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I'm Looking to upgrade my JBL LSR305 with something better. I have a small room, and have done some treatment (which helped A LOT!). But still the JBL's are lacking a bit of definition. For the price they are quite good, but my ears are getting better and I have the feeling I could use something better. Are the Adams T series a step up? Other recommendations. Below are pictures of the room. Budget, I was hoping to stay below 800 euro's for the pair.

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Rudy

 

 

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It's a great question but I don't have a good answer for you.

Lack of experience.

 

I've heard some monitors I didn't like much but they were much cheaper.

I've had a pair of Mackie HR824 since maybe 2009 or so. Found them used at a pawn shop for $600 and still use them.

They are not the best but they are not bad either.

 

I sold my brother a smaller set of JBL monitors but now I wish I'd kept them just for comparison since they do sound different but really good.

 

I would love to have a pair of Dynaudio LYD 48 3-ways but they are around $1,200 each. One can dream!!!!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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IMO, the next step up is a bit higher price-wise. $1500-$2k range get you into where they're using noticeably better components. Not talking about drivers so much as things like amps - cheap amps bug my ears.

 

With ADAMs, maybe see if you can find a used pair of A7 or A7X..?

 

I may be the wrong one to ask, though - I'm currently using a set of HEDD Type 20 3-ways, and an 2.1 system with Amphion One 15s and an ADAM Sub 10. I'm a really big believer in good monitoring.

 

dB

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:snax:

 

:keys:==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <==:rawk:

 

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IMO, the next step up is a bit higher price-wise. $1500-$2k range get you into where they're using noticeably better components. Not talking about drivers so much as things like amps - cheap amps bug my ears.

 

With ADAMs, maybe see if you can find a used pair of A7 or A7X..?

 

I may be the wrong one to ask, though - I'm currently using a set of HEDD Type 20 3-ways, and an 2.1 system with Amphion One 15s and an ADAM Sub 10. I'm a really big believer in good monitoring.

 

dB

 

Nice! And, I'm with you in concept at least.

Three things should be priorities.

A great sounding room - most of us do what we can.

At least one great microphone - still have room for improvement here

Great speakers same comments apply.

 

That said maybe the best move for the OP's budget is a premium set of headphones?

You can get a LOT of headphone for 800 Euros and there will be all the detail anybody could ever want.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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At least one great microphone

Well, yeah...

 

GrYtzLB.jpg

 

R44CXE - major gear porn. :drool:

 

dB

 

I think Grandma had one of those... it's a sparrow roaster, right? Not much meat on them but there's plenty sparrows and they're free. How does it sound? :laugh:

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I don"t have any specific recommendations but I advise against anything with built in DSP. Whether it improves the sound or not is not the issue as I have no reason or experience that says it will or won"t.

 

My concern is if that dsp and supporting circuitry breaks, or if you get a glitch and the firmware goes to shit you"ve lost your monitor. Maybe it"s easily recoverable or maybe not but having this built in to the monitor is asking for trouble down the line.

 

Monitors with built in amps can have the same problem. But they"re more easily fixed by anyone and my personal experience with self amped monitors is they are very robust. We"re talking 20+ years. IMO you should buy monitors for the long haul. If you buy the ones that are right for you you should not have to replace or upgrade them, maybe ever.

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I agree with Markyboard.

DSP attempts to correct anomalies, the problem being they can only go so deep and there are too many variations possible.

 

It's better to fix what you can in the room itself since that is often the problem.

 

Our own hearing can be a factor as well, human hearing is defined "scientifically" in general terms but hearing tests indicate that we do not hear things the same as a whole.

Which leaves us with our remarkable powers of adaptation.

 

My comment above about headphones comes in part because headphones eliminate the sound of the room and in part because in my situation (mult-unit condo with shared walls), I may want to track or mix during hours when making noise would not be appropriate and good headphones allow me to do that with some confidence that I am headed in the right direction.

 

The OP may already have a set, you really have to dig deep to find truly bad headphones but "colored" sound from headphones is also very common and we do have to adapt to it. One reference point and a convenience in terms of work factor.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Lots of good discussion here, thanks for the input.

 

First, in response to Markyboard, I should note that I have worked with DSP-enabled speakers on a variety of occasions, and that while I do not distrust their reliability across the board, I have had one set fail on me catastrophically. (Don't ask which ones they were; the manufacturer is out of business anyway, and that alone should tell cognoscenti who I'm talking about.) And for Kuru: DSP can appear in speakers for a lot of reasons, and drastic correction is only one of them; it's not any more evil than A/D conversion is, but as with A/D, the cheaper you go, the less you should expect.

