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Room Treatment: Diffusion


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I’ll have my seating against the back wall soon as well. I only have similar bass traps to put at the reflection point on that rear wall. Would that be enough or will I have to do more like hang up a large thick curtain on the wall? I know acoustic solutions has a carpet like absorption you can glue to walls so that could be an option but both the curtain and the carpet are a bit much for me. I’d rather get more absorption panels than those options.



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I have no experience with absorption panels but I would think they could be better than the light curtains, heavy curtains with a backing might be better ? 

 

I said that because without anything behind a seating position tight on the back wall you would get alot of reflections from the wall right behind your head. Anything would be better than nothing to help cancel some of that. 

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Curtains can do a fantastic job... but they need to be of the proper construction.

 

Just about every theater is lined with hanging material absorption.

 

I am getting these eventually because I have four huge Windows that are only covered with dual layer black out curtains. These Moon Dreams are up to four layers thick and really not to expensive... unless you need 6x108" and 4x63"  😵

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Schu, those curtains look great, and the pricing isn't bad at all.

 

Our music room/former 2 car garage has two glass patio doors on them. Those curtains would do wonders for the light and the temp control. We have double curtains on them now, and the room is not bad acoustically, but these would probably be a step up.

 

Bruce

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I ordered some more panels yesterday. Gonna try some diffusion in between the absorbed reflection points to cover the glass on the fireplace to see if anything can be gained.ff0bdb8df4eb63245acab6c086759855.jpg

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Got my panels yesterday. Covering the fireplace glass with a diffusion panel didn't do anything audible.....to my surprise.

After a lot of experimenting with placement/orientation of the panels I think I'm done.....and satisfied with the results I must say.....

Diffusion on the front wall with the exception of the 24"x24"x2" absorption panels directly behind the speakers mids and tweets. I experimented with and without and they gotta stay. With them in place they provide a warmth to the speaker that I think any Klipsch model could benefit from.

Diffusion on the side walls toward the rear in addition to absorption at the reflection points.

All absorption on the rear wall since it is directly behind the listening position. This includes heavy drapes covering the large 11x5 window.

One of the surprises in the improvements.....in the last few months I've been going back and forth between two amps. One amp had more detail and clarity so it stayed. The other amp sounded great but lacked in this regard so it went to another system in the house. After establishing where all my treatments were going to stay, I brought that amp back for another shot at the title. Wow. Even though this amp has just been restored recently, it sounded like just that......like someone just gave that amp a kick butt tune-up. It's totally cleaned up when in fact, it is not the amp at all that made the improvement.

This diffusion is the real deal. I spent a total of about $700.00 on 12 panels to do my entire listening room and it was worth every penny. After the reading I had done prior and during, integrating both absorption and diffusion in my listening room has really paid off and I would highly recommend it to anyone that wants the most out of their listening experience. No doubt about it.

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Curtains can do a fantastic job... but they need to be of the proper construction.
 
Just about every theater is lined with hanging material absorption.
 
I am getting these eventually because I have four huge Windows that are only covered with dual layer black out curtains. These Moon Dreams are up to four layers thick and really not to expensive... unless you need 6x108" and 4x63"  [emoji43]
I'm interested in those curtains for my big window behind my listening spot. The ones I have now are some type of thick velvet(?) I think. They are pretty much dead as a door nail so I'm wondering what the advantages would be with the ones in your link. The ones I have now I think are only one layer thick, though.

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Are there first reflection points to the sides of the horns for Klipschorns or were they designed not to have those reflections? I tried the mirror test and I never see the Klipschorn on the front or side wall. Is that absorption better used on the back wall or is it still necessary to have absorption on both front and side wall of the horns anyway?


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Well, after much experimenting and 16 diffusion panels later......I found the proper balance between using absorption and diffusion in my room.

Although my front stage is 90% diffusion, there is still some absorption behind the speakers at mid-tweet level. This has proven to be VERY beneficial. Even though the difference with/without it is very audible, I went back and forth several times. The absorption behind the mids-tweets adds focus to the imaging and most of all adds warmth to the sound. This is big in my book and have to believe any Klipsch would benefit from it.

