Tips to improve the acoustics?

[Flevoman]

Good day,

Apparently, I have an acoustic problem that became apparent after purchasing my Lascala AL-5 speakers.
My living room is 38x18 feet , and both the walls and ceiling are made of concrete with a plaster layer. The result is a delightful echo that doesn't do justice to the sound quality.
As a test, I hung large thick cloths on both walls, covering a significant portion of them. This resulted in a considerable improvement in the sound.

Now, I want to tackle the walls and possibly the ceiling myself, covering them with a material or panels that at least match the effect of the cloths, but preferably surpass it.
When I search on Google, it presents various companies that offer products for this purpose, but apart from some exorbitant prices, I can't find any information on the level of absorption of these materials. Nowhere do I see a unit of measurement (if it even exists) that provides insight into the magnitude of the effect it will have.

 

Are there any members who have personal experience with this and know which products work well, at least matching or even surpassing my cloth test?

[MicroMara]

 

[Flevoman]

Thx.. Nice read 😊

[MMurg]

For my Jubilee room I used the 2' x 4' x 2-inch thick "Hardened-Edge Acoustic Panels" from ATS Acoustics (https://www.atsacoustics.com/ATS-hardened-edge-acoustic-panels.html).  These panels have no wood frame and are therefore very light weight.  For the ceiling I created a 4-panel cloud.  Since the panels are so light, I was able to hang them with some hooks with wall anchors and two lengths of closet pole using the Rotofast Cloud Anchors (with cable ties) that are one of the hanger options when purchasing the panels.  For the walls, I used the same panels at the first reflection points on the side and rear walls that I located using the mirror method (putting a mirror against the wall, sitting at the listening position, and seeing there the reflections of the speakers were) and two on the front wall between the speakers.  I also used the Rotofast Cloud Anchors to hang these as well.  I simply used large picture frame hooks to hold the circle part of the cloud anchor.  Unfortunately, the panels are a bit pricy.  However, since I stink at wood working, it was worth it to me.

[MicroMara]

here´s a perfect example from @babadono ´s room , scroll down and have a look

 

 

[babadono]

Any reputable company will give links to independent acoustic lab test results somewhere on their product website. There are absorbers, diffusors and resonators. The  first two are effective in helping with reverb and echo. With absorbers the general rule is the thicker they are the lower in frequency their ability to a absorb. And so the thicker ones are referred to as bass traps. In small rooms bass taming is quit important as standing waves will make places in the room have too much and others too little bass. Your room sounds fairly large but it is NOT an auditorium or concert hall and is still considered a small room. Resonators are designed to absorb a particular frequency( or small band of frequencies) to tame a specific problem whereas the panels are broadband absorbers. Absorbers work by actually absorbing sound energy and turning it into heat and not letting it reflect. Diffusors work by scattering the sound energy by turning an incident sound wave into many smaller non directional waves.

I have recently applied many acoustic treatments to my listening room and wish I had done it long ago, It is vastly improved.

I see @MicroMara has already pointed to my thread.

[Tom05]

Carpet is a very affective and simple way to control reverberation/ echo. Carpet is an easy way to install a large area of absorbent material to a room . You can add absorption to a wall , but it may be  challenging to get the  surface area and therefore value required  .  Acoustic absorption coefficient values are published for common surface  materials , and  can then be averaged to meet the goal for your room .Too much  absorption in a home isn’t usually a problem, too little can definitely be a problem . 

[babadono]

Here is my list in order of importance to my enjoyment of reproduced audio:

1.) The quality of the recording.

2.) The room and its acoustics and acoustic treatments.

3.) the Loudspeakers.

4.) The rest of the shit.

[MMurg]

@babadono reminded me that I forgot to mention that I have four corner bass traps from ATS Acoustics in my Jubilee room as well.  I have them stacked in the rear corners behind the La Scala surrounds (because there is no room behind the Jubilee in the front).  I've also been contemplating adding some diffusers to the back of the room as well.

