m00n Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 Ok, so I admit it. I love this theater so YES, I am going to make my room look like it. It will not look identical, nor will it be quit as fancy, but it will look very similar. This theater can be found in the January 2003 issue of "Audio Video Interiors" Anyway... This room was created by a professional service using various types of pannels. I am not a professional nor do I care to try and figure out how do *EXACTLY* redupe what they did in that area. How I am going to mimic this room is by creating cloth panels. Think of an artists paint canvas. You know how it has a wood frame with a canvas stretched over it? Well, that's how my panels are going to be. I know I should go for accoustically transparent material. However, the material I have picked out, I don't know how transparent it will be. I found a material that I like, it's 100% polyester with a nice tight weave. It has just the tinyest bit of sheen to it. I am hoping that it will not have TOO much of a dramatic affect on the rooms accoustic nature. Hell, my room was never designed or built in the first place to be a theater so how badly could doing what I am going to do to it affect it in a negative way? Any comments and thoughs on how all this material will accoustically affect the sound is greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill H. Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 m00n, Trying to follow your threads. You were talking about sound absorbing panels....don't know if you saw these, but the Idea looks interesting...........hope I haven't stepped in the wrong direction. http://www.sonex-online.com/Room%20Acoustics.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted April 22, 2003 Author Share Posted April 22, 2003 I have seen that site, but I have never really look into it. I may consider something like that. I had a guy come out about 6 months ago before I tore my theater appart for reconstruction. I told him I was going to have him come back once I was done. I probably will have him come out before I start applying the fabric panels just to get his input. He had indicated some ceiling treatment prior to my reconstruction. He may have a different story now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted April 22, 2003 Share Posted April 22, 2003 I guess it depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your panels. I think your panels will do several things: - they will deaden the sound in your room to some extent, whether or not they are acoustically transperent. When i say "deaden" the sound i'm talking about the reduction of standing waves, similar to the effect of adding a carpet to the room. The frequencies they will affect will be dictated by the fabric and the insulation placed behind, but don't expect much effect below the midrange. It does produce a "quieter" feeling to the room... but to much damping can make a room sound dead. - the panels placed on the side walls near the speakers will reduce the primary reflections. Since your speakers are horn loaded, it's effects won't be as dramatic as those which have a wide dispersion (dome tweeters). That is why some speakers sound so different when placed near a wall, as the the sound reaching you is the sum of the direct and reflected sounds. Again, this will affect mostly the high frequencies. - the panels will also make the room seem larger from an acoustical point of view, esp when considering the low frequencies. If i'm not mistaken (feel free to correct me if i'm wrong) increasing the rooms dimensions should lower the primary resonant frequency of the room... I'm sure i'll think of some others points... but all-in-all i do think it's a nice idea. Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted April 23, 2003 Author Share Posted April 23, 2003 Panels may be a bit missleading. They are going to be nothing more than a wooden frame with material wrapped around them. So essentualy hollow. I found some molding that looked to be strong enough to support the idea and it had a small 45 degree bevel on one side which will give me the same affect that those professional pannels have. As far as the fabric. As I mentioned, it's 100% polyester. But it's a very tight weave so it does not stretch at all. It's NOT porus either, it also has a bit of a shine however ever so slight. You can't blow through this stuff very easily. You would have to blow hard to get any air to flow though it. However everything you have said so far about the potiential sound, sounds very good to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 All you would need to turn them into acoustical panels would be some semi-rigid fibreglass insulation (like the old Glasclad panels, or the yellow stuff they use in the vinyl-covered acoustic ceiling tile) and a more porous material. I'm also quite confident that they would partially function even if the fabric isn't entirely transparent, but I'm just not sure of the extent. My guess you'd mostly lose out on high frequency attenuation. I like the sketch... kinda what I figured you were aiming for minus the insulation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted April 23, 2003 Author Share Posted April 23, 2003 My goal was not to alter the sound of the room with these panels. At least not initially. I was hoping that they would have as little impact on the sound as possible. However, now you have me wondering about something. You said you suspect that only the high freqencies would be affected. This leads me to belive both mids and lows would still bounce around the room. That being the case, would that throw off the sound? If the highs are being stopped, but the mids and lows are still bouncing around, that seems to me as though it could have a bad affect. As far as the sketch goes, I messed up. I should have colored the inside of the frame gray so that you could easily tell that it was hollow. But thanks. I whipped it out in about 10 minutes using Windows Paint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 Actually, i should have been a little clearer on which "sounds" were affected... and how they would change the overall character of the room. I hate to tell you, but your room is already altering the sound of your speakers... wall treatement helps control it. Speakers are usually rate for their frequency range given a certain variance