The rear wall is 90% absorption (it is directly behind the listening position) and 10% diffusion. More absorption than diffusion (or nothing at all) on the back wall puts more attention...or focus...on the front stage. If I put more diffusion on the back wall, the sound gets bigger....more room filling....BUT robs overall sound quality. It's not quite as 'right'. I went back and forth on this and much preferred predominantly having absorption on the back wall with a minimal amount of diffusion up high.

Lately, I've been jammin my solid state equipment. Since I had my tube integrated restored, as good as it sounds I couldn't slightly boost the bass and treble like I normally did before.....until this morning. On my HH Scott 222c I would normally have the bass and treble slightly boosted to about 1:00. So now after all the treatments are in place to my liking, I decided to try the 222c again and I was blown away. The warmth, richness and detail is remarkable. I can honestly say the room treatments took it to another level. I was actually going to sell it because I just found myself listening to my solid state gear pretty much all the time. This tube amp ain't going anywhere. In fact I just ordered another quad of 7189 tubes 15 minutes ago. I've fallen in love with the sound of this amp all over again and it certainly was because of the improvement in the room's acoustics.

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On 9/27/2018 at 9:48 AM, Maximus89 said:

Are there first reflection points to the sides of the horns for Klipschorns or were they designed not to have those reflections? I tried the mirror test and I never see the Klipschorn on the front or side wall. Is that absorption better used on the back wall or is it still necessary to have absorption on both front and side wall of the horns anyway?
 

 

Gee, I see my Khorns in the mirror during the mirror test in my room.  How wide is the wall you face when listening to music?  How far away is it from the main listening position?

 

See Chris A's post "Corner horn imaging" on this forum.

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51 minutes ago, garyrc said:

 

Gee, I see my Khorns in the mirror during the mirror test in my room.  How wide is the wall you face when listening to music?  How far away is it from the main listening position?

 

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ff0bdb8df4eb63245acab6c086759855.jpg

 

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So here is the final arrangement. By far, the biggest influence besides the absorption at the reflection points on the side walls is the two diffusion panels on each side of the TV just inside the mains and the absorption panels behind the speakers' mids and tweets.5d5adaa7cb96b69468ace874f2f1d29f.jpg091744139523939dd99048f0fcfe27f6.jpgbf4a19feea8e6e22b46e7ba6bdb51bc5.jpg4261ec71211013afb8074c0cbed1baf3.jpg

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I didn't mention it but those are 15"x18"x72" subwoofers. THTLP subs designed by Bill Fitzmaurice and built by forum member JasonSTR.[emoji106]

question [mention=15340]SWL[/mention]
what did you say the large black upright 7' looking rectangular objects are, in the front wall corners ?
I was under the impression, that corners were reserved for the Klipschorn or a Bass Trap, the later being triangular....
  
 


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I ordered some 48" bass traps that sit off the corner... we'll see if they actually do anything. I am a little skeptical of bass trap usage in a room that is already producing excellent bass characteristics.

 

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I ordered some 48" bass traps that sit off the corner... we'll see if they actually do anything. I am a little skeptical of bass trap usage in a room that is already producing excellent bass characteristics.
Yeah, I like to think that if it ain't broke don't fix it......but I usually experiment anyway.

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It's tweakfest here today and these diffusion panels are freaking me out. The four that are up-above-behind my mains were all scattering vertically. I rotated two of them so that they are staggered with two scattering vertically and two horizontally.

The sound changed. It is more open sounding but it's kinda weird. The imaging and focus are still there but it's different.....more airy sounding. Gonna have to live with it for a while and then switch back.

I think that living with an over absorbed room for so long has made this a challenge for me in some aspects. Too much absorption sounds congested after hearing my room breath now with some diffusion. I experimented with no treatments several times to check myself. It sounds nasty every time. I'd rather have too much absorption than no treatments at all but in the end, absorption and diffusion is the ticket no doubt. 83c837cf04507ac5236c7e8c05bcf24a.jpg

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