Space challenged basic studio in Switzerland

I plan to work with REW and see how the room responds with different settings. Figuring out where to put the treatment will depend on monitor and listening placement anyway... I'll let you know how I make progress (but that might not be before some time, still no internet @home :cen: ).

I've been away from this forum because I've been busy in this one: http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/ ... post497499 Very interesting discussions!

I used to hang out there 3-4 years ago. They might know home theater...but this is not home theater. When it comes down to it...you have to decide what it is you are doing, who it is you trust and what it is you are trying to achieve. If you are doing a home theater, I would stick with those guys...but if you are doing a critical listening/recording area...you have found your home :)

Agree with Brien: Some stuff you see over there is, ummmm, shal we say "interesting", to be polite. Not only that, but the same advice you got over there is what we already told you here in greater detail! :shock: You also seem to be totally misunderstanding the 38% rule, and nobody over there even noticed! It is not your SPEAKERS that go at 38% of room depth, but your EARS! It's rather surprising that no-one noticed what you said. And as we mentioned before, the 38% "rule" is just a guideline. It helps to get you in the right general location, which you can then tweak as needed. - Stuart -

My bad then. You see, it's not that I don't trust what people are telling me here. It's that I was recommended to use REW to make room measurements. When you dl REW, you do it on hts. And since there's a forum, ... you see where I'm going. Also, maybe the way they said it over there was easier for me to understand than what you told me; I really didn't mean to offend anyone. Finally, I did understand the 38% rule-of-thumb :) I know it's the listening position and not the speakers positions :P So back to acoustics. Here's what I get so far: - symmetry, important, me understand :lol: => facing north west corner looks good (and looks like I save some room) - monitor reflections off of a large desk => smaller desk - make measurements to understand room before treatment (and after treatment, just to see the difference 8) ) Here's what I still don't get: - do I really need hundreds of dollars of room treatment? I'm a hobbyist :cry: If I only had $100, where should I use them? My take is that I need to bass trap treat the primary reflection points first and foremost; then if I have extra cash, I treat other corners and the overhead in the same way, in that order - monitors: sound dispersion seems important but is it as important as, say, frequency range? The JBL LSR 2325 are nice from a dispersion point of view, but how about the rest of the important factors? - can I have furniture in the room, for example in the back? Wouldn't this help prevent reflections off of the back wall (near the door)? I guess I'll have more as I do more research. Thanks for the help.

So here's the current layout draft for my home studio: http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/12/05/97/77/plan_v10.png I do like the extra space in the middle. However, the speaker placement looks weird. I don't have the monitors so I can't really test. Any clues?

100 SFr. will pretty near cover the cost of a few panels. Isover fiberglass insulation 20mm thick 600 x 1200 can be bought at Coop or OBI for about 65 Sfr. a bundle. Construction grade (i.e. unplaned) 20mm x 40mm lumber from the same sources will cost @ 15-20 SFr. Fabric from Coop or Migro will take the rest of your budget. OK you'll need glue (wood glue for framing and UHU spray adhesive for bonding the FG panels to each other and the frame). You'll also want screws or nails for the frame construction, and staples for attaching the fabric to the frame. I'd say getting yourself a few of these absorbers built will be your next priority. Truthfully, 100 SFr. won't be enough - double it (2 bundles of FG) and you can build 5 - 6 absorber panels - remember youll want a couple hanging from the ceiling as clouds.

I started to look for fiberglass with Hornbach - no luck :lol: Thanks for the tips! The ones you built are very thick! Do you use the same thickness for the overhead traps? About the speaker placement: do they make sense right now? They look weird.

do I really need hundreds of dollars of room treatment? I'm a hobbyist :cry:

That depends on how good you want your room to sound! :)

If I only had $100, where should I use them?

If all I had was US$ 100, I would not expect outstanding results: just a small change. I'd use that to buy as much cheap fiberglass insulation as I could (around 30kg/m3), put two thirds into bass traps in the rear vertical corners, and the other third into the first reflection points.

My take is that I need to bass trap treat the primary reflection points first and foremost;

Bass traps and first reflection points are not the same thing. Yes, you do use the same materials to build them, but the purpose is different. Bass traps help to damp room modes, first reflection absorbers help keep the area around your listening position free from early reflections, so you only get direct sound from the speakers.

then if I have extra cash, I treat other corners and the overhead in the same way, in that order

I'd do the overhead first, since that ceiling is a major first reflection point.

- monitors: sound dispersion seems important but is it as important as, say, frequency range? The JBL LSR 2325 are nice from a dispersion point of view, but how about the rest of the important factors?

