Help with room treatment?

Contact GIK acoustics. You can upload everything to them and they'll give you the best professional advice I know of, plus really affordable products.


https://www.gikacoustics.com/

I had a similar experience. Four walls in a dedicated room, empty except for the system, you get all the normal reflections only much more dramatically because of the flat surfaces. None of the usual clutter to break them up.

Watch yourself here. Lotta guys have this unstoppable reflex when giving advice. It goes like this: SPEND MONEY! BUY! PAY!

I’m sure you will see it. If you haven’t already. Like I said its a reflex. No thought. No understanding. No consideration. Reflex. Plain, dumb, mindless reflex.

Simple, easy and FREE test to see if I’m on the right track: clap. Stand different places. Clap. Listen. If the room is really empty and untreated you will hear a sound called flutter echo. Its the sound of the clap as it bounces from side to side and from one end to the other. Related to this, if you play a CD with test tones and move around you will notice places where the tone is really loud, others where it drops way off. Sometimes depending on the frequency these can be anywhere from a few inches to a few feet apart.

Okay so that’s your assignment. Do both if you can but clap matters more than test tone. Get back to me when we know we’re on the same page. Or open your wallet. But I can get you sounding really, really good in a few hours and for like $100, if that. So your call.

Sound absorption panels at reflexion points, behind speakers and behind listening chair will help. Also bass traps in corners behind speakers. Check out ATS Acoustics for DIY products. I made 2x4' panels from their Roxul Rockboard 2", burlap fabric, and 1x3" pine in 6' lengths for frame with cardboard backing.  Six panels could be made very inexpensively. They also have material for building bass traps. I am not affiliated with ATS, just happy customer. 

Thank you! I have 2 fairly good bass traps (foam) in the corners behind speakers, 2/3 up the wall.
Grabbing 20 to 30 1'x1' acoustic panels this week and will see the improvement they make.
Millercarbon I will do that and let you know. Thank you.
Can anyone tell me how to attach pictures to this thread for some better help? 
It's possible my speakers are also misplaced.

For speaker placement- 

First big choice is do they go L/R across the long wall, or the short wall? Room layout might dictate one or the other and if so no worries. But if not then the only way to know is to try.

Next big choice is speakers and listening chair, how far or close to the wall? Several feet away from side and back walls is great for imaging but you will notice distinctly less bass. Sitting back near a wall you will get a lot more bass, but not as good imaging. No right answer, whatever you like is best.

But think about, will you be using just the two speakers? Or adding four subs in a proper distributed bass array? If DBA you can forget about bass for now and focus on imaging. 

Doing this part I find it easier to remove any speaker spikes and not fuss much over placement, toe-in, etc. The goal is just to find where you get the smoothest most even bass response.

Now hopefully you got these OC703 panels https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BJMX5P0/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B00BJMX5P0&pd_rd_w=i...
OC703 is real easy to work with except it does make this fine irritating fiberglass dust. Cut it with a razor blade or sheet rock knife, outdoors or in a shop, wearing latex gloves and a mask. Its not that bad but you will be a lot happier if you do it this way.

Pick up a box of stick pins, not thumb tacks, little pins about an inch long. Cut two panels about 12x12. Place them on the side walls to catch the first side reflection off each speaker. Alternatively you could lean one panel against the wall, with another above it held with pins. This is kind of overkill but you don't cut anything. Again there's no right or wrong. The only way to go wrong is just start doing stuff other people recommend without trying to find out if it actually works! lol!

This is all an iterative process. Now go back and tweak the speakers. Using a tape measure set them up to be exactly equidistant from your listening position. Then using a laser level, framing square, or creative measuring point them precisely the same amount of toe-in. Listen for imaging. Experiment with toe-in. This fine tunes both frequency response and imaging. More toe-in, more precise imaging. More toe-out, wider more spacious but also more diffuse presentation. No right answer. Experiment. Only way to know.

Not easy. Lotta work. Do all this and if you are not stunned then I will be. Because it totally works.

And we are just getting started. 

The problem with Tube Traps. Everybody says they go in the corners, right? Well, that’s not necessarily true. They should go where the standing wave is located. But the standing wave is often not located in the corner per se. it can be located a foot or two or more away from the corner. But all is not lost. Move the Tube Trap a few inches at a time away from the wall, first to the right of the corner, then to the left of the corner to see if there is an ideal location that is not in the corner. Ditto the first reflection points.

