Room Treatment or Speakers?

[contentedbloke]

I have a dedicated Home Theatre room of dimensions 19 ft (length) x 14ft (width) x 9ft (height). I have a 110 inch projector screen with a 5.1 Elac (German brand) speaker system powered by an Onkyo 605 receiver and my HTPC. My walls and ceiling are concrete and has not been acoustically treated yet.

I am not happy with the sound clarity of my speakers. I believe that my speakers are generally "soft" in nature and not as bright or punchy as I would expect it to be, though the volume output is quite good. Also, dialogues are not as clear as I wish it to be. I saw a similar 5.1 setup at a friend's place who also has untreated walls but has Energy speakers paired with a Marantz receiver. I was quite impressed with the quality of the speakers, especially the brightness, sharpness and "punch".

I consulted with a Anutone dealer / installer in Chennai who, while acknowledging that my speakers were "decent but not as good as Energy" recommended that I should treat my ceiling and side walls first. He recommended acoustic panels for the full wall width and height, and ceiling panels for only first reflection areas. He also recomended a carpet for the floor and leaving the front and rear walls untreated to create some reverb and avoid full dampening.

Here are my questions:

1. The acoustic treatment is very expensive (taking into account installation and finish quality) and costs around Rs. 1.2 lakhs. Am I better off investing this kind of money on new speakers rather than on the room treatment? After all, my friend has a similar setup and his speakers sounded good without any acoustic treatment.

2. Is the suggested treatment correct? I read the forums and most have recommended that only first reflection points need to be treated, not the entire side walls or ceilings. However, this specialist says that its better to treat the entire side walls and instead leave the front and rear walls untreated. Going by the forum recommendations would significantly bring down the cost for me, though the finish may not be as good as sporadic panels would be seen here and there (first reflection points only).

3. Are the rates quoted reasonable? The Anutone dealer is quoting Rs. 350/sqft for the finished installed cost of fabric/paintable panels and Rs. 280/sqft for exposed panels. Will a DIY with a more basic board work out substantially cheaper and still be as effective?

Suggestions on how I should proceed will be most welcome. I don't want to spend a bomb on room treatment and then discover that my speakers weren't "good enough" to begin with!

 

[GeorgeO]

Contented bloke

Like your handle,BTW.

Don't jump into a hasty and expensive solution.

I am using Anutone boards for a similar solution and have planned to treat the reflection points, for which I bought the boards and synth from Anutone. The project is a diy one and not a turnkey job by them. My estimate for the sides-using 3 panels of 4X2 for each side wall, with a 2 ft gap between each, and completely covering the rear wall, will cost me about 12K. I plan to carpet the floor, and will then decide after this is done about any further room treatment like bass traps and celing.

 

[GeorgeO]

Sorry didnt elaborate-the boards+ synth + fabric to cover them+ labour to make the frames and to mount them on the walls will cost me 12K. The job will be done by today after which I plan to wire up the room for sound and projector. I am travelling for 3 days from today and may not have access to email after this afternoon.

 

[contentedbloke]

Thanks GeorgeO. So you are not covering the entire wall - will not your panels stand projected from the rest of the wall by 1.5 inches? Or will that be a design element by itself?

 

[GeorgeO]

Yes they will project from the wall by 2 inches, I dont think that will matter too much. I had Praveen from Anutone come and suggest how I should go about it, as well as visited another friend who has used the same boards in his listening room.

 

[grubyhalo]

George, how are you planning to have the panels fixed to the walls? Tape? Nail?

 

[aakashr]

Hi, anyone know of any acoustic expert in Pune?

Regards

 

[longshanks]

I am not happy with the sound clarity of my speakers. I believe that my speakers are generally "soft" in nature and not as bright or punchy as I would expect it to be, though the volume output is quite good. Also, dialogues are not as clear as I wish it to be. I saw a similar 5.1 setup at a friend's place who also has untreated walls but has Energy speakers paired with a Marantz receiver. I was quite impressed with the quality of the speakers, especially the brightness, sharpness and "punch".

Bright and Punchy is not clarity rather it just a type of sound produced by a particular speaker,amp&source pairing. Not many like this kind of sound and even if people like the sound for a short listening time they get listening fatigue in the longer run.