 

I am a bit curious about what "lacking definition" means to you, Rudy. LSR305s are actually dynamite little speakers for the money; my main concern with them would be underhearing and therefore overmixing bass, because even a well-made 5" speaker can only throw so much low end. If that was the case here, I'd say, go get LSR308s or a 3 Series subwoofer. But "lack of definition" could be any number of things: transient smearing, weird soundstaging, a poor phantom center... could you maybe provide some more details?

 

Everyone has their preferences and quirks when it comes to monitor tech. Mr. Bryce is well aware that I am a big fan of the tweeters used in ADAM, HEDD, etc. because I love their high-end clarity and projection. I am also a fan of the longitudinal ribbon tweeters in the ESI UniK monitors, which have no business sounding as good as they do since they're literally the only thing other than interfaces and controllers that ESI makes. Huh?

 

I am also a huge fan of coaxial speakers when they're built properly. I'm not sure anyone out there is blowing folks out of the water with them right now, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the FX8 coaxials from Fluid Audio, which are fabulous in very close spaces. (Fluid also makes the FOX7, which must have seemed like an incredible idea on paper: "Let's build a coaxial monitor with a folded ribbon tweeter!" Big Nope.) I find the new FX80s intriguing....

 

Coming back to your statement: more details about "lacking definition" please? It would help me with recommendations, and would probably fire some other folks' neurons as well.

 

mike

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

clicky!:  more about me ~ my radio station (and my fam) ~ my local tribe ~ my day job ~ my bookmy music

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Thank you all for the good information. Love this site!

 

@Mike, with "lack of definition", I mostly mean not a really tight bass. The high's sound quite nice to my ears, but in the lower register there is still a bit of "woohm" sounding going on. It probably also has to do with the less than ideal room. I measured that after my treatment I still have quite a big peak at around 100hz, so maybe that's the reason. I was hoping that with bigger cones the bass would be tighter.

 

@dB, I read about good reviews about those A7x's, but also read from people that the A7x vs the T7V are a marginal difference. That led to my conclusion that the T7v's would maybe be a step up for me.

 

In my situation, do you recommend a subwoofer? I had the feeling I should stay away from subwoofers for mixing, but actually I am a complete n00b, so I have no idea.

Rudy

 

 

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Thank you all for the good information. Love this site!

 

@Mike, with "lack of definition", I mostly mean not a really tight bass. The high's sound quite nice to my ears, but in the lower register there is still a bit of "woohm" sounding going on. It probably also has to do with the less than ideal room. I measured that after my treatment I still have quite a big peak at around 100hz, so maybe that's the reason. I was hoping that with bigger cones the bass would be tighter.

 

@dB, I read about good reviews about those A7x's, but also read from people that the A7x vs the T7V are a marginal difference. That led to my conclusion that the T7v's would maybe be a step up for me.

 

In my situation, do you recommend a subwoofer? I had the feeling I should stay away from subwoofers for mixing, but actually I am a complete n00b, so I have no idea.

 

Speakers will not fix the 100hz boost. Bass traps will but not foam ones.

Still, as Dr. Mike pointed out - 5" speakers will not provide much low end in the first place.

 

I agree with the subwoofer and here is why. I have Mackie HR824 speakers - well regarded (and also disliked!!!!) 8" 2 way speakers.

They will provide more low frequency response than 5" - I used to own a pair of JBL monitors with 5" woofers.

 

The problem I have with the Mackies is that the larger woofer is not as responsive in the mids. That really hit home for me when I found a single Mackie MR5 monitor at a thrift store for $6.

I hooked it up in mono and listened, the clarity in the midrange was much better than the larger monitors. Now it stays here, on top of one of the 824s so it's easy to just move those cables, set the Quantum for Mono (handy switch on the front) and listen - good "reference" speaker.

 

Could be intermodulation distortion - the 8" is moving at a low frequency while it is also moving at a higher frequency. It could be the weight of the cones - required so it won't self destruct playing bass notes at higher volumes (something I really don't do is play my monitors loud!). In any case, the smaller speaker provides a clearer picture of the mids and those are where the music is for the most part.

 

The subwoofer will let you keep your clear mids and highs and take over on the low end. It gives you 3 way speakers, nice. Positioning the subwoofer is important and may take a bit of experimenting.

