Where to start with room treatments?


Hello all,

Unfortunatly,I do not have a dedicated room, but I do have a nice 2 channel system. However, between my speakers sits a entertaiment cabinet with a 36" TV screen . The room is a living room that strechs into a dining room, ceiling hieght is about 9'. Beyond the left speaker is a sliding glass door to the deck and to the right is the extension of the room into the dining room. i.e the set up is along the "long" wall of the room.

Where do I start when thinking of adding room acoustic treatments. There is no room for bass traps...Ceiling corners? Hang someting on the wall behing the couch (listening seat)?
jb8312
Too bad about the bass traps, but perhaps you can do something about first reflection points and the wall/wall and wall/ceiling junctions.

First reflection points are the spots on the wall (and ceiling) where you would see a speaker's reflection from your listening chair if you placed a mirror there. The treated area doesn't have to be huge, a couple of square feet. Both absorbers and diffusers can be used.

The wall/wall/ceiling junction is what you are thinking of when you mention ceiling corners. That would help with overbright sound and confusion in the upper mids. You can also treat all along the top of your wall, about six inches below the ceiling junction, with narrow pillows of different lengths, stuffed with polyester batting. Easy to run up on a sewing machine but the life partner needs to be consulted, especially on colour.

Try to bring your speakers' front baffles as much forward of the entertainment cabinet as you can.

Hope this helps!
Get a futon pad do the old trial and error method. Works for mids/highs/imaging but not bass. Easy way to check for bass resonance is walk around the room, listening for weak and strong points.
If the enter'Pain'ment center is one of those wide/big puppies then a way to move the speakers closer together and in front of it does wonders.Make sure that thing isn't standing between loudspeakers.Because you usually end up with a hole in the image and poor depth of field.
Oh,yes if it does not have doors which can be closed to hide television,a blanket over sets CRT helps.
If you haven't been to our website there is quite a lot of free resouces, including many web articles that can help you. Read as much as you can and experiment with inexpensive items, and then later you can buy the more expensive nicer looking treatment (or build some of the devices yourself).

Acoustics Resource Page
Thanks all for your information...

If a walk around the room listening to where the bass sounds better, what does that tell me? There are ponits within the room where the bass is tighter...What to do?

I have pulled the speakers as far as I can without getting some spousal interferance..the front baffel is about 3 inchs in front.

I think most of all I would like to tame the highs a little..

jtb