Changed from carpet to hardwood... Taming the echo...

[whimorris]

Although not at all unexpected, my change from broadloom to hardwood flooring in my listening room has left me with what I consider an undesirable reverberant audio environment. Using REW I re-equalized the room, but of course this still leaves the echos. I am looking for some wisdom on taming this. All suggestions are appreciated, although I do not want to add carpet again. I examined some sound absorbing wall panels, but must peacefully coexist with my dear wife, who "disapproves" of adding wall panels. Are there perhaps any electronic devices that could mitigate? Thanks in advance for all direction and assistance.

 

[AudiocRaver]

Although not at all unexpected, my change from broadloom to hardwood flooring in my listening room has left me with what I consider an undesirable reverberant audio environment.

A lot of factors go into what making a home beautiful to all its residents, I'll bet the floor looks great!

Using REW I re-equalized the room, but of course this still leaves the echos.

I believe the general wisdom is what you already are finding, that a fairly well-treated room or one with a fair amount of absorption like carpeting, will take to room equalization nicely, but with little to no absorption, room EQ will bring little improvement, might even sound worse.

I am looking for some wisdom on taming this. All suggestions are appreciated, although I do not want to add carpet again. I examined some sound absorbing wall panels, but must peacefully coexist with my dear wife, who "disapproves" of adding wall panels. Are there perhaps any electronic devices that could mitigate? Thanks in advance for all direction and assistance.

I am not aware of any electronic devices that would help. There are certainly snake-oil "solutions" that would be advertised to help. Don't fall for them.

Absorption is the only solution I can think of. Moving speakers and listening position (LP) closer together might help some. Most acoustical treatment supply houses offer art panels that can look pretty sharp, some even offer solutions with customer-supplied art. Or if you are into DIY projects, you might build your own. Acoustical absorption strategically placed is the only thing I know of that will help, along with perhaps a closer LP.

 

[Sonnie]

Somewhat to what Wayne eluded to... you could either custom build (much cheaper) or buy plain panels and cover them with various tapestry material. You can get just about anything imaginable in tapestries. I build sold panels for my side walls because I did not want absorption in that location... mine are huge, but you can buy all kinds of different sizes. In most cases for echo you shouldn't need anything super thick... likely only 2" thick would work, and decorative panels placed behind the speakers... first reflection points... and on the wall behind the listening area at direct reflection points... will do the job.

Another option is a 2" thick shag carpet rug on the floor between you and the speakers, but then that covers up your wood and defeats the purpose of the wood look.

 

[hemiutut]

Beware of rugs that will unbalance the TR the most

Written with translator

Greetings

 

[DanDan]

In most rooms the Ceiling and the Floor are the two biggest surface areas. Treating one of them entirely is a very powerful and helpful intervention. Both bare is disastrous, flutter echo hell. So treat the ceiling. Either an entire suspended ceiling of absorbent tiles. There are great colour and lighting options. Or plenty of Clouds, over the speaker and listening areas at least. Again, plenty of great lighting options.

 

[whimorris]

Many thanks to all for your kind suggestions, food for thought. Another less than fortunate factor is that this listening room is our living room, so few options are available as any radical décor changes will be... problematic.

I have and will continue to enjoy these Forums, much to be learned here. Congratulations to all for spreading your knowledge and experience using a most enjoyable venue!

 

[AudiocRaver]

Thanks for tuning in, we are always glad to share our advice. We understand your situation. It might be time to become a headphone listener!

Enjoy the floors. If your wife is happy, that is worth a LOT! Small sacrifice!

 

[ddude003]

Oh, it is your living room... No worries... How about some large potted trees or plants... In the front and back corners... Also at the side reflection points... Across the front and back wall... If you and wife don't have a green thumb dried or fake can work too...

 

[DanDan]

It is possible to have Cake and Eat it. There are Acoustically Transparent plasterboards and plasters. This one looks lovely in situ, a matt finish with just a hint of the recycled glass. It can be dyed any colour and never needs painting. http://www.sto.co.uk/en/products/acoustic-systems/compact-system/stosilent-compact.html

 

[whimorris]

With reference to DanDan's response, most intriguing - opened my eyes to technical aspects of sound absorption. I found a good introductory article on this, check it here "Sound Absorption - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics" (I cannot post links yet, sorry) Thanks DanDan, more food for thought. (I assume you meant - "There are Acoustically Absorbent plasterboards and plasters.")
By my estimation, I have gone from an αw of about .65 with carpet and under pad to αw of possibly less than 0.1 with laminate, at least at upper frequencies. No surprise then for echoes/reverberation...
I have attached before and after pictures of my listening room (living room) flooring for clarity.

As I said, more food for thought. We will see...