Finding the best crossover frequency will take some tweaking too. Bear in mind that low frequencies are much less directional. They behave more like a "gas" and spread through the room.

 

I vote a sub and bass traps.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I apologize for not asking the single most important question first!

 

What is your room like?

 

Describe it, please. Dimensions: all three, to within an inch. Materials on walls, floor, and ceiling, NOT including the acoustic treatments. Which wall are the monitors against? Are they in corners? How far away are they from the wall? Where do you sit? Where are the monitors aimed, if you sit at your mix position and look at them -- are you looking straight at the tweeters?

 

Without knowing any of that, some very general thoughts...

 

I vote bass traps first. Real ones, like Helmholtz resonators tuned to that 100 Hz bump you're seeing. They tuck against the wall on the floor and don't get in the way, and they work a treat when built right.

 

I am anti-subwoofer for small rooms. I mean REALLY anti. When frequencies get below the lowest room mode, things get squirrelly in a big hurry. Bass doesn't behave like a "gas" so much as like a turbulent ocean, with spots where there is a lot of motion and spots where there is less. No matter where you place your sub, there will be spots where bass will be really woofy and spots where it will be thin... often only inches apart from one another!

 

Studios with good-sized volume and proper calculations put in two or more subs that are very carefully placed for even response, and they're BIG subs running well below their max power capability. Engineers can mix on them. But for any room under about 200 square feet, adding a sub will largely be trial and error, even following a few basic tricks to help you along.

 

Bro Dave wrote an article about it for RECORDING many moons ago, and he has a sensible approach to using subs... but in a small room, I'm not sure what his stance would be (and I'd love to learn).

 

My vote for small rooms, especially if you usually work alone, is to get a pair of great speakers with good frequency response and to set them up and aim them in such a way as you are inside a small but reliable sweet spot. Coaxials are good for that, and good 3-ways can help smooth out issues in the crossovers, although a well-built 2-way beats the crap out of a shitty 3-way every time. The room I work in is so bad acoustically that my sweet spot is barely 24" on a side... but it's reliable. And I would never, ever put a sub in here.

 

So: your mileage will vary, Rudy, so fill us in, please? What's your room like?

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

clicky!:  more about me ~ my radio station (and my fam) ~ my local tribe ~ my day job ~ my bookmy music

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I will defer to Dr Mike's vast experience and knowledge.

 

At least we both agree on bass traps!

 

I've another option for you, actually two of them. One is to buy a single monitor with a larger woofer and run it in mono for reference on mixing your bass tracks. Most DAWs have a mono option and my Presonus Quantum has a Mono switch on the front as well so changing is easy. I just plug the power and audio cable from one of my HR824 pair into the MR5 and go.

I am doing the opposite here - opportunity provided a Mackie MR5 - just one.

 

Not only is is great for the "does this mix translate well in Mono?" test but it also has (for want of a better description) "faster" mids and more definition in the mids near what is probably the crossover point on my HR824s.

It offers a fresh perspective that I find useful. That's one option.

 

I also stumbled into a used pair of JBL P40 home stereo speakers - made in Denmark. 9" 3-way speakers. I burn a CD of my mix and play it back on a separate system in a different area. It really provides a new perspective on my mix. I am not saying it is "correct" but I do often hear things that I do not hear on the HR824 speakers. I am still learning what that means in the real world but I am sure it will be useful as I figure things out.

 

Looking forward to seeing where this thread goes, it's a good one!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I've another option for you, actually two of them. One is to buy a single monitor with a larger woofer and run it in mono for reference on mixing your bass tracks. Most DAWs have a mono option and my Presonus Quantum has a Mono switch on the front as well so changing is easy. I just plug the power and audio cable from one of my HR824 pair into the MR5 and go.

 

There were some unused contacts on the Mono button on my Soundcraft 600 console, so I wired things up so that pressing the Mono button not only summed the left and right channels of the monitor mix, it turned off one speaker. I was told by the broadcast folks (who were concerned about mono in the day) that listening to two speakers a few feet apart and fed the same signal wasn't the same as listening to one speaker.

 

The problem with my system is that the speaker I was listening to was off center. I rationalized this with the thought that people who listen to mono sources didn't really care much for where they were relative to the source - most didn't listen on center anyway. I can tell you that it's easier to hear phase cancellation when switching to mono when you're not distracted by a second speaker.

 

Of course this solution doesn't offer what you're suggesting - listening on a speaker with more low end response than your mixing monitors, it's a solution to a different problem you never knew existed (the problem, that is).

