What do I do with this room

astolfo

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My room is really not good for sound, L shape, vaulted ceilings and no flexibility on moving the speakers to another wall. I am hoping someone can help me to understand the measurements and propose some solutions.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my measurements for L and R
Nov7-2021-L+R.jpg

Here is L+R+REL sub
Nov7-2021-L+R+REL.jpg

and here is the room
LivingRoom1.jpeg

and here it is how it looks looking at the listening couch.

Livingroom2.jpeg
 

FargateOne

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you should send the mdat file. The screen capture don't help since smoothing should have been applied, var smmoth for instance. Impulse is needed to see first reflexion etc. etc.
 

ddude003

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Looks like a lot of reflective surfaces... Floor, ceiling, walls, coffee table, couch... You might want to read up on room acoustics, including absorption and diffusion...
 

JStewart

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There’s a lot that’s good going on there too.
Neither the speakers nor LP are up against a boundary.
The left and right response appears to track pretty closely. I say “appears “ because to @FargateOne ’s point, its hard to see with an unsmoothed chart which shows all the comb filtering.

Is there anything specific from your listening you’d like to improve on? In the absence of knowing what you’re after and if the room and furnishings are pretty well set, I’d focus on
- making sure the sub was integrated as best as possible
- consider multiple subs for a smoother low end response
- using DSP to smooth out the low end response as best as possible
- possibly use DSP for full range correction.

I agree also with ddude003, removing the coffee table should make an audible improvement, if that’s ever an option.
 

astolfo

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Here is the zip file, I would love to get some opinions.
@ddude003 I would love to put some panels, but I have partner and I am taking so much room with my audio gear that I feel bad adding panels that would further shrink the room.
The coffee table does not make any audible difference, even the measurements are extremely similar. I tried it and measured a few times. the dip @138 (L+R+Herbie+REL Nov 8) is even deeper and the peak @159 is much higher.
All my gear, with exception of my Vega is tubed, so no much EQ possible and I want if at all possible keep it this way.
I have a second REL s/510, 2 5-shelf Rack-Of-Silence, a Pathos Heritage, Townshend Seismic Isolation Podiums for the speakers, and PS20 coming. I could add a thick tapestry to the large empty wall, the curtains are heavy and I close them.

I would love to see what you have to say, as for what I want to improve... I think that mostly refraction and resonance and even out the left to match closer the right. I am sorry if these are not the right words in English.
 

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  • November7+8--2021.zip
    13.9 MB · Views: 47

ddude003

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Ok... I should have been a bit more specific in my above comments... I would start with taming the room... I see lots of bare walls... Pretty much all the wall are bare... There are many wide-band absorption panels that can have photos/paintings that would dress up the room... 2 inches wide and 4 inches wide do not "shrink the room"... My "rule of thumb" is that 1/4th to 1/3 of the surface area of the room needs wide-band absorption... DSP/EQ is not going to make much of a difference if you will not get some absorption and diffusion into/onto the room... Put some stuff on that coffee table... Pillows and comforters on that couch... Doileys, plants, books etc... Speaking of plants... Put more plants in the room, live or fake... And please add your entire kit to your My AV System...
 
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bvocal

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You have an endless array of insurmountable acoustic problems built into your room. You would be better off with a different room.
 

acsaccount

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try rotating your system 90ø, making fireplace as center. Maybe this is more even/symmetrical. Measure again, an then start applying acoustic materials, where needed.
 

