Acoustic Panels & Diffusers

[kratu]

Hola,

It goes without saying that small enhancements to the room, can make a lot of difference in the sound. I'd like to make incremental changes to the room to enhance the music. Specifically, I'd like to reduce echos and reverbs, unwanted standing waves. I hope to make the bass frequencies more tighter and accurate, vocals more lively ... you get the drift.

My room is a standard 12x12' (120sft) bedroom. One of the ways, is to have a sofa, bookshelf or a thicker carpet. I'm exploring the idea of getting acoustic panels, absorbers and diffusers. I'm quite new to this. What kind of things should I consider? There are many kinds of material here and I might need to understand what/how does it make a difference.

 

[Spinekar]

Hey Kratu

Am not an expert but will share my small experience
my HT room is smaller 11.5 ft by 9.5 ft and had a lot of echo and reverbs and since my sub is not very strong ( read good) no problems of taming the low end, so i just picked up mmt accoustic foam (from amazon.in) and put them up on the first reflection points, i could feel the difference immediately , now i can actually feel the surround instead of chaos earlier, hope this helps ( i have a 7.1 setup, no atmos though)

 

[prateekatasniya]

Hola,

It goes without saying that small enhancements to the room, can make a lot of difference in the sound. I'd like to make incremental changes to the room to enhance the music. Specifically, I'd like to reduce echos and reverbs, unwanted standing waves. I hope to make the bass frequencies more tighter and accurate, vocals more lively ... you get the drift.

My room is a standard 12x12' (120sft) bedroom. One of the ways, is to have a sofa, bookshelf or a thicker carpet. I'm exploring the idea of getting acoustic panels, absorbers and diffusers. I'm quite new to this. What kind of things should I consider? There are many kinds of material here and I might need to understand what/how does it make a difference.

In a small room.. I would recommend more of diffusers over absorbers to make the space sound bigger.. Target reverberation time around 0.3-0.4 ms or even higher.

 

[delhite2]

I could be wrong but i would say absorption will definitely bring more neatness to sound at cost of perceived (& then some measured) loudness, but in a room this small that should not be a problem.
Best is to go for a combination, and since existing furniture is diffusing sound already, first start with absorption.

 

[prateekatasniya]

I could be wrong but i would say absorption will definitely bring more neatness to sound at cost of perceived (& then some measured) loudness, but in a room this small that should not be a problem.
Best is to go for a combination, and since existing furniture is diffusing sound already, first start with absorption.

I mentioned combination..
However I also mentioned more of diffusion..

 

[kratu]

In a small room.. I would recommend more of diffusers over absorbers to make the space sound bigger.. Target reverberation time around 0.3-0.4 ms or even higher.

Got it. So, the idea is to diffuse the sound to reduce the reverb and make it more spacious. As @delhite2 said, I guess a bit of absorption also helps, especially with something like bass traps?

I'm curious to know the ways in which we could evaluate the potential sound issues. And without using any technical devices. One way of checking the reverberation is clapping. That covers one portion of sound issues. I'm sure there are some audio tracks for this purpose.