I've had the week off from work and one of my chores this week was to convert my listening room into an office for my wonderful wife. While it wasn't an easy decision for me, I actually made the suggestion because I couldn't stand watching her struggle to do her work and grad school homework in our living room. I gave up the listening room, and moved the stereo into our finished attic. The attic would have been a great office, but we couldn't get things like the desk and shelves up there due to size and clearence of the stairwell.
Here's my dilema - I can't figure this room out. The usable space is about about 18'x12'. The ceiling is about 8ft, but is slanted on both sides with a flat 2ft space in the middle. If I knew how to take a picture and upload it here I would. I've put 2 area rugs and two Ikea chairs in there. I can't get anything bigger than a lazy boy in there due to the size of the stairwell.
I thought the room would sound very echoey (sp?) and bright, but the opposite is true. After initially setting up the room, I used the test tone track from Jan's demo CD that went from 125 Hz - 20 Hz. After hearing how bad the room sounded, I bought a full range test tone CD from Rives Audio and a Radio Shack SPL meter. Surprisingly, I got a better response from the Rives test tones. How could one set (of the same frequencies) be so erratic, and the other be different? They sound the same to me, the difference is the SPL. Because I don't know where Jan's tones came from, and I think Rives is a very respected acoustics company (am I wrong?), my reference is going to be the Rives CD. It also has a section that is made to be used with the Radio Shack SPL meter.
Here's my findings - Everything above about 200 Hz is pretty flat give or take 2 dB at the most. At 200 Hz it starts to increase steadily with the highest response at 100 HZ where the SPL is about +12 dB, then it starts to taper off again and bass is relatively flat at around 60 Hz and down.
Surprisingly again, this bump doesn't overly effect some types of music (Jan's demo CD for example), but effects mine tremendously. Most of the classic and current rock/metal bands I listen to seem to have their guitars tuned to right around this area. Black Sabbath, Tool, and Korn for example now sound very muddy and slow. Guitars sound too much like bass guitars, and they don't have their own distinctive space around each other; they kind of over lap. While this may sound contradictory, the sound stage is wider and sounds more enveloping.
I have read so many pages from different sites and their is relatively no information on setting up listening rooms in attics. I found a few on recording studios in attics, but they really didn't have enough information.
What I'm asking is has anyone set up a similar room to mine? Or has anyone had a similar room response? What did you do? I hate to ask it, but would an equalizer that has the appropriate frequencies be a good option? I'm in the dark here...
Jan - You've mentioned Rives audio here a few times. Do you think their CD should be the one which I base my measurements on? When I used your CD, I had a hole in my frequency response from 80 Hz - about 50 Hz, then it came back until 30 Hz. Using the Rives CD, I didn't have that hole, and bass went down to somewhere near 20 Hz. I got very little response at 20 Hz, but their was a good response at 32 Hz.
Sorry for such a long post and any headaches it gives you. I greatly appreciate any responses I get. If I can figure out how to post some pics, I'll do it. Thanks.
Stuie, your idea for an EQ is just about right. The EQ is a 'means of last resort' for an unforgiving room. A mixer/EQ seems in order, sure it goes against all that we believe in, but corrections must be made. Bands use them for different barns and such, they have a purpose.
Thanks for the kind support Nuck. It's good to know that I'm not going to go through this alone. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. I tried using the tone controls. When they fixed one thing, they messed up two or three other things.
I think my plan of action so far is to pick up a cheap EQ that I can return like an AudioSource and mess around with it. If it can relatively flatten out the response I'll shop around for a better one that won't (or shouldn't) add noise to the system. My hesitation for buying an EQ is that while it'll probably flatten out the response it'll degrade the sound quality.
The majority of the EQ's I've seen are made for DJing and pro audio. I haven't seen any happy medium home EQ's. They all seem like either garbage or cost more than my whole system. Do you have any ideas and/or recommendations?
My name is Stu, and I'm strongly considering an EQ...
I'm not sure what to make of the situation. To my knowledge the test track I sent you has no weighting applied to the signals. Possibly Rive's CD does, but that wouldn't make much sense. I'll check the information provided on my disc and get back to you. In the meantime, if you have a set of headphones available, listen to both discs through headphones to determine whether you hear any adjustment in level or just a steady drop in frequency. If you can, I would also set the speakers up on an adjoining wall (long now, move to short; short now, move to long) and listen to both CD's in that location just for grins.
As to setting up an attic space, you do it just like any other room. The slanted walls will break up the parallel surfaces along the two walls. They might cause some strange reflection problems but that's not dificult to deal with if the room is yours to play with. How much wall is there before the slant comes in? Which wall do you have the speakers on now; long or short? And which walls have the slant?
Stu, the last one I had was an Akai, the number escapes me, but it was all waves and bars on the display........................ It didn't discolour the sound at all. Very effective. This is like 1982, mind you
Jan - The Rives CD has 2 sets of tones - a set of 'normal' (I guess) and a set made to be used with the Radio Shack analog SPL meter. It's explained better in the Rives Audio website. Both sound pretty much the same to my ears. They also sound very similar to the one you gave me, but the one you gave has 'holes' in it. Also, the speakers weren't moved between one CD and another.
This may better explain which wall is which - the short wall is the front of the house. It's flat and has an upside down "V" cut. It has a window in the middle of it. The long walls are the sides of the house. They go straight up for about 2.5 feet or so, then angle toward the center, where their is about 2 feet of flat ceiling.
The speakers are against the long wall. They are out far enough where the ceiling has about 6 inches of clearence from the back of the speaker and about 1 ft in front. The short wall most likely isn't wide enough because of the V; I think the speakers would be about 5 ft apart at best, and the ceiling their would cause some serious reflections. Instead of the slant being behind them,it would be right beside them. Also, the sun would be right in my face due to the window.
I'll track down some good headphones and see what happens. I'll borrow a digitalcamera and try to post pics. The more I describe the room, the more it confuses me.
I'm going to be pretty busy this weekend, but will try my best to keep up here.
stu, looking at your room dimentions, by my understanding, you should be seeing peaks at 63hz and 94hz caused by room dimentions.
from my fiddling about with my speakers it seems that there are certain peaks caused by room dimentions, and other peaks caused by the possition of speakers and listener.
i'm wondering if you couldnt improve on that 100hz peak by playing around with speaker or listning chair placement? if you could move it down to bellow 80hz you could eliminate it entirely using an eq'd sub if that was an option.
You are a good guy to give up your listening room. Kudos my man!
I actually ran into the same problems about 3 years back with a similarly shaped attic my nephew has in his home (I think his room is slightly smaller, but does have the sloping ceiling and the 2' flat area in the center). He asked for some help after he had set up the room, but he didn't like the sound. I believed the problem stemmed from the slanted ceiling and getting a lot of sonic reflections. We solved the problems by getting sound absorbing acoustic tiles that we simply placed around the room--we determined locations largely by experimentation, so I can't give you much scientific certainty. My very industrious nephew also came up with a partial solution of building some cylinders that fit into the corners that he covered with carpet remnants--they made wonderful sound traps. They also made some real improvement in the resulting sound. We did not spend very much money (especially with the carpet cylinders), but it really made a huge improvement when we were done.
I'm still moving my speakers and chair around, trying to find the best spot. This room really sucks. I've gotten the response to flatten out a little, but the same peaks are still present. My music sounds better, but nowhere near what I'm used to. The prospect of an EQ grows everyday. I'm still in the denial stage, but I'm working closer to admitting I have a problem.
Hawk - Did your nephew's room relatively sound the same as what I've got? What did you use for absorbing tiles and traps? I don't want too go crazy with panels and things that need to be securely fastened/glued to walls because I don't own the apartment. I'm pretty handy and whatever I can't make or have the tools for, my father who is a mechanic and DIY genious shouldn't have any problems helping me.
Thanks Nuck and Hawk for your kind words. I think Mrs. Stu owes me a nice dinner for all of this... not that I'm the kind of guy who expects or demands something in return.