Elac is a very good speaker company and personally i prefer it over mission any day, ive listened to a few of their speaker and thought they sounded pleasing with tight bass, this might be good for the longer run.Also if your system sounded dull or dialogue is not clear then it could also mean that your receiver is not a good match for your speaker or you have not played enough with all the settings in your receiver or the placement of the speakers.

if you are from chennai i guess you bought these speakers from the showroom in poes garden and they would have recommended you the onkyo,have you tried any other receiver with you speaker apart from onkyo like Yamaha or denon or even marantz?

I consulted with a Anutone dealer / installer in Chennai who, while acknowledging that my speakers were "decent but not as good as Energy"

So the anutone dealer must be the guys who knows everything about speakers.


do the room treatment if you feel there is bass hang, too much bass, not tight enough, if the high and mid freq stays and don't disappear which makes them sound confusing or muffled or if there is echo otherwise the treatment wont make much difference. Try some basic DIY room treatment before you spend money to get it professionally done .

 

[pdhanwada]

I am not too sure if the 2 inch thickness planks will help frequencies below 200hz. They might do a good job in the mid and high frequency range. I would prefer having a 4 inch thick plancks made out of rock wool covered by cloth.

You can go thru the following thread
http://www.hifivision.com/av-enhancers-room-acoustics/10892-need-help-room-acoustics.html

Everything DIY. Costed less than Rs 20000 Including labour and material
for bass traps on three corners, treatment on first reflection points on the side back, front and ceilings.

All the first reflection panels were made of 4 inch thick Bass traps are of triagular prism typs with 18 X 18 X24

Thanks
Pandu

 

[GeorgeO]

Nails. They seem to have worked ok.

George, how are you planning to have the panels fixed to the walls? Tape? Nail?

 

[GeorgeO]

Pandu

I plan to get your thoughts about the bass traps in Phase II, after doing carpeting.

 

[kaptan]

How much will cost for carpeting 10X15 size room.

 

[contentedbloke]

Longshanks - I bought the speakers from Onkyo showroom in Poes Garden. I haven't tried it with any other receivers and I don't know if other receivers will make the speakers sound all that different. All i can expect is that the other receivers have a better manual EQ system than onkyo. Currently, I have Audessey EQ turned off after a great deal of experimentation as I find that no EQ sounds better than EQ.

Without knowing whether the lack of clarity and dullness of the speaker is because of the speakers themselves or because of the room, I don't want to spend heavily on the room treatment. I guess I will go with small, incremental DIY options -> see the results and then take a decision.

 

[longshanks]

I haven't tried it with any other receivers and I don't know if other receivers will make the speakers sound all that different.

It is a quite known any speaker will sound different when connected to different receivers.

BTW model is your Elac 5.1 speaker system?

 

[pdhanwada]

Pandu

I plan to get your thoughts about the bass traps in Phase II, after doing carpeting.

George,

You are welcome anytime.

Thanks
pandu

 

[shankarcams]

Hi. I went through the exercise of room treatment a couple of months ago and some things I learnt via experimentation are as below:

1. Treating the roof (if it is the usual RCC flat roof) is as important as treating the walls.
2. Absorption based treatment (glass wool pads) will reduce the reflections but make the room a little lifeless. The more you absorb, the more the room tends to sound like an anechoic chamber. A mixture of diffusion and absorption is best.

I did this by constructing thin bookshelves along the walls and populating them with books of various sizes and shapes interspersed with objects d'Art. The bookshelf itself is not regularly shaped. Similarly I opted for a mix of absorption and diffusion on the roof.

I live in Chennai too so you are welcome to come by if you wish.

Shankar

 

[longshanks]

^ I would love to visit and listen to your all Meridian setup once if you don't mind

 

[shankarcams]

PM and we will set up something.

 

[vinay]

Dedicated Entertainment Room - Acoustic

It is great to know that you too have a dedicated home theatre room, that too with a good room length of 19 ft. Congratulations.

The acoustic treatment is a must for the room even if the audio gear is great. It is like having a Mercedez car, but a bad driver.

Welcome to the world of acoustics.

V.

I have a dedicated Home Theatre room of dimensions 19 ft (length) x 14ft (width) x 9ft (height). I have a 110 inch projector screen with a 5.1 Elac (German brand) speaker system powered by an Onkyo 605 receiver and my HTPC. My walls and ceiling are concrete and has not been acoustically treated yet.

I am not happy with the sound clarity of my speakers. I believe that my speakers are generally "soft" in nature and not as bright or punchy as I would expect it to be, though the volume output is quite good.