 

Several of the monitor controllers on the market now have a button to turn off the subwoofer so you can listen with or without it. The problem there is that when using a subwoofer, usually there's low-cut filter switched into the main speakers so that the subwoofer doesn't double the low end that the main speakers are producing, and there's usually no way to remotely switch that filter in or out. So turning off the subwoofer with the lows rolled out of the mains is like using speakers with less low end - which in real life might be more typical of what a listener would hear on an unsophisticated home system.

 

Your Quantum has oodles of outputs. You could use one of those to feed your MR5 speaker with no cable swapping - which, of course, you'd place in the center, between your HR824s. There might even be a way that you can route what gets summed to mono to be one or a pair of outputs that you aren't using for other things.

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Thanks Mike, I agree about 2 speakers in mono, it's not the same thing.

So, I don't turn the other speaker on - HR824s have an on/off switch right on the front - handy.

 

I do want the mono speaker in the center, gotta come up with a rig to do that. I like the idea of a separate output/cord. Power cord is no problem at all either.

 

I tried just running both speakers in mono and I agree. It's not the best solution.

 

I'll have to rig something up, I don't want to block any access to the back of my desk so maybe a piece of 3/4" plywood mounted to the main desk and the shelf above it with support brackets for a shelf above my video monitor.

That puts the MR5 up a bit high but it would be easy to angle it downwards.

 

I do like having the mono option and as I mentioned the smaller woofer reproduces more clearly in the higher midrange.

 

Just checked the specs, the HR924 (original USA version) is crossed over at 2000khz. That seems a bit high for an 8" woofer and could be causing intermodulation distortion at the least. It also has a passive low frequency radiator in the back under the metal panel. They do sound much better if you don't put the back sides near a wall. I'm around 8' out and that sounds better than when I was about 16" out.

The MR 5 crossover point is 4000khz, an octave higher. The 5 inch woofer is clearer sounding in the mids than the 8" and that explains it pretty well.

 

Sorry OP, we're a bit OT!!!! Some of the info above may inform your decision on speakers though and none of it will hurt. Cheers, Kuru

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Mike, Did you see the pictures I posted in the first post?

I had actually missed them! Sorry about that. Still need dimensions, though. Please? :thx: I'll tell you one thing for sure, right now: a subwoofer in that room is absolutely the wrong idea. You want fuller-range speakers aimed into a room that won't screw with what they're throwing!

 

OK, from what I'm seeing, there are a fair number of things that you can do with that room, based on a very similar setup that I was stuck with at my old location...

 

FIRST: Please note that what I write below constitutes a full-on makeover, with some money and a fair bit of invested sweat equity. Any one or two of these solutions WILL help, even if you can't do most or all of them, so don't be discouraged. The main thing I'm seeing is NO FOAM, which is a fantastically good thing. I have too much of it in my room, inherited from a studio going out of business at the time I moved into this house. Looks photogenic, not the best for actual sound. (As if that mattered. Pffft.)

 

First off, the LEDE (Live End, Dead End) approach does not work in a room as small as that one. You can't just treat around your listening space without doing at least a little bit of due diligence behind you, and those absorbers on the far wall are not the right choice. It looks to me like you're in a box with a hardwood floor and parallel walls and a non-sloped ceiling: that's basically a perfect chamber for flutter echo, and whatever bass modes you get are going to be kickass-powerful. That recessed window, recessed door, and metal cabinet (glue some foam strips or 2x4s inside the door, lengthwise and crosswise, to keep it from resonating) will help things a lot, but may not be enough.

 

If nothing else, put down another throw rug behind the one you have; putting a little something on the wall opposite your guitars just above your keys would help, too. A framed absorption panel, maybe one with a picture you provide silkscreened on it by the maker, would be a nice touch.

 

Those corner traps may or may not be big enough to do anything for your bass; can you please give me the dimension from edge to edge of the visible front panel? Reducing corner reflections is quite useful and having them there definitely won't hurt anything, but too many people buy those things as bass traps and their efficacy is limited at best. Real corner bass traps are HUGE, and would leave you about three feet between them in that room.

 

Another place where I see room for improvement is the rear wall. Absorption back there isn't the best use of that surface; what you really want is diffusion, to prevent sound waves (ideally any at all, but in your current listening case, the frequencies not stopped by those absorbers) from bouncing STRAIGHT back at you at a few milliseconds' time delay -- and screwing up how tight your bass is, interestingly enough.

