't do anything to the floor, but it has thick carpeting, so that helps
--I do have a queen size comforter hung behind the curtain on the right-side wall (the biggest piece), and could certainly do more of that in the rear. The left side wall has a window, so I can do some but not all
--Not much I can do with the front wall, but it is fairly 'busy' with stuff so hopefully that helps
--If that back corner is a concern (where the black safe is), I could certainly put something there.
Suggestions for the ceiling...if anything at all? I would have no issue installing some lightweight panels (drilling, not gluing).
Thoughts, suggestions? Thanks!!!
I had these guys build me a bunch of acoustic absorber panels and I have ceiling treatment as well. These are economical and quite effective. I have mostly 2 inch but a few 1 inch as well.
https://www.acoustimac.com
https://www.acoustimac.com
They are both acoustically effective and a bargain compared to almost anything else I have looked at. You can get them direct, and made to order or generic on Amazon with pretty quick shipping.
My man cave is a combination of listening space, electronics lab bench and small machine shop in an ancient basement room. A lot going on. Acoustics were OK until I upgraded to Yuichi A-290 horns which have wider dispersion than the horns they replaced. All of the treatments were installed as a result of that upgrade. I will take some pix and share.
The room, like yours, is my retreat from the world.
My man cave is a combination of listening space, electronics lab bench and small machine shop in an ancient basement room. A lot going on. Acoustics were OK until I upgraded to Yuichi A-290 horns which have wider dispersion than the horns they replaced. All of the treatments were installed as a result of that upgrade. I will take some pix and share.
The room, like yours, is my retreat from the world.
Nice environment and (very) nice system.
The environment already seems well treated, but since you asked, I would replace the chair with a 2-seater sofa (or even 3-seater, if with small seats) whose additional volume and the polyurethane, velvet/upholstery fabric and larger dimensions, especially in width, will help to break up the stationary (low) waves near the floor and also to progressively absorb part of the higher frequencies.
The result should then be evaluated, even because it depends on the type of sofa, in my opinion, given that there are types with very high backrests which could also be at the same height as the ears, and this would change things further.
For what it worth I say this without ever having used any related measurement instrumentation, but only after having learned something after decades of amateur domestic experiments.
Tube traps or across-the-corner bass traps will control midbass resonances. I use two flat bass traps (doubled Owens-Corning 703 panels)--one in each of the front corners. I adjust their effectiveness by squashing down on the angle they make to the front wall while the panel is still touching both walls. The bottom or top of the panels should be closed (i.e., on the floor or against the ceiling, etc.).
The biggest single thing that I did to help my room acoustics was simply taking REW measurements with a calibrated microphone (like a miniDSP UMIK-1 USB microphone). You can read the reverberation times directly, and you can see the effects of ceiling or floor bounce in A-B measurement fashion. From those plots (RT60, RT60 Decay, filtered IR, etc.), you can quantify the issues--if any--and see the effects of adding/subtracting treatment panels.
Chris
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I am highly enthusiastic about Chris's recommendation to measure the room using REW and a UMIK-1, this will tell you most of what you need to know and help you to get the most out of your system in that room. There will be a learning curve, but the insights gain will be invaluable.