The speakers are on the shorter wall. I can move them to the longer wall but would prefer not to because I have a dedicated circuit ran to the plug they are connected to and the other wall would not have a dedicated circuit. Right now the speakers are about 3 feet off the side and front walls. Which makes them about 6 feet apart. Originally I had my 2 listening chairs 6 feet from the speakers.. although this left about 5 or 6 feet behind me to the back wall..it seemed way too close. Almost like I was only hearing one channel playing. When I moved the chairs closer to the end of the room it seemed to get better. Although this way I am now 8 or 9 feet from the speakers while they are only 6 feet apart.
I guess I should mention I was told my speakers have wide dispersion and was told to not toe in at all.. can I still toe them in a but anyway? Should I?
Thanks a bunch appreciate it a lot.
Also.. how do i add a picture to show you. May be easier if you can see the room set up??

To add pictures best thing to do is to create a system here
https://systems.audiogon.com

This is way you can keep it updated as things evolve 

thanks, just added some pics

Well you can always PM me.

Never be afraid to try things out. People will tell you things for all kinds of reasons, or no reasons at all. DYODD- do your own due diligence! 

You can send a photo but it turns out I am clairvoyant. I see two chairs side by side. Sitting close like you are even if the speakers are perfectly set up those chairs are always going to have you a foot or two one side or the other. Whichever side you are that's the speaker you're gonna hear. Its just never going to be any good.

If seating is more important than sound you can always put the chairs side by side. But for purposes of setup its a waste of time. Put one chair right in the middle, measure precisely exactly as described above using that one point. You will be shocked at the difference. Everyone is.

I worry that by precisely you think I mean real close. What I mean is within 1/16" or a millimeter. Precisely means precisely.

The "sweet spot" by the way is more a line or plane than a spot. Sitting in the sweet spot you should be able to move a few feet straight ahead or straight back and still have really good imaging. What you can't do is move side to side. Try it and see. Even an inch or two and the image will shift. Any more and the whole balance will shift. Move a foot and it'll be like you said, like its just one channel.

Again, its an iterative process.  We're talking two very different things going on at once. In one, you're moving the speakers several inches at a time listening for bass response. Doing this you just plop em approximately. You're looking for smooth bass. When you like where they are for bass response, then you measure and dial them in down to the last hair. 

Walls reinforce bass and have a huge impact on frequency response. But you don't want them the same distance from the front and side walls because then each wall is reinforcing the same frequency and you wind up with a big bass hump. So again you experiment, further apart, or further back. Mostly you want to listen for smooth bass response.

So you get them where the bass is smooth. Then you tweak them to where the imaging is rock solid. Then you make it even better by treating the first side wall reflection.

Then... but one step at a time.

Okay for the record I posted BEFORE looking at the pics! lol!

Love the records. Did the exact same thing one time myself. This big record company VP (no kidding) was coming over, my room was all new and empty, thought I had to do something, so I put some records out just exactly like you did. And the guy, he's a real good listener, as he's leaving he says its funny the sound stage wasn't quite as good on one side. Which really hurt. Because of who he was. And because I'd never noticed. Soon as he leaves I am in there listening and sure enough, and I know it was NOT like that before, so what....

No. Can't be. But like I keep saying you check, you take nothing for granted. So I remove those LPs and damn, that was it.

Move your chair a couple feet closer and smack dab in the center. And by smack dab I mean precisely ! lol!

What’s the rug made of? If it’s synthetic try replacing it with a similar natural wool rug. Synthetic rugs no matter how plush or comfortable impart a harsh tone. I’ve fallen into this trap a few times

plus the suggestions from millercarbon are good, especially about getting rid of asymmetric surfaces like the stacked LPs. In my room I can hear the sound of an exposed CD case, and it’s not pleasant 🤪

Thanks a ton for the input, everyone.
The lps will be in a record holder soon, waiting for it to be completed. Waiting for 2 inch foam acoustic panels to come in for side walls and front wall. 
I will try moving the chairs slightly closer. As well as making one centered and the other offset.
90 percent of the time I'm a lone ranger anyway.
Thanks again.

You will definitely need to experiment with room treatments.Get a few sheets of the 703 insulation and move them around and even double them up.Upload some pictures to GIK acoustics and take advantage of their free consultation.You aren't obligated to purchase anything.

I'd imagine the rug is synthetic. But it does have a very nice under pad below it. And wall to wall wasnt an option, so I figured it would be better than the full out laminate lol

Don't forget about the "free" room treatments.  I recently further experimented with speaker placement and was amazed by the sonic improvement from moving them further out from the rear wall. 

Empty room??  wrong....   I have a very large room with 18 ft. ceilings.  I've been working with trying this and that....speaker placement, furniture, rugs/no rugs, pictures on walls, etc...  sometimes it sounds better, sometimes not....I keep the good and continue listening. Very hard to get it right.  I remember an Alpha Duetta sports car I had with 2 2bl carbs.....similar.