 

You don't have to buy fancy diffuser panels if you don't want to; despite what Poindexters in the acoustic treatment business say with an appropriate wag of the finger, a good floor-to-ceiling (or near enough) bookshelf filled with books of all shapes and sizes can work pretty well. Placement should be near the center of the room. If a wide bookshelf makes it hard to open the door (which I see is hinged to swing inward, toward the wall), then maybe a couple of diffuser panels stacked vertically would be the right choice. You might not have room for a lot, but even a little will help.

 

What to do with those rear-wall absorber panels you've just taken down? Turn them into a cloud! Ring bolts in the studs on the ceiling, suspend them over where you sit, preferably at a very slight angle (higher toward the rear of the room), and kill what the floor and ceiling are doing to your room sound. Don't cheap out on the suspension, though, especially if you live in a place near a fault or a fracking zone -- use metal chains or braided metal cable. No falling down and crushing your gear with the frame, or coming loose at one end and swinging down to clobber you! Not allowed.

 

Last and probably fairly if not most important is a Helmholtz resonator. It's a small box with a tuned port in it that can be left on the floor, flat against any wall near a corner, which will kill the strongest bass mode in your room (choose wisely, young padawan, based on calculations taken from the room dimensions). They are sold commercially, but it's one of the few acoustic treatments that you COULD build on your own, given some basic instructions (which I have). It will take some relatively hard wood (but not oak!), a table saw, some self-tapping wood screws and a powerful screwdriver (or a tap drill and regular wood screws), and a fairly precise hole-routing bit for a properly sized circle, but it's amazingly effective -- even if it doesn't look nearly as cool as polycylindrical trap columns that wouldn't even FIT in that room. ;)

 

Phew! Read, digest, contemplate, and send me those dimensions so I can calculate your axial modes! (the higher order stuff is a waste of time given the tight dimensions).

 

mike

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

clicky!:  more about me ~ my radio station (and my fam) ~ my local tribe ~ my day job ~ my bookmy music

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woah Mike. Thank you for your time to post that. I indeed have to read this a couple a time before I fully grasp.

 

The room dimensions are 4,50Lx2,03Wx2,20H (meters). I should also tell you the outside wall (the one opposite to where the guitars hanging and the one with the window) are concrete. The others are plasterboard with rock wool behind them. So the reflection is probably asymmetrical. The floor is Laminate. The cabinet is a wooden one, I don't think it is resonating? (could be wrong of course..).

 

The panels I made myself. They are made with high density Rockwool (the 221 type). I read that diffuser are not a good idea in small rooms, so broadband absorbers was probably the way to go (also for the rear wall). I still have one of the panels left. The idea was to put it on the ceiling, but I didn't do it because I think it may looked too cramped. Maybe I should..

 

I did some measurements with Room EQ wizard with a cheap measurement microphone. I have attached the before and after graphs. The panels really do help a lot, but the graph is still less than ideal.

 

(I really like this thread, learning a lot!)

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Rudy

 

 

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I have a studio in a small living room in my condo. There is a bad flutter echo right where there would be a wall between the living room and the kitchen but there is no wall there.

 

I discovered it one day when a friend was visiting and he stood right in that spot while talking. The flutter echo was easily heard.

 

There is a "breakfast bar along that some line but it did not make the echo go away. For a while I hung a heavy quilt from a photo backdrop stand (mic stands and a curtain rod will work too) and that eliminated it.

 

Then I put my JBL home stereo speakers on the breakfast bar and they made it go away too.

 

Flutter echos will drive you insane, kill them!!!!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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BTW, you are right about the flutter thing. Even with the panels, I still have a fair amount of flutter echo in the high register, so probably also in the low (which is harder to identify for me).

Yep, this will drive you bananas. As Kuru says... kill them.

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

clicky!:  more about me ~ my radio station (and my fam) ~ my local tribe ~ my day job ~ my bookmy music

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woah Mike. Thank you for your time to post that. I indeed have to read this a couple a time before I fully grasp.

 

The room dimensions are 4,50Lx2,03Wx2,20H (meters). I should also tell you the outside wall (the one opposite to where the guitars hanging and the one with the window) are concrete. The others are plasterboard with rock wool behind them. So the reflection is probably asymmetrical. The floor is Laminate. The cabinet is a wooden one, I don't think it is resonating? (could be wrong of course..).

 

The panels I made myself. They are made with high density Rockwool (the 221 type). I read that diffuser are not a good idea in small rooms, so broadband absorbers was probably the way to go (also for the rear wall). I still have one of the panels left. The idea was to put it on the ceiling, but I didn't do it because I think it may looked too cramped. Maybe I should..

