Mar 12, 2015 05:30 am Lookin good!
Almost done with the room!
Posted on Mar 10, 2015 10:06 pm
J-bot
Byte-Mixer
Member Since: Dec 04, 2007
Maintenance came today to put hooks in the ceiling, so I have a cloud!
www.facebook.com/photo.ph...mp;l=58cb7fc330
Last phase is to start (rather, finish) putting together the corner column chunks. Hopefully we'll feel motivated this weekend to get to work on those.
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Mar 12, 2015 09:30 am And sounding great!
I should run another REW measurement. (I have a Dayton EMM-6 omni mic)But I want to finish the corners first. I did one measurement a few months ago when the panels were put together, but just resting on the ground. I had an acoustics guy look over the data, and for a room this size, he said the decay times were looking damn good.
I think my mixes will be on a whole new level compared to the crap room in Iowa, and even then they weren't horrible.
Also, on another note, pretty happy with our living room media setup since we got the speakers/receiver, and most recently, the turntable.
The speakers are Sony SS-CS5 speakers. I just wanted something inexpensive to improve the TV audio. I was going to get SSB3000's, but I read that they were kinda weak in the mids, and the Sony "Core" series speakers improved on that quite a bit. They're only 5" drivers, but they put out a sound that's fine for general TV and Music. Back in my college days, I used to have a pair of Infinity RS-2 reference speakers, and I think these sound better than those.
They are paired with a Yamaha RX-V377 digital receiver. (we're just running stereo for now, might upgrade to surround sound later on if/when we get a house and have more room to work with)
The turntable is a Denon DP-300F with a built-in preamp, so I can plug it straight into the receiver without worrying about an external preamp. We've got a couple vinyls, a Deep Purple album, a couple Queen albums, and the WXPN 20th Century set that we won from the 2012 NonComm show back when we got to meet Rob in person. And now that we have a proper turntable, they sound great. :)
Mar 14, 2015 02:39 am Nice! Share a picture when it's done?
Apr 18, 2015 10:09 pm As promised, here's an updated picture. The columns are almost done, and we'll be making the last two tomorrow, time permitting. (we were going to make one today, but shopping killed the time for it)
Unfortunately, the right column was a little unstable, so it tipped, and bumped a speaker a bit. I stabilized, and then spend the rest of the day re-adjusting the speaker positions to get back to a decent frequency response. I got very close to my last measurement, so they're almost there....might need just some minor tweaking at this point, but I'm going to wait until the last column bits are in place.
Still a bit of a null at 365. It was less bad before the speakers were bumped. Might be a slight phase issue, and finishing the columns will probably help a bit since those ceiling tricorners will be dealt with.
Here is where the response before the speaker was bumped, and I had to move crap around. It was slightly better. Hopefully I can get back to that point and even have improved it after the last couple column bits are added. >_<
Apr 19, 2015 04:37 pm And the room is as done as it's going to get.
The columns are a little precariously balanced so I have them leaning into the corners. They don't quite reach the ceiling since the bottom pieces squish a bit under the weight. I don't want to put any more on top since they might topple.
Sep 01, 2015 05:10 pm Hey man! Looks like you have some nasty peaks and dips there.
You could try moving your monitors further away from the wall. That should help.
Also, you can try lowering your cloud on a few chain links. I've found that making the gap between the ceiling and cloud can help absorb some nasty resonance :).
Sep 02, 2015 03:16 am Thanks Arie, long post ahead, but I have moved the speakers around trying to figure out where a null at 505Hz is coming from, but not much change, so might not be SBIR problems. I've moved them both toward and away from the front wall, and closer/wider to the side walls. I do have a couple ideas I'm going to try, though.
FWIW, the room overall is getting close to being +/- 5 dB. It's just a bedroom, though, not built to purpose, so I know there are going to be some issues. It's not going to be a +/- 3 or as smooth or flat as a built-to-purpose studio, and I accept that. But hopefully it will be good enough to do some potentially decent work. I need to e-mail some schools to see about maybe recording some student concerts. The stuff you heard from me that I did in Iowa was mixed in a room far far far worse than this one after all.