 

[DanDan]

The boards are absorbent but quite thin. So the heavy lifting can be done by creating a void behind/above and filling with light fibre.

 

[AudiocRaver]

Another thought, new speakers!

A horn-loaded speaker will have a tendency to "beam" the sound toward the listener, so there will be a lot less room reverberation. And a heavy absorbent blind that can be pulled down to cover that window behind the listening seat will help, too.

Or headphones. I am loving the Massdrop version of the Sennheiser HD 650. Add on a headphone amp and for around $500 you will be in Music Nirvana.

Seriously, that room would have been an audio headache with the carpet. Without that taming factor, it must be a sonic disappointment. I would give headphones a try.

 

[whimorris]

I am looking for enlightenment... here are two of my latest REW files for this room in its current state, one with, one without subs, both fully Equalized. Until now I have only paid attention to the SPL readings.

What else should I be examining for modification and improvement? (I.E. Distortion, Impulse, Decay, Waterfall etc.)

As always all assistance is appreciated. Also, if I have posted this in the incorrect forum, my apologies, - where should such a query be placed?

 

[skid00]

Roll-up rugs for music listening, wall hangings. Maybe even floor-standing baffles radiating out from the sides of the speakers...

 

[barnfindtheater]

You could try this on your ceiling ... I did, in a room with a slate floor and it worked well. fabricmate.com

 

[grimrian]

Could you consider cork floor? Or wall(s) or ceiling - highly sound absorbent, sustainable and cheap. Looks nice, too.

 

[dsnyder0cnn]

With reference to DanDan's response, most intriguing - opened my eyes to technical aspects of sound absorption. I found a good introductory article on this, check it here "Sound Absorption - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics" (I cannot post links yet, sorry) Thanks DanDan, more food for thought. (I assume you meant - "There are Acoustically Absorbent plasterboards and plasters.")
By my estimation, I have gone from an αw of about .65 with carpet and under pad to αw of possibly less than 0.1 with laminate, at least at upper frequencies. No surprise then for echoes/reverberation...
I have attached before and after pictures of my listening room (living room) flooring for clarity.

As I said, more food for thought. We will see...

Thanks for the photos. You'd have to convince your better half, but it should be possible to fairly unobtrusively treat a significant portion of the ceiling. The folks over at RealTraps have a flush-mount kit for RFZ panels, and they may be able to match the color of your ceiling close enough that they would blend well.

RealTraps - RFZ Panel Ceiling Mounting

realtraps.com

RealTraps - RFZ Panels

realtraps.com

You could also pick up a couple of stand-mounted RFZ panels that you can drag out of a closet and place on the sides for serious listening and then put away when your wife returns.

Looking at your REW data, RT60 seems to be quite good, around 400ms. At least in theory, that should provide good articulation across the range.

However, I see evidence of overcorrection of frequency response above the room's transition frequency:

Especially in a smaller room, what we want to see is a steady drop in room response from lows to highs at a rate of around 1 dB per octave. These plots show flat or slightly rising response, which will make everything sound bright / lean in a small room. I would re-run your corrections with target curve that is -1 dB/octave from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. You could also try flat from 20 Hz to 1 kHz and then -1.4 dB/octave from 1 kHz to 20 kHz (-6 dB at 20 kHz).

Looking at the time domain, I see about 100 ms of pre-ringing in your filters, although the level is not terrible. Step response would be a lot better if you were using Audiolense or Acourate to generate your filters. The response here is pretty typical of a 3-way design, with the midrange out of phase with the tweeter and woofer. What we want to see is a sharp, synchronized rise at t=0s.

There's some debate about if this time-domain stuff matters, but I think it may.

You'll find a much more comprehensive explanation here:

 

[whimorris]

Wow. First, thanks for taking time to share your experience. I must now educate myself in the broader use of REW, as until now, I have always looked at only SPL frequency response. Now I will look into understanding the RT60 and Impulse/Step response graphs.

"Looking at the time domain, I see about 100 ms of pre-ringing in your filters, although the level is not terrible. Step response would be a lot better if you were using Audiolense or Acourate to generate your filters. The response here is pretty typical of a 3-way design, with the midrange out of phase with the tweeter and woofer. What we want to see is a sharp, synchronized rise at t=0s. "

How using REW does one see this 100 ms of pre ringing in (my) filters?
My filters consist solely of a hardware equalizer with fixed filter characteristics, they are not software generated, so I am unclear as how to modify the step response as you describe, pardon my lack of experience/understanding in this area...

I can easily modify the overall frequency response as you suggest, and will give it a try.

Again, dsnyder0cnn, many thanks for taking time to analyze my REW data, I will study the areas new to my experience!

