Soffit construction, worthwhile?


Currently considering redoing the room. Planning to redo the traps and diffusors along the walls and corners. The soffit contruction would incur significant inconvenience and cost?

Is the Soffir project worthwhile and what is the sonic benefit?
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Showing 1 response by shadorne

If you look at my virtual system then it may give you some ideas.

Soffit mount is what professionals and acoustic engineers prefer to use for high fidelity setups in studios. There are very solid physics reasons for soffit mounting speakers. It is the only way to get a true point source imaging for lower midrange and bass response. The conventional approach with freestanding speakers almost always has holes (suckouts) in the frequency response and the baffle diffraction is always there (affects imaging). You can do it yourself but you'll need to do a lot of research.

Here is an example of what is usually done by a professional acoustic engineer in a studio. They recommend soffit mount but not all clients are prepared to go to these kind of lengths to get good sound.

An alternative is to use near-fields and place them well out into the room and very close to the listener. Many studios use nearfields - this is cheapest and simplest approach. Unfortunately near-fields only work for one listener - so you can't impress the clients without a proper well designed acoustic setup and properly designed soffit mount systems sound the best.