MediumRare

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Uggh, a lot of not-fact-based comments here.
1st, rerun with psychoacoustic or 1/6 smoothing and repost.
2nd, run it without the coffee table and post that.
Also post a distortion plot.
 

highstream

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Well, for starts work on the room. Like you say, that’s the biggest problem. Without going crazy, as it is a nice living room. I’d look at adding a bass trap, maybe a tall bookshelf, and seeing where first reflection point absorbers/diffuser panels might help. How far are you from the speakers? From the photo, it looks like you are fairly far away. If so, is that actually the best spot, or an empirical adaptation to the difficult room acoustics? Btw, vaulted ceilings are considered a good thing for sound, or at least Paul McGowan of PS Audio considers them such. He did a recent Ask Paul video about room acoustics (he has a book out on system set up, as does setup guru Jim Smith).
 

dsnyder0cnn

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This does not look like a terrible room to me. Ideally, nothing should be within the triangle formed by the speakers and listening position, but this is a lovely, comfortable family room, so compromises are sometimes required. At least the coffee table is not made of glass! :)

By my math, the mic position was 3 7/8 inches closer to the right speaker. That, or REW just had a little trouble working out the timing offset. Did you use an Acoustic timing reference when you made your measurements? If not, give that a try for your next measurement. Also, when you include the REL, do separate plots of Left + REL and Right + REL. Including all three can be interesting to look for phase issues, but it's more useful to have plots with each channel separate when considering possibilities for corrections.

A number of plots have "Herbie" in their description, but I could not figure out what that means. Also, the soundcard calibration for those plots looks really crazy, so I decided to ignore them for now.

47420


Looking at the first few ms of the step function, I see a second hump of nearly equal amplitude to the original impulse but delayed by 1.39 ms. This indicates a strong reflection with a path length that is about 19 inches longer than the direct sound. If you can figure out what that is, removing it or covering it with something that will scatter or absorb will improve things quite a bit. I'm hoping this is not the aforementioned coffee table. :)

47421


I'm not aware of any digital room correction process that will remove a reflection like this, so like others have suggested, it has to be dealt with using practical means.

Overall, the RT60 plots look pretty good. Rough average is a little over 400 ms for most of the range. It's common to lose articulation below 100 Hz in a room like this with no bass traps. A pair of these would do wonders here and be well worth the investment if they won't spoil your decore.

47424


The frequency response of the left and right channels looks good apart from the broad ~8 dB dip from 150 to 500 Hz. Tonality will improve quite a bit if this can be smoothed out using EQ.

47422


I am a little concerned by the ~2.5 dB channel imbalance between 2 and 5.5 kHz. That covers a fairly wide range where our hearing is sensitive to stuff like this, so it may be worth increasing the gain in the left channel by a couple of dB to see if that helps.

I didn't study the plots with the REL included, but it looks like you should be able to bring it in at around 60 Hz, give or take, to add extension and pressurize the room.

I see that you have a turntable, so I assume that digital room correction is off the table (no pun intended). Honestly, I don't think it's required to make this room really sing, but for nice tonality, we really don't want to be down at 250 Hz. Hoping you can find a way to address this that works with your room and the rest of your system. Hope this helps. Good luck!
 

astolfo

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Hello All, I will responding to these incredibly thoughtful responses on Monday.
Thank you!
 

astolfo

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Hello dsnyder0cnn first let me thank you VERY much for all the time it took you to go over the files and write the report. Pretty incredible.

Herbie are some cheap isolation feet that appear to me that make no acoustical difference.
I did more measurements, with table and without table, I also corrected the speaker distance, you were pretty close if I measured from the center of the sofa, but I listen on the left side so hopefully now that is resolved.
With the Tannoy Kensington I can adjust the Treble db and roll-off so I added 1.8, but I did not the time to measure.
Maybe I have time tomorrow or Wednesday.

It would be interesting to see what you think the table and no table readings.

As for the REL, I have it already at 60-70Hz the knobs do not have a scale so it is pretty hard to actually figure out the precise Hz, I have been doing by ear.

I play mostly Pink-Floyd, Stones, Ramones, Beatles, and some other classic rock, plus Jazz, Blues, and a lot of Spanish guitar and Classic records, so I have the REL mostly to help to complete the imaging and bass dynamics and color.

Although I do not have anything against digital, I just like my end to end analog/tubes. The most I will do is to connect the Pathos Heritage and the Vega2.1 in my music.

