Fiberglass Sound Treatment for the listening room

[Standalone]

Just some photos for your reference.... this is a music studio / rehearsal room and listening room. Technics 1200's -> Rane Mixer -> Denon Reciever -> DCM Time Windows (not in use now) or B&W's.

The flag-covered cloud is mainly to control the sound from the two KRK v4 near field monitors. Those are B&W DM6's in the corners. Since I don't use them for extra critical listening, I have them placed in the corners to emphasize the bass from the sealed woofers. It's not too boomy with the bass traps....

All fiberglass is Owens Corning 703 equivalent two inch thick 4'x2' panels. It was around $100+ for 9 of them. Fabric is simple poplin or whatever from a fabric store.

A panel from the back:

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near field monitor first reflection cloud:

cutting pegboard "holders"

spacers to bring them off the wall a little and increase low frequency absorbtion:

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me:

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[Iain McNeill]

That's a lot of fiberglass but then you have the hardwood floors. Probably sounds much better now? Any comments on changes?
Nice job, shows how simple it can be!

 

[Standalone]

The ceilings are very low-- not much more than 2 meters (7 feet 1.5 inches). Coupled with the hardwood, there is a lot of high frequency flutter. Clap your hands in there and you hear ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch like a sound effect from a bad '70's movie.

Clarity from the listening area was also compromised before these went up due to first reflection issues.

After installation, the bass was tamed a bit-- noticeable in the reduction of nulls and peaks in bass response as I walked around the room. This is essential for both listening and recording. The boxiness of the room was immediately and audiably reduced in recordings made in the room.

I still have more to hang-- I'd treat much more of the ceiling and add bass trapping.

The heavy application of 703 was important because of the wide range of audio and musical purposes that the room must serve. It seems to me that recording rooms and mixing rooms in the music business seem to follow similar design philosophies-- I wonder why audiophile room tuning doesn't seem to share the same ideas...

I mean, why wouldn't a fairly dead room-- that is, evenly dead, not just in high frequencies-- be a decent listening environment?

 

[tvrgeek]

Looks good to me. For listening, you can get it too dead. Not that the sound is bad, but that your brais sees you are in a room, but your ears don't hear reflections. Brains don't like to get conflicting information. Don't know how dead that is, as I have not made it there yet. Yet outside, no reflections, your brain thinks this is OK usually. Although I set up on my patio once and did not think it was as nice as my living room. Imaging too point source and no room gain for my subs.

 

[C37]

Hi there,

Nice job. Just a word of caution with acres of fiberglass in a room, was'nt fiberglass banned from loudspeakers
years ago because it decays in very fine dust that is extremely irritating to lungs?

 

[Highef]

The heavy application of 703 was important because of the wide range of audio and musical purposes that the room must serve. It seems to me that recording rooms and mixing rooms in the music business seem to follow similar design philosophies-- I wonder why audiophile room tuning doesn't seem to share the same ideas...

I ask that question every day. The first thing any audiophile should do is, before buying or building any equipment, treat as many corners as possible with 703 4" (or related) and also the first reflection points. That's for me the first thing to do when it is related to audio.
I spent many years trying to find solutions for my rooms since I was in the university and 2 years ago I found the final solution when I decided to look into the mastering guys resources.

I call it "the secret".

regards
HF

 

[Standalone]

Hi there,

Nice job. Just a word of caution with acres of fiberglass in a room, was'nt fiberglass banned from loudspeakers
years ago because it decays in very fine dust that is extremely irritating to lungs?

Hi, thanks.

I don't think that there are any forces acting on it to "decay" it, and it's covered, at least on the front.

I'm pretty hypervigilant about toxicicty in my home environment and in food and so on-- threw out my BPA stuff long before it made mainstream news, etc... but I'm not concerned about this covered fiberglass doing any harm. I have looked and have not found any proof of serious long term effects of fiberglass, especially to a simple homeowner/consumer who might use/install it on rare occasions.

I'd be more wary if I were installing it day after day as a career, or working in a factory where it was produced.

Also, if you see the stuff (mine is certainteed brand, but the standard is OC), you'd see how dense and compact it is-- nothing is falling apart or flaking off.

 

[Standalone]

Looks good to me. For listening, you can get it too dead. Not that the sound is bad, but that your brais sees you are in a room, but your ears don't hear reflections. Brains don't like to get conflicting information. Don't know how dead that is, as I have not made it there yet. Yet outside, no reflections, your brain thinks this is OK usually. Although I set up on my patio once and did not think it was as nice as my living room. Imaging too point source and no room gain for my subs.

Right-- I picked this up in the recording forums... hardwood floors are good because the ear is so used to picking up sounds that emanate from a source and then have a first reflection from the floor/ground.

It follows that making the ceiling "disappear" accoustically would not be as bad as making the floor "disappear" with carpeting. Our brain is used to hearing sounds outdoors, right? No ceiling there.

I'm not planning on overdeadening the room, at any rate. There are still too many peaks and nulls in the bass response as I walk around, so most of what I have will go to bass trapping.

Another issue is over dampening the high frequencies w/o sufficiently treating the bass. This would give a room a dead but still boxy sound, whether listening or recording. This is what covering the walls in auralex will do, and why those 4" thick traps are hanging in the corners in my room.

Now all I need to do is fix my maggies and really put the room to the test!