Room Treatments

Anyone know of any room treatments with WAF?

Sadly SWMBO has vetoed the Audiosmile treatment.

I need a general absorbtion panel for wall behind listening position (sofa which is flush against rear wall)

Ideally one with some form of picture or artwork.
I found some but they are only 25mm and am wondering if they will absorb lower midrange freqeuncies.

Quoted Typical Absorption Co-efficient's
Frequency (Hz) 125 250 500 1000 2000 4000 NRC
Absorption 0.1 0.37 0.76 0.97 1.04 1.05 0.78

 

PM Alex S. His stuff is very WAF from what I've seen.

He posts more on PFM so it may be worth sending him a PM over there.

 

audiosmile do an absorbtion panel with artwork on it.. just in case you haven't seen that?

 

How about trying a different seating position first. The couch against the wall is not a good place to sit. Makes the bass boomy and you lose the detail. IMo you need to be at least 1 mtr. away from rear wall. Is it possible to place a chair in front of the couch? I found moving the listening position changed the presentation quite a bit.
If that is not possible then just find a heavy wall hanging and give it a go. Maybe Banape can help.


rollo

 

Have seen those. She no like. What can I say!!

It have better Noise reduction coefficient but she no care.

 

not sure who's this is, but room treatments can be done in a very stylish manner:

 

I've seen the above on another forum... I believe it is a DIY job and a very good one judging from the pic.

I will go down the DIY route as alast resort being a lazy bum

 

Did she say what she didn't like? They can be done in a large range of fabric colour and there is lots of art to choose from.

If she doesn't like the art then ask what she would like, there are more options I didn't put on the website so we might be able to work something out for her.

If she doesn't like the fact it is square and fabric covered then I think you are out of luck!

 

It's the art actually that she's not too keen on.

As an aside, do you have the NRC for your panel?

 

Well, ask her to give some pointers on the type of art she would like. It would still be a hand-made batik as my experiments show these to be most acoustically transparent (paint & ink etc.. blocks the sound from passing), but there is quite a verity to choose from. Maybe ask what colours she would like (to go with the room?) and we can find her something that has those. Also what it should be a picture of, like a landscape, an animal, flowers or whatever. I can then pass the info on to the art distributor I teamed up with.

I have PMd you the data on the panels.

Oh, and I don't trust that data you posted in the first post. No way does 25mm has a coefficient of 0.76 at 250Hz mounted directly on a boundary. Got a link?

 

Personally I find suggesting a 'crying clown' picture to be very effective in establishing negotiation points with the better half!

 

Will get back to you on "acceptable art"

25mm panels with pics can be found here:

http://www.soundsorba.com/fotosorba.htm

Looking at it agan it is .37 at 250Hz

 

0.37 at 250Hz is not too far off but I would have thought you would need to a wee cavity behind the foam, say 20mm.

 

No its flush to the wall. I know as I have one.

 

They won't give much below about 200Hz. Use them sparingly or you risk a rather lop-sided reverb time in the room, i.e. things being too lively in the critical lower midrange area. Spacing them 25-30mm from the wall would extend the useful performance down another octave (approx.).

These types of panels seem to be growing in popularity. All good fun.

 

Well you have to order two (minimum order size)

I have a 900mm x 600mm and a 1200mm X 800mm

I want to use one on wall between the speakers and one on the wall behind the listener

The smaller one seems a bit lost on the wall so I was thinking of getting something else, maybe a thicker one to be more effective e.g. like the Audiosmile one but the missus just doesn't like the batiks at all

She is from Sri Lanka and says they have beautiful batiks there and there is no way she will have .....anyway moving on.

I have to say that with the panels in place the missus seems to hear more of a difference than I can - I can't really tell and its hard to "blind test" with such large items.

I am renowned for being cloth eared and tone deaf though (amongst other things). Hence the need to go by measurements

I also have the Cara software (full version). Without modelling the panels, it just suggests that I move the sofa closer to the speakers and away from the wall...a nearfield listening position I believe. This is impractical to implement in my room hence the quest for room treatments.

 

Ahh I see, when you said 'I found some' you meant you actually have them! I was pretty confused there for a moment.

So you want to know if the 25mm ones you have are any good for the lower midrange? Having read the specs again I see that 250Hz is 0.37 and that sounds more realistic for the thickness. Sadly its not very good though.

You could double the thickness by having two panels one on top of the other, or space it off the wall a bit, that will help.

Or as just suggested in the PM, get one of my panels and let the wife choose the art and pin it to the front. Not ideal but should be aright really and it won't affect the lower range at all.

 

I am still in the market for a thicker panel.

I got those as they were fairly cheap and I needed some pictures anyway.

 

I see many people placing panels on the front wall behind the speakers. I never really understood the reasoning, particularly if the panels are thin and don't give any absorption at the lowish-frequencies (<200Hz). The directional characteristincs of most speakers mean that radiated energy won't "find" these panel until higher order reflections. Bass traps are another issue all together.

Panels on the rear wall behind the listening position (and side walls in narrow rooms) make 100% sense though as they should avoid nasties like comb filtering.

Simon, what's your take on all this?

 

I agree to a point, it makes less sense than the other reflection points. But actually you can get first reflections from the front wall behind the speakers too. They occur from diffraction at the edges of the speaker cabinet.