 

I did some measurements with Room EQ wizard with a cheap measurement microphone. I have attached the before and after graphs. The panels really do help a lot, but the graph is still less than ideal.

 

(I really like this thread, learning a lot!)

I can work with this, given a day or three... and hoping that my damn thread/post notifications work.

 

One question, though. Can you cite a source that says diffusion on the back wall is bad in a small room? I have firsthand evidence from a fair number of cramped studios that diffusion can help quite a bit, and certainly doesn't hurt...

 

Oh, and if you built those panels, building a Helmholtz resonator won't be THAT much more difficult... you just need a way to cleanly cut a circular hole of a very precise diameter (we're talking several inches).

 

Thanks,

 

mike

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

clicky!:  more about me ~ my radio station (and my fam) ~ my local tribe ~ my day job ~ my bookmy music

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]

I can work with this, given a day or three... and hoping that my damn thread/post notifications work.

 

One question, though. Can you cite a source that says diffusion on the back wall is bad in a small room? I have firsthand evidence from a fair number of cramped studios that diffusion can help quite a bit, and certainly doesn't hurt...

 

Oh, and if you built those panels, building a Helmholtz resonator won't be THAT much more difficult... you just need a way to cleanly cut a circular hole of a very precise diameter (we're talking several inches).

 

Thanks,

 

mike

 

About those diffuser citations, basically what I found on some forums (mostly Gearslutz). But now I try to find it again, I see that it is a bit more complicated then just "don't use diffusers in small rooms". It probably has to do with the fact that diffusers need a bit of room to work. Also, what I read, I should have my bass "under control" before using diffusers.

 

Also, there is a practical thing for the rear wall. There is a hatch there for my attic. So I need to open the door completely in order to get to this. The panels I installed, I can easily remove so I can acces the Hatch, but a diffuser, or shelf or anything would be impractical I think.

 

When I meant, I built the panels myself, I meant, me and my dad (who is an excellent carpenter) built them, and when I say that I mean, my dad built them:) But he certainly has all the tools you'll ever need. So it won't be a problem.

 

I see my pictures won't show anymore? Is something wrong with the forum?

 

Thanks again for all the help Mike!

Rudy

 

 

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Could you mount the diffusor on the hatch door and just let it swing away with the door when you need access to the attic? If it's a fairly small room, you don't need a very large diffusor, and now that they're making diffusors out of molded plastic as an alternative to hardwood and aluminum strips, they can be pretty light.
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I am scratching my head in honest curiosity about whether a diffusor on the ceiling would do what was needed.

 

(I am also scratching my head over the idea of Gearslutz as a trustworthy forum on acoustics... or just about anything else... but that is just my personal and highly biased and probably unfair opinion that is buried neck deep in disclaimers)

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

clicky!:  more about me ~ my radio station (and my fam) ~ my local tribe ~ my day job ~ my bookmy music

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I am scratching my head in honest curiosity about whether a diffusor on the ceiling would do what was needed.

 

(I am also scratching my head over the idea of Gearslutz as a trustworthy forum on acoustics... or just about anything else... but that is just my personal and highly biased and probably unfair opinion that is buried neck deep in disclaimers)

 

Everybody on Gearslutz knows everything there is to know about everything.

Since I don't know anything much about much of anything, I just take a look every now and then. Sometimes I learn something useful, sometimes I laugh, mostly I shake my head and click away.

I fully own my entire message and endorse it, no disclaimers.

 

But then, I am not hampered by having a reputation of any sort. At least not lately...

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I am scratching my head in honest curiosity about whether a diffusor on the ceiling would do what was needed.

 

(I am also scratching my head over the idea of Gearslutz as a trustworthy forum on acoustics... or just about anything else... but that is just my personal and highly biased and probably unfair opinion that is buried neck deep in disclaimers)

 

HAHA, you are probably right Mike! As said, I am a complete n00b and was trying to learn this stuff. So I searched the interwebs and tried to learn as much as possible. If you randomly google you'll find some articles saying that in small rooms bass traps and absorbers are the main priority, so I did that. ( like in this SOS article)

Rudy

 

 

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I trust SOS way more than Gearslutz; they have editorial standards that are fairly tight and reliable. And those are in fact the main priority, but in your case a little dab o' diffusion will do ya. :)

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

clicky!:  more about me ~ my radio station (and my fam) ~ my local tribe ~ my day job ~ my bookmy music

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