For bass traps, I could put some flat panels behind the speakers, but I do not know if the round bass traps would work with my partner.

I am sorry but I am not understanding what to do do with this part " This indicates a strong reflection with a path length that is about 19 inches longer than the direct sound. If you can figure out what that is, removing it or covering it with something that will scatter or absorb will improve things quite a bit. I'm hoping this is not the aforementioned coffee table "



How do you think the 250Hz can be addressed?

Again thank you SO much for the study.
 

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  • Nov15.zip
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dsnyder0cnn

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Hello dsnyder0cnn
For bass traps, I could put some flat panels behind the speakers, but I do not know if the round bass traps would work with my partner.

I am sorry but I am not understanding what to do do with this part " This indicates a strong reflection with a path length that is about 19 inches longer than the direct sound. If you can figure out what that is, removing it or covering it with something that will scatter or absorb will improve things quite a bit. I'm hoping this is not the aforementioned coffee table "

How do you think the 250Hz can be addressed?

Again thank you SO much for the study.

GIK Acoustics and others make 4" thick panels that can be used as bass traps. These work best if they are stacked at a 45º angle in the corners, but on-wall will be better than nothing. :)

For my reflection comment, measure the distance between microphone and tweeter. Now, imagine cutting a piece of string that is 19 inches greater than that distance. Finally, imagine threading the string through a washer and attaching one end to the tweeter and the other to the mic. Pull on the washer to take up slack in the string. Any object that you can touch with the washer is a possible source of this reflection.

I'll have a look at your new ZIP file and let you know if I see anything interesting.
 

dsnyder0cnn

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Well, the good news is that your coffee table does not seem to be the issue. Reflection must be coming from something else. Here's a time-domain plot with and without the table. Right channel looks about the same.

47483


I'm not sure why this is, but the peak of your step response severely curtailed when you add the REL. I see this in both channels. Could be a measurement issue or something not quite right with phase or polarity?

47484


Ideally, we want to see the initial rise in the step function reach 100%. For example, I used REW to create a quick low-pass filter that emulates ideal loudspeaker behavior. Here's what the ideal step function should look like:

47485


I'm wondering what changes you need to make, either to set up or measurements, to get closer to that 100% peak in your step function with the REL enabled. That you are not reaching that now suggests to me that there's cancellation happening in the room somewhere.
 

astolfo

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thank you again! It would be nice for me to be able to something for you after spending all this time.
Maybe this is the problem? I am having trouble to get the db in and db out close to each other no matter what I do with the volume for the output and input in the calibration section.
In this measurements I added the 1.5db of treble energy to the left speaker, Tannoy's function and changed the phase for 0 to 180.
I will try to order some bass-traps. This weekend I will talk to my partner and get a feeling if I could get your recommendation in. If not, GIK has full range or limited range, which ones do you think I should get? there is also the possibility to order them with 2 scatter plates.

Here is all I can do about adjusting "bias" with the speakers
From Tannoy:
"Each loudspeaker is fitted with two controls located on the front baffle beneath the detachable grille. These high current switch blocks are labelled ROLL OFF and ENERGY. They can be used to compensate for the varied acoustic characteristics of listening rooms. The controls should be adjusted with the amplifier tone controls in the ‘flat’ or uncompensated position. Each loudspeaker should be adjusted individually. Rotating the amplifier balance control, to select first one loudspeaker and then the other, most easily achieves this. The Energy control has five positions. It allows the output of the high frequency compression drive unit to be increased or decreased from the linear or ‘flat’ position over a frequency band from approximately 1 kHz to 27 kHz. The Roll Off control has five positions (+2, level, -2, -4 and -6 dB per octave) and provides adjustment at extreme high frequencies from 5 kHz to 30 kHz. The Energy control has a shelving effect whereas the roll off control increases or decreases the slope of the extreme high frequency response. The flattest, most linear response from the loudspeaker will be obtained with both controls set at the LEVEL position, and this position should be used for initial listening tests. If the overall quality of the high frequency sound seems too prominent the –1.5 or –3 positions for the Energy control should be tried. If the sound appears subdued in the treble region +1.5 or +3 settings may be preferred. Once the energy control setting has been established the Roll Off control can be adjusted to reduce or slightly increase the extreme high frequency content if necessary "
 

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dsnyder0cnn

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It definitely looks like you want the phase set to 180º. You can see that the 180º plot more closely matches the speaker with no sub (yellow and orange), especially in the first 7 ms.

