Curved masonite panels

[damonrpayne]

I'm trying to put together an all-inclusive plan for my room. Can anyone recommend good web resources for the construction & placement of curved masonite panels?

[dbflash]

Lowes.

It's peg board without the holes.

I found it in the molding department.

Home Depot also has it.

I think it's about $8 for a 4x8 sheet.

I used 1x2's for the bracing.

If you have a nail gun it helps. I tried pre drilling holes and using sheetrock screws, but I ended up splitting the wood. I used yellow glue and the screws were just to keep everything together while the glue dried.

Once you build the first one they are real easy to build and they worked in my room. I built 2 for the time being.I think it took about two hours.

Danny

[DrWho]

Here's the dope from hope on it:

As far as placement goes, early reflection points are a great place to start (the spot on the wall where you would see the speaker in a mirror). You could probably make them cover from floot to cieling to make it look like pillars or something in your room (perhaps paint it a different color too). They look really cool when you get subtle dramatic light shining on them.

Another good place to put them is in the corners of the room...perhaps fill them in with Roxul (Michael Hurd can get you hooked up) so that they work as bass traps too. At my place in Michigan I had very good results mounting them on the cieling (mirror trick again) and on the walls behind the listening position too. Though you would probably get better results using the RPG skyline stuff on the cieling. I got the best results mounting the panels across the trihedral corners above/behind the mains (where the front and side walls meet the cieling)...though it would probably look rather tacky if you were trying to make the room look good.

When placing the panels, you want to make it so that the reflected sound travels in your general direction that way the sounds that are being reflected towards the listening position have already been diffracted (the goal here isn't to get rid of reflections, but to reduce their magnitude).

[dbflash]

What the good Dr said.

Also the friction holds the panel in place. The first one I built i made it from floor to the bottom of the crown molding with a 9" bo in it. I just stood it up and placed it over a French door, resting on the floor. The panel never slipped.

I have since moved my system and now I have them hanging on the wall.

I just bought some 1/4 round and nailed it in the groove between the panel and the frame.

Danny

[tofu]

----------------

On 7/11/2005 2:30:59 PM DrWho wrote:

As far as placement goes, early reflection points are a great place to start (the spot on the wall where you would see the speaker in a mirror).

----------------

the spot on the wall where you would see it in a mirror? i'm not following you too much here. would that still apply if your speakers are toe'd in? assuming you have the speakers aiming at the center of the rear wall, wouldn't that be the first reflection point? whereas putting a mirror there, you obviously wouldnt see the two speakers.

granted, i'm not too educated on how sound waves travel and such, but it just seems logical to me this way. i would then assume that after hitting the back wall, they would then reflect at the same angle toward the side walls and such. if i was to over simplify it, i would say i'm picturing this kind of like hitting a ball on a pool table.

your idea for setting them up like columns sounds good. but for me to pull that off i'd have to set them up somewhat symetrically. and everything i've read says to avoid symmetry as much as possible

[DrWho]

----------------

the spot on the wall where you would see it in a mirror? i'm not following you too much here. would that still apply if your speakers are toe'd in? assuming you have the speakers aiming at the center of the rear wall, wouldn't that be the first reflection point? whereas putting a mirror there, you obviously wouldnt see the two speakers.

----------------

For this to work you need to sit in the main listening position and you are allowed to turn your head. Basically, have a friend hold up a mirror and move it along the wall until you can see the tweeter in the mirror and this is the center point where your panel should go. This is true of any kind of first order reflection treatment...whatever kind of panel you use, it gets centered there. To take this a step further you may want to sit in every listening position (ie both sides of the couch) and mark each location and make sure your panel covers all of it. Does this make better sense or do I need to bust out the sketches?

And yes, it still works if you toe in your speakers.

----------------

granted, i'm not too educated on how sound waves travel and such, but it just seems logical to me this way. i would then assume that after hitting the back wall, they would then reflect at the same angle toward the side walls and such. if i was to over simplify it, i would say i'm picturing this kind of like hitting a ball on a pool table.

----------------

It's exactly like hitting a pool ball (well if you want to get technical, the air is like a bunch of pool balls flowing down the table). Angle of incidence = angle of reflection.

----------------

your idea for setting them up like columns sounds good. but for me to pull that off i'd have to set them up somewhat symetrically. and everything i've read says to avoid symmetry as much as possible

----------------

Hmmmm, I have never heard that symmetry was bad. In fact, I've heard the complete opposite from all my sources...Maintaining stereo symmetry is one of the most important things when listening to 2-channel music, or even movies for that matter. Are you perhaps confusing it with trying to avoid parallel surfaces or something else?

[tofu]

----------------

Are you perhaps confusing it with trying to avoid parallel surfaces or something else?

----------------

ah yes, that could be it. thanks for clearing things up for me, you've been a great help.

edit: as for avoiding parallel surfaces, should i only places these masonite creations on two of my walls? i was planning on just putting them on the back (the wall my couch is against) and one of my side walls.

also, should i have them placed on the wall behind my speakers and to the side of my speakers? kind of like boxing them in with the masonite panels? if i do this, i don't think i'll be able to keep them a foot away from the panels, i'd be losing way too much space in my 11'x11' room

[DrWho]

because your room is so small and your speakers are tucked into the corners, I would say that the side wall reflections actually won't be very harmful because any reflection that does occur is going to happen in a short amount of time (so at the worst you get a little smear, but it's nothing major).

The walls behind you is a good spot as it will help to spread out reflections from behind your head. Some people like to use heavy absorbtion on the back walls (live front, dead rear), which means the masonite isn't the best option if you wanted that dead back wall sound. I would say treating your front wall between the speakers would probably be a good idea because it'll help clean up some of the lingering sound bouncing around up front. It's pretty much up to you to decide where they sound the best though.

Btw, make sure you paint the panels before you go about putting them up in your room. At least the panels I have have this fraying thing happening on the edge which gets in the air and it's like breathing sawdust all the time. Perhaps it's because I got the panels from my dad who had been storing them in the garage where they got wet and swelled a bit just like MDF. Just curious if dbflash was dealing with the same thing. And then if you paint them, it's a good idea to prime them first that way the oils in the wood doesn't cause your paint to get all messed up as the oils breathe.