BTW, those measurements above are old data, I have a more recent one from May since I added 2 ATS acoustic panels slightly in front of the hung side panels. That's where the 367Hz null was coming from was directly left/right of my ears. I discovered that by accident. The panels are resting on the floor for now, 4" off the wall. I'm hoping to prop them up a couple feet when I'm able to get a couple wooden stands for them at some point. But the new panels improved the null by almost 7dB.
Here is the more recent frequency measurement from May:
It's still not great, and that null at 505 (well, 525 on the measurement, but currently it's 505) eludes me, but I do have good decay times for a room this small.
Basically I improved the deep null at 367Hz by adding the panels in the place that was producing the null. I think propping the panels up a little higher will improve things further since more of the wall around my ears would be covered. But, there is a very narrow-band null at 505Hz remaining. Moving the speakers around with the RTA going with pink noise didn't show much improvement to that particular null, so I'm having trouble tracking it down.
(I actually need to do a new measurement as that one is also a little old, but it's pretty close to current)
It's not a big room. 9.5ft. x 13.3 ft. x 8ft. Mostly what I need to do, is tweak the speaker position by inches, and try to get rid of a couple spikes in minimum phase. (though that could just be the measurement mic not being perfectly centered) I'll see if I can move them slightly closer. It's a fairly old apartment (built 1948)and it's possible one or more walls aren't perfectly parallel. Nothing I can do about that, though.
Recently, I did have one idea; I measured the speaker height, and the spot between the woofer and tweeter is almost exactly half the room height. I'm thinking about flipping them upside down to put the tweeter closer to ear height, and remove the padding I have under the back so they're not firing down at my ears, but straight at my ears. This would also point them more into the panels on the back wall, instead of the bits of wall under the panels. I wonder if that will improve things. It will certainly be a change, so, can't hurt to try!
I'll also see about lowering the cloud a bit more. My wife won't like it because it's a little bit of a hassle to hang it back up on the hooks, and I'll need her help, haha. Right now it's hanging down on picture wire. The back hangs down about 6 inches, and the front 4 inches. It helps, but there's only so much a 2" slab of OC703 will do. I'll lower it another few inches to see how things change. I might also hang the back down further to create a steeper angle, and put the panel so it "shadows" that wall/ceiling corner on the front wall.
The main problem right now is some comb filtering just below 1KHz, and the deeper narrow-band null at 505Hz. (the measurement says about 525Hz, but it's changed since then) I have a feeling the comb filtering is from the keyboards/mixer near me, so there's not much I can do about that.
It won't ever be perfect, but it still isn't half bad for this size of room, and it's WAAAAYYYYY better than the tiny near-square untreated shared with wife room in Iowa!!!
Sep 02, 2015 03:36 pm Okay, here's another update: I flipped the speakers upside down, and laid them flat so they aren't tilted. The tweeters are maybe slightly higher than my ears, but otherwise pretty close. I probably still need to tweek their angle, and make sure they're the same distances from the walls. There were a couple small spikes on the Group Delay/Minimum Phase (some of that could have been the mic position too)
Here is the frequency response after re-adjusting. It may be cleaner another time when the downstairs people aren't watching movie with a lot of rumbling in it these wooden floors have zero insulation under them. >_<
After the wife gets home, I'll try to convince her to help me lower the cloud a bit more, and I'll increase its angle a bit more. But the main thing is, no more giant nulls! Just a bit of comb filtering/resonance. The only down side is the upper frequencies aren't quite as flat as they were, but they're still within +/- 5dB!
Sep 02, 2015 07:37 pm I did lower the cloud several inches, but it's night, so I'll have to do another measurement tomorrow. It's now hanging down about 12" in back and 8" in front.
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