 

[dsnyder0cnn]

Wow. First, thanks for taking time to share your experience. I must now educate myself in the broader use of REW, as until now, I have always looked at only SPL frequency response. Now I will look into understanding the RT60 and Impulse/Step response graphs.

"Looking at the time domain, I see about 100 ms of pre-ringing in your filters, although the level is not terrible. Step response would be a lot better if you were using Audiolense or Acourate to generate your filters. The response here is pretty typical of a 3-way design, with the midrange out of phase with the tweeter and woofer. What we want to see is a sharp, synchronized rise at t=0s. "

How using REW does one see this 100 ms of pre ringing in (my) filters?
My filters consist solely of a hardware equalizer with fixed filter characteristics, they are not software generated, so I am unclear as how to modify the step response as you describe, pardon my lack of experience/understanding in this area...

I can easily modify the overall frequency responnse as you suggest, and will give it a try.

Again, dsnyder0cnn, many thanks for taking time to analyze my REW data, I will study the areas new to my experience!

Good questions. Changes to amplitude response always have consequences in the time domain. If they are always significant is harder to say. Which hardware equalizer are you using?

 

[whimorris]

My equipment (old school n'est-ce pas?) -

Preamp: Sony TA-E2000ESD Dig. Preamp
Tuner: Sony ST-S730ES
Main Amp: Hafler DH-200
Additional Amp: Hafler PRO2400 (bridged for dual subs)
Other Amp: Yamaha M35 (rear surround)
Equalizer: ART EQU 355 Dual channel 31 band 1/3 octave equalizer
CD Player: Sony CDP-CE275 CD Changer
Front Speakers: Polk Audio RTiA-9
Back Speakers: Generic mid size bookshelf
Subwoofers 2 x Sound Dynamics THS-12, (AMPS REMOVED)
Microphone: Umik-1 Mini-DSP
Other Equipment: Active low pass filter (for subs) Fc 30Hz, 12/24 dB/octave

The Sony preamp has a 3 channel parametric equalizer with control over fc, slope, amplitude for each channel. There are 8 user memory settings available for this equalizer.

 

[dsnyder0cnn]

My equipment (old school n'est-ce pas?) -

Preamp: Sony TA-E2000ESD Dig. Preamp
Tuner: Sony ST-S730ES
Main Amp: Hafler DH-200
Additional Amp: Hafler PRO2400 (bridged for dual subs)
Other Amp: Yamaha M35 (rear surround)
Equalizer: ART EQU 355 Dual channel 31 band 1/3 octave equalizer
CD Player: Sony CDP-CE275 CD Changer
Front Speakers: Polk Audio RTiA-9
Back Speakers: Generic mid size bookshelf
Subwoofers 2 x Sound Dynamics THS-12, (AMPS REMOVED)
Microphone: Umik-1 Mini-DSP
Other Equipment: Active low pass filter (for subs) Fc 30Hz, 12/24 dB/octave

The Sony preamp has a 3 channel parametric equalizer with control over fc, slope, amplitude for each channel. There are 8 user memory settings available for this equalizer.

That sounds like a fun system. If you decide to transition from real-time CD playback to file-based playback, there are some amazing options DSP options available would make a real difference in your system. Software like Roon, JRiver Media Center, and HQPlayer include powerful convolution engines that can perform corrections to both frequency and phase response with impressive results. I like using Room EQ Wizard to verify the results of such filters.

 

[henryeng]

Although not at all unexpected, my change from broadloom to hardwood flooring in my listening room has left me with what I consider an undesirable reverberant audio environment. Using REW I re-equalized the room, but of course this still leaves the echos. I am looking for some wisdom on taming this. All suggestions are appreciated, although I do not want to add carpet again. I examined some sound absorbing wall panels, but must peacefully coexist with my dear wife, who "disapproves" of adding wall panels. Are there perhaps any electronic devices that could mitigate? Thanks in advance for all direction and assistance.

A couple of suggestions: Use an 'area rug' in the listening area. I have hard tile floor, but a large area rug makes a huge improvement, reducing echo/reverb. Also...add something to the ceiling that is non-reflective, such as grasscloth. Depending upon your decor, it could actually add to the asthetics of the room. My house is done in a polynesian theme...the grasscloth adds to the "look", and reduces reverb. Large pieces of "absorbent" furniture (sofas, chairs) with lots of padding will also soak up reverb. The only way to reduce reverb/echo is to absorb sound so it doesn't reflect. No amount of EQ can do that.

 

[ddude003]

A couple of easy things to try... Big fluffy pillows, comforters and/or blankets on and over the couch and chairs... Fold a bath towel or two and put them on that coffee table... Just to see if this helps... You might also try to cut 18kHz to 20kHz and above with your equalizer... I wouldn't worry much about the pre-ringing issue...

 

[whimorris]

Thanks people, I will look into these ideas.