[Tom05]

5 minutes ago, MMurg said:

@babadono reminded me that I forgot to mention that I have four corner bass traps from ATS Acoustics in my Jubilee room as well.  I have them stacked in the rear corners behind the La Scala surrounds (because there is no room behind the Jubilee in the front).  I've also been contemplating adding some diffusers to the back of the room as well.

Wow , a 1000 horsepower up front and 800 in the back , sweet 🤓

[babadono]

30 minutes ago, Tom05 said:

Carpet is an easy way to install a large area of absorbent material to a room

Yea but carpet sucks. Just MHO. Not one square inch in my house thank you very much. Wool rugs yes, carpet no. Rugs can be cleaned/replaced, Carpet of course the same but it is an ordeal I don't like to deal with/pay for.

[flatgrass]

3 hours ago, Flevoman said:

I can't find any information on the level of absorption of these materials. Nowhere do I see a unit of measurement (if it even exists) that provides insight into the magnitude of the effect it will have.

Look for NRC (noise reduction coefficient) ratings on acoustic panels. 

 

Some products give a table or graph as such:

(basis to compare products)

 

[KT88]

These people have already prepared their listening room super well some time ago with absorption material...of the very cheap kind. Unfortunately, the arrival of the Klipsch Jubilees has been delayed 400 years. For information, these are not paintings but carpets.

 

[Racer X]

Tube traps, the more the better.  Then you may get some bass delineation....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flevoman]

Thank you for the tips that are being given.

And sorry for my late response, it's been a bit of a chaotic week here 🙄.
But bass traps... aren't they just for filtering out the low frequencies?
They don't really help much with the echo issue I have in my living room, right?
Also, I saw the price of 1 bass trap... 1500,- 😳
I haven't looked further, maybe I stumbled upon the most exotic bass trap available. But I will never spend that much on something like this 😄.

[babadono]

If the bass trap is an absorber type and does not have any diffusor plate on the front or somewhere internally it will absorb the higher frequencies also. And therefore help with reverb and echo also...I'm no expert in acoustics, I just knew I needed to do something with my room. And then started looking/researching. There are reasonably priced products out there and too expensive for my blood products also. Check out Acoustimac, ATS, GIK and Music City Acoustics. I'm sure there are others also. There is also tons of info to DIY if you so desire. I did not want to go that route, I have enough projects to do currently. I got the majority of my panels from Acoustimac. They were excellent to deal with. Any defects whether manufacturing or shipping and the panel(s) were replaced free of charge/no hassle. If the damage was minor I repaired it and so basically got BOGO. Acoustimac had no problem with this.

@Flevoman I now am noticing you are in the Netherlands. I have no idea if any US company products can/will ship there. And I have no idea about European companies. Surely there must be some?

[babadono]

23 hours ago, KT88 said:

These people have already prepared their listening room

Let them eat cake!

[JohnA]

Sounds like you have a hard, bright room.

 

Carpet and furniture help and should be done first. 

 

Very heavy stage curtains could work, but I never found where I could buy them. 

 

Look at A/C duct board.  For your place, I'd say use 2" thick duct board.  The absorption will be similar to the chart above (1.0 is like an open window, 100%).  Build panel frames from 2"x2" in various sizes, fill with duct board, cover with a thin, fine mesh, neutral colored cloth, say like a bed sheet, cover that with a coarse, burlap-like cloth in a festive color and mount to the walls where you want to reduce reflections. 

 

You can build bass traps in a similar fashion.  Build a 2 x 2 box out of 2" x 2" lumber, say 4' to 6' tall, cover with chicken wire, or similar, fill sorta loosely with unfaced fiberglass batts and cover as above to make it attractive.  Put those mostly in the corners.  I'd start with 2 in the rear and make more as needed. 

 

I am sure you could buy something premade.  I got my inspiration from the cubicle walls I lived in for 25 years. 

[YK Thom]

We are planning on installing the adhesive foam ceiling tiles in our condo. There are several companies that make them.

[amped]

No personal experience but this may help w/ respect to curtains, etc:

 

https://www.rosebrand.com

 

There used to be a board material called homasote used for sound absorption and for pinning things to.

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by amped
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