Modernists Unite, or: saying no to room treatment

The biggest thing one can do to a room without impacting it too much visually is to treat the corners for echoslap. I own a bunch of Roomtunes corner traps, and a number of years ago, before adding Realtraps - which are amazing but intrusive - just treating the corners with those tiny Corner Tunes made even talking in the room much better.

That being said, I personally love bare hardwood floors with no rugs. I am now thinking I may try a rug just to see the effect.

70% of the final sound will be highly dependent on room setup, speaker reaction, position etc... So that being said this does not mean all rooms will be horrible with no room treatment.

However this also does not say a non-treated room will be better ultimately than one that is. So I think both sides have some points, but ultimately you would be totally doing a dis-service to yourself not believing if you already are UN-satisfied with your sound that you cannot improve it with proper room treatment, isolation, or just simply putting things in the best positions you already have, vs. replacing equipment or speakers 3 times a year.

Some already have great acoustics by accident and don't know it, this is for sure! Believe me I have experienced that as well, RARELY but I have. And generally these people never buy new stuff for good reason, they don't hear anything they don't like about it!

But those that find themselves never getting where they want, and cannot figure out the real things causing the issues can always be persuaded with the revelation of room acoustics if they simply do finally experience it once all else failed. Problem is this by nature is the exact backwards way to find out, most systems and money these guys spend at multiple thousands on that new amp and still don't find the end, they are the ones that unfortunately might have found their room with the money applied years ago would have sounded great with the 500 dollar amp they have replaced 4 times since!

Just part of the game, either way it might work out on one side or the other for some.

Remember every single case will have a different need.

On one hand, there are indeed many homes with really wretched acoustics! Many of them are simply unpleaseant to be in with any kind of noise whatsoever, let alone trying to make music . . . either from a recorded or a live source . . .

But on the other hand, typical domestic "high-end" loudspeakers are as a group REALLY behind the curve on being well-engineered for the type of acoustic situations in which they're likely to be placed -- this is a key area where professional sound-reinforcement systems are decades ahead of consumer audio, or even professional studio control-room monitors. Beginning in the mid-1980s, constant-directivity and controlled-directivity horns and arrays completely revolutionized the industry, based largely on improvements in computer-based acoustic modeling. So what's possible today in terms of high-quality sound (with excellent speech intelligability) in very large, reverberant spaces is hugely, vastly improved in the past twenty-five years or so.

There are precious few examples of this technology trickling into high-end audio, or even any attention toward the necessity for good directivity performance among "high-end" speaker designers. The Audiokinesis and Geddes horn designs are an exception to this, with excellent off-axis response and directivity characteristics . . . I'm guessing that that's why he feels that room treatment is less important than many others. Another example is David Moulton's "acoustic lens" as used in many of the B&O speakers, or the big 100x100 butt-cheek horns used on older JBL 44xx studio monitors.

To hear a good constant-directivity speaker design in a reverberant or undampened space can definately change one's opinion about what's "necessary" for room treatment. And it's not a matter of the room making the presentation "imprecise" or "colored" . . . it's more like hearing a singer or instrumentalist perform that really knows how to adapt their tone-production and projection for the space they're in. That is . . . like music, in the room with you . . .

Is there some agreement on

04-12-10: Emailists
The biggest thing one can do to a room without impacting it too much visually is to treat the corners for echoslap. I own a bunch of Roomtunes corner traps, and a number of years ago, before adding Realtraps

Not necessarily the particular product, but the idea of it? I take it these are not bass traps, which do visually affect the room, but seem to allow for better bass definition (not depth) in my room than not having them.

Great topic as I am in the process of building my room from scratch. I am an architect by training, so it has been a big struggle to try to bring these two passions together.

One of the biggest challenges has been trying to work with an acoustic engineer that can think out of the box on how to creatively treat a room, i.e. using alternative methods (as to just adding ugly room treatments to walls) or to use these materials in creative ways as to make them actually as aesthetically acceptable design elements, and at the same time not breaking my bank. I've talked to a few designers that works mainly with concert halls. But I wasn't willing to spend $50k on an acoustic consultant just to start a discussion.

Modern Architecture has different approaches. Not everyone is a minimalist, which I presume Soundgasm was referring to. The best audio room design ideas I have seen are coming from Asian countries where real estate is a premium at the same time the populance are more acceptable to modern architecture, so architects and interior designers over there, in my opinion, have become much more creative. I've visited some dealers' showrooms that are gorgeous and sound great. And I've been documenting what I've seen (in person and in local audio magazines) to give me some ideas.

Back to my story. After talking to a few acoustic engineers including Rives Aduio and getting frustrated, what I ended up doing was to study some acoustics and acoustic design books on my own to gain some basic understanding of what is important and also using my architectural background to try to steer the design of my room. In this approach, the acoustic engineer is providing me with what issues I need to solve (i.e. sidewall reflections, ceiling reflections) and I am looking at different options (out-of-the-box ideas) to try to design solutions that will merge into the aesthetic design of the room. My thought currently is that in some areas, various types of acoustic treatments will be used in ways to create interesting texture/patterns on wall surfaces. In some areas, other materials/furniture will be used to act as diffusers. At the end, once the system is in, we will do a final measurement to see how this experiment fairs...

This may be just a futile attempt, or it may be a success story. We will see in about 12 months.

Fine Print: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What looks good to me might be hideous in your eyes. ;-) I was brainwashed with the deconstructive movement back in school (i.e. Frank Gehry, Morphosis) and the city hates me right now for trying to bring havoc to our predominately California Ranch and Eichler neighborhood. These design ideas are getting embraced in a communist country (China) and I am getting shut down in a democratic country. Sometimes I wonder who the real communist is...

FrankC