Don't forget that you got that advice on a home theater forum, where folks will happily pay tens of thousands of dollars for a nice set of speakers, then spend hours, or days, or weeks, sliding them around, an inch or so at a time, to try to get the perfect sound! There's nothing wrong with that, but they are more focused on listening rooms, not studios. To them, the speakers must be beyond perfect to get the perfect listening experience. Also, home theater walls are seldom splayed, and their treatment is somewhat different than what you want in a studio: they don't mind, and they even like it if the speakers have a good "sound" of their own, or if the room "colors" the sound agreeably. Their final goal is a room and speakers that sound great for showing movies. But for a studio, you want neutral sound, not colored sound. You want the speakers to tell you the truth, not enhance it. And you want the room to tell you the truth as well, not disguise it. I have known theater buffs who have visited a professional control room and commented that it sounded terrible, flat, lifeless, surgical, and things like that, when in reality it was a great control room. The trouble is, when you hear good speakers with flat response in a well-designed neutral control room, all you are hearing is exactly what is in the soundtrack itself, and sometimes that isn't "pleasant". For a control room, "neutral, flat, lifeless, and surgical" are exactly what you want! You do not want what "warm", "pleasant", "fat", "melodic", and things like that, that you often hear home studio guru's talking about. Don't get me wrong! I'm not saying that they don't know what they are doing! Not at all: some of those guys are experts, and they were giving you good advice, in general. But they have different priorities than we do. Anyway, that's my long way of saying that your speakers should be the best you can afford, with flat response on-axis, and reasonably tight Q, hopefully better in vertical than horizontal. Then you take those characteristics into account when you locate the speakers in the room, choosing the best position to maintain neutral response, arranging the furniture in the room to minimize early reflections, then treating the room as well as possible to take care of the rest.

- can I have furniture in the room, for example in the back? Wouldn't this help prevent reflections off of the back wall (near the door)?

You can, and many studios do, but once again it is designed, positioned and treated to minimize the effect that it has on the room, or even to have a positive effect. You very often see sofas at the back of control rooms, but they are soft and absorbent. Seldom do you see closets, wooden chairs, large tables, or things like that. In a small room, the rear wall should be as absorbent as you can make it. Yes, rear wall diffusion is an option for LARGE rooms, but not for small rooms. Or at least, most types of diffusion have no place in small rooms: there are some types that you could consider. Anyway, you have the right basic plan with what you said: symmetry, bass taps, reflections, and measure before and after each round of treatment, to see how things are changing. And make certain that you get the mic in the exact same position every time you measure, accurate to with a one cm or so. That is important: If you measure in different places each time, then you are not measuring the same thing! - Stuart -

Wow this is awesome. Thank you so much for putting it on "paper" so clearly. I think I need to buy some tools :lol:

I am updating my layout :) http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/12/05/97/77/plan_v11.png Corner bass traps are pink (1-3), reflection point treatment are yellow (4-6), so that's 6 panels of roughly 120cm x 60cm. The desk is this one (but I'll look for a better alternative): http://www.ikea.com/ch/fr/catalog/products/20111323/ Very small footprint and some angle down. Sofa is an addition I thought about, some cheapo thing to sit on -and as fluffy and fabricky as possible. Which I guess is something I could try to add pretty much everywhere: instead of wooden boxes, pick up or recycle some of those IKEA fabric boxes? I'm still hesitating about where to sing into - should I try the corner where the drums are, i.e. sing into the corner? I'm thinking it might be best to sing into a place where I can have some feedback from walls, mimicking a vocal booth. And maybe I'm wrong :)

Much better! But I would move your chair back into the room a bit: Your speakers are angled too much. The acoustic axes of the speakers should intersect a few inches behind your head, at about 60 degrees, and no more than 90 degrees, maximum. If you go more than that, then you have no sound stage, and the sweet spot is a tiny, narrow sliver, just a couple of inches wide. so angle your speaker such that the intersect is less than 90 degrees, and then set up your chair in the position where your ears are located a few inches forward of that intersect. I would also put two more absorbent panels on the walls, right behind the speakers (between the speaker and the wall), and something on the rear wall, directly behind you. But apart from that, it looks good! - Stuart -

Nothing to be ashamed of V, it's a common mistake to think that sound rooms are a "one size fits all" proposition. I have to wonder what would be even part of, in a home theater, the application of Wes Lachot's 38 percent starting point application, since you do far more better by using a completely different setup, typically with 5.1 if not 7.1 surround. But I am certain that Mr. Lachot is laughing to the bank. If not the bank then to the bank of acoustic myths that have gone viral on the web :)

Updated layout: http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/12/05/97/77/studio11.png In fact, I currently have an open bookshelf in the back of the room (2m high, about 45-50cm deep): http://i45.servimg.com/u/f45/12/05/97/77/studio12.png Would covering the front of the furniture with fabric (like a curtain) suffice in terms of reflection killer? I know it's not as nice as fiberglass, but I would really need to space to store books and stuff.

Soundman2020 wrote:

Anyway, that's my long way of saying that your speakers should be the best you can afford, with flat response on-axis, and reasonably tight Q, hopefully better in vertical than horizontal. Then you take those characteristics into account when you locate the speakers in the room, choosing the best position to maintain neutral response, arranging the furniture in the room to minimize early reflections, then treating the room as well as possible to take care of the rest.

So by chance I get this reference from another forum: http://www.equatoraudio.com/D5_Studio_M ... r_p/d5.htm I can't find the same details (on-axis/off-axis responses, etc.) and Q numbers for the JBL2325 which are my current choice - how do I compare them? N00b alert: can't find what "Q" is in this audio context, can you point me to a good definition? Thanks!

Quality.

So when someone says that monitor should have a "tight Q", they mean... what? :oops: