I am looking for some wisdom on a project I am working on. My church... is removing the carpet in a room that otherwise sounds OK. I guess you would call the room a listening room. We have live music in it a few times a week. I have been asked to treat it... without a budget.

So, I've got this roughly 2500 sq ft room with a crazy wood ceiling, sheetrock walls, etc., etc. The ceiling really is weird. Thirty six feet from the front wall the ceiling, which started at about 12 feet, now drops from probably 24 feet to 9 feet. Then after about 6 feet it goes back up to 16 or so until the back wall. It's a wooden structure for HVAC ducting. With all this craziness the room sounds "OK". A little dead, but OK. So my BIG question is, what or where do I apply treatment to replace what I am loosing in carpeted room control? Wall, Ceiling?

I am looking at the "Build a better bass trap" article as a way to DIY this project. I have the means and resources to accomplish the construction, and the materials are within my allotted expense amount... Given I have figured the amount of materials correctly.

I "figured" the room is 2500 feet the carpet is ¼" thick so I need to have roughly 625 sq ft of wall space covered. On the same level as the listeners I am going to "bend" the walls with sheetrock to create some diffusion points and hopefully keep the room form getting to dull again. I was thinking of applying the bass traps in a High, Medium, Low, High, High, Low, Medium fashion. I think I read that somewhere in one of your articles.

Again my main questions are, Will this approach work for a problem such as removing carpet will induce? Does it matter that the bass traps will be from 8 to 12 feet on the wall? That kind of stuff.

Thanks AT3Davis

For a room that large, you do not want the system of low/mid/high bass traps shown in my article. You'll do much better with rigid fiberglass panels covered with soft fabric, which also costs less and is less effort.

The direct way to counter a removed carpet is to treat the ceiling. But the more usual way to treat a large space is to spread the treatment more or less evenly around the room. Some on the ceiling, and some on each wall. You are correct that replacing the same approximate square footage is a reasonable first step.

Since you have music in that room, not just speech, I suggest using a mix of rigid fiberglass panels 2 and 4 inches thick. Maybe half and half, with the thicker panels around the perimeter areas (near corners) and the thinner panels more centered on the walls and ceiling.

--Ethan

OK, Thanks. If I treated the ceiling as well would I roughly distribute the coverage with the wall? In other words would I still use the total of 625 sq ft, part of it on the wall and part on the cieling.

Also, WOuld the cieling treatment be "on" the cieling or hung like clouds over the seated areas?

Thanks again!!

It's really hard to say without being there or even seeing photos. That's why I said above "reasonable first step."

--Ethan

This sounds like it could have alot of potential.Why don't you post some pics?