in loudness (eg: 35Hz to 20kHz ±3db) which were measured in an anechoic chamber. Speakers cannot achieve this ideal in the real world due to room interactions even if the speaker itself had a perfectly flat response. An anechoic chamber takes the room out of the equation to test the speaker itself. Basically we are talking about resonant frequencies and echo. You walk into a church with it's hard surfaces and very little absorption material and you get a lot of echo over the whole frequency band... and is not really the way you want to listen to movies or music. Walk into your local theatre, and it's a totally different story with its ceiling, walls, and floor treatments. Another example would be a new home before you move any furniture in... with little material to absorb reflections, it sounds like a big empty box, annoying even to talk to one another. You then install the drapes, bring in the sofa, etc... and all of a sudden things start to calm down. The direct radiating sound will not be affected by the sound damping, but the reflections will, so in a sense the speakers will perform closer to their specs. Two other items I mentioned in my previous post that I'd like to clarify. Low Frequencies: I mentioned that the wall treatment wouldn't attenuate these frequencies much, and this is because their long wave lengths they would require very thick insulation. Measure any room, and you will see that it's got some pretty important resonances in this region. If you want flat, you got to EQ your sub and/or add bass traps, otherwise lower the resonant frequency can help by flatting your speakers response. Example, you have Belles which roll off (-3db) around 45Hz and your room resonance is at 55Hz... your room response will have a large peak right before it rolls off. Lots of kick but no rumble. Lower the resonant frequency to 30Hz, and all of a sudden as your Belles become less efficient (45Hz) the room comes in and helps boost it back up. This is obviously an ideal situation, but nothing is really that perfect in practice.... Primary reflections: There are a couple of excellent white papers at Harmon by Floyd which goes into great detail on how the primary reflections affect the overall sound of a speaker. In a generalized summary, what you hear at the seating position is the sum of the direct sound and primary reflection. Remember that a speaker is rated in an anechoic chamber without and reflections. This is one of the places where specs can be really deceiving as it may not have an even dispersion pattern over all frequencies, therefore certain frequencies will get boosted more than others by these primary reflections. That is why you will often see acousticians place sound absorbing material on the side walls near the main speakers. I believe the THX spec requires horn loaded speakers to be used just for this reason... as the horn can control the dispersions pattern quite accurately, and primary reflections can be kept to a minimum. An advantage most Klipsch speakers have, which isn't often measured in an anechoic chamber. All this said, I'm personally set up in a asymmetrical room with little treatment and a 10db resonant frequency at around 40Hz... Moon, want to trade rooms with me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted April 23, 2003 Author Share Posted April 23, 2003 ---------------- On 4/23/2003 9:40:36 AM formica wrote: All this said, I'm personally set up in a asymmetrical room with little treatment and a 10db resonant frequency at around 40Hz... Moon, want to trade rooms with me? ---------------- I don't know. So much of what you just said when right over my head that I don't know if it would be a good or bad thing. Let me re-read your last post a few times first before I make that trade. I do appreciate the in debth explanation though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy81 Posted April 23, 2003 Share Posted April 23, 2003 Moon: Do yourself a favor and next time you are at a good bookstore, or cruising Amazon.com, pick up a copy of "The master handbook of acoustics" by F. Alton Everest. This book should be in every audio enthusiast's library. This book will tell you more about room acoustics than you ever wanted to know. I just finished building 6 acoustic absorber panels for my HT. The panels will be used to control unwanted frequency problems. I have yet to build panels or tubes to control low frequencies, but it is planned. Looking at your idea of panels, you will be set up to "tune" your room at a later date by adding high density fiberglass to your panels in selected areas. Good luck with your project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben. Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 m00n- Nice looking room to shoot for. In that other thread, when I was referring to fabric as acoustically transparent, what I meant was that it allowed sound to pass THROUGH it. This requires, a loose, open weave. Muslin was the example, and you would be able to easily blow through it. The material you have in mind, with its tight weave and shiny finish should actually be quite reflective and hopefully relatively acoustically neutral. They are opposite extremes, but actually would funciotn in much the same way. The muslin would allow most of the sound through to reflect off the surface underneath, while your material would most likely reflect much of the sound itself. Keep in mind these are BROAD generalizations and I had too little Calculus to really get through upper level Physics!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 DAT'S GROSS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted April 24, 2003 Author Share Posted April 24, 2003 ---------------- On 4/24/2003 6:40:58 PM artto wrote: DAT'S GROSS ---------------- What's gross? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben. Posted April 24, 2003 Share Posted April 24, 2003 Digital Audio Tape? There is such a thing we call "DAT POOP", usually deposited in the first 5 min. of the tape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted April 25, 2003 Share Posted April 25, 2003 The room, its gross Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted April 25, 2003 Author Share Posted April 25, 2003 Well, I guess it's good for you it's not your room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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