47492


I'm just surprised that the peak of the step is so far below 100%. Have not seen that before. Could be a REW normalization issue as well. If I increase the time range, I see that the peak actually happens at about 22 ms instead of 0 ms.

47493


As you saw from the ideal step response that I shared, this is not expected. I wonder if there's some kind of crossover delay happening. @Mitchco could probably tell us what's going on here. :)
 

astolfo

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You are pretty good at this! I am glad that at least my ears were good enough to select the correct phase.
I do not know what it is going on with the delayed response, the REL is connected directly to both of the speaker taps, so it should be getting both signals. Although the speaker cables are clearly different to those in the REL, the cables are the same distance.

I ordered the traps you recommended, now a 6-9 week wait..

Can the reflection we are after be in the left wall by the plant?
Livingroomdiagram.JPG



How did you get the 180 vs 0 deg plot created?

Let me see if I learn anything from you :)

After adding 1.5db of energy to the left speaker, it looks like they are closer together. Is this correct?
With REL
Left-RightBalance.jpg


Without REL

Left-RightBalance-NO-REL.jpg



Hopefully @Mitchco will chime in.
Thank you
Astolfo
 

MediumRare

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Looks to me like REL volume is way too high. Also roll off is a little too low. Try to set to 80 with REL 1/2 as loud. Also, can the REL polarity be something in-between 0 and 180? Try 160 and 200 and see if the fills in the cancellation at 60.
 

ddude003

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Wondering about the ceiling hight difference between the 8ft short wall vs the 17ft long wall... From the photos it looks like about 3ft to 4ft difference... Ceiling bounce would be pretty asymmetrical...

Might be interesting to get out the tape measure as well as a flashlight and mirror... Measure the height of what would be considered the 4 corners of the room... Stick a mirror on the ceiling, in various places and shine a flashlight on it and see where it illuminates...

Kind of reminds me of the Knott's Berry Farm Mystery Shack only upside down... Where the water runs up hill...
 
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dsnyder0cnn

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You are pretty good at this! I am glad that at least my ears were good enough to select the correct phase.
I do not know what it is going on with the delayed response, the REL is connected directly to both of the speaker taps, so it should be getting both signals. Although the speaker cables are clearly different to those in the REL, the cables are the same distance.

I ordered the traps you recommended, now a 6-9 week wait..

Can the reflection we are after be in the left wall by the plant?
View attachment 47499


How did you get the 180 vs 0 deg plot created?

Let me see if I learn anything from you :)

After adding 1.5db of energy to the left speaker, it looks like they are closer together. Is this correct?
With REL
View attachment 47497

Without REL

View attachment 47498


Hopefully @Mitchco will chime in.
Thank you
Astolfo
Please send me an updated *.mdat file after you added 1.5 dB of energy to the left speaker. Would be fun to have another look. :)
 

astolfo

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Here we go! I added seismic isolation podium bases.
Pretty good improvement on decay. I would love to hear what you have to say. My second sub is coming next week
 

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dsnyder0cnn

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Here we go! I added seismic isolation podium bases.
Pretty good improvement on decay. I would love to hear what you have to say. My second sub is coming next week
Please share a photo or link for the podium bases. I don't have a good sense of what they are.
 

astolfo

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Podiums
You tell me how good they are :) I noticed a significant difference when compared to the other isolation mechanism.
48165
 
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