Construction Started...

I would just use the packed rock wool covered in cloth in that case; that extra 20 foot path (round trip from your head back to your head) is borderline for diffusion in most recommendations. A "slatted" bass trap is actually a helmholtz resonator, unless it's not sealed at the slats, in which case it's an un-estimable thing - removing the slats turns it into a wide-band absorber. If you've done no homework at all, and therefore ended up with a GROSS modal imbalance, or if you just want the room brighter and still have need for more LF absorption, then slats in that particular location could be used with little bad effect - this because the reflection path would be (from your head) to the (approximately) 45 degree surface of the slats, then to the floor somewhere in the rear of the room - by the time these specular reflections reached your ears again, they would be called "reverb" - Back to the gross modal imbalance - if for some reason your room had equal, or even multiple, dimensions - you could end up with modes that are "stacked up" and therefore causing serious problems at those frequencies - in that case, you would be in need of frequency-specific absorption, and should calculate a helmholtz that would help tame those modes - I'm not sure how well it would work to use varying slat/slot width in a slat absorber when you want broader bandwidth action - John's done this in several rooms with apparent success, although I've not seen any measurements - however, with two of the Aussie equivalent of a Grammie awards, it's probably safe to say that John "don' NEED no steenking measurements"... From a more analytical approach, Barefoot presented some logical reasoning as to why the variable approach shouldn't work too well - briefly, it involves the size of LF waves (huge) vs. the surface of the absorber (not so huge) along with the need for individual septums between slatted areas to define cavity depth in a corner absorber (still not sure I buy that one, but no data available either way) As a general rule, however, it's hard to go wrong with broadband corner absorbers (no slats) - if you build them right (everything but the slats) and things are too dull-sounding, you could add slats later (calculated for worst MEASURED frequency imbalance) - That probably makes the most sense; I doubt there are more than a couple acousticians on the planet (certainly not ME by a long shot) who can accurately predict what any two "identical" rooms will sound like until they are complete - there are just too many variables involved. Even acoustic labs can't agree from lab to lab what you get with different constructions - some results lab-to-lab for so-called identical wall TL values (for example) have varied by 10 dB or so. My (somewhat simplistic) approach to all this is to take more Excedrin, build with the knowledge I have available, then tweak to satisfaction. I already spend too much time obsessing over what-ifs, and not enough time caressing my favorite musical instrument(s)... Steve

Gotcha on the Excedrin part for sure... :lol: Thanks man, Arthur

Happy New Year everyone, Well, since we seem to have lost a few treads, I'll just post a new pick of my finished bezels. I'm on the down hill side I think, I have to finish staining my slats and install, then cloth for the rest of the walls and ceiling. I fired up my system just to give a listen, I couldn't stand waiting, I was blown away by how the room sounded, wow. My speakers sounded amazing, I'm so glad I built the soffits. I ran some pink-noise to see how everything looked on screen and was excited about the results. Almost flat as a board, a little bump in the upper mids but the bottom end looked great. Can't wait to get everything finished and start working. :D I have a list of things I've learned along the way I'd like to share when I get finished, maybe it'll help someone else. Arthur

Really cool, Arthur; sounds like you may be fairly happy with your results :wink: - (call it intuition, couldn't a been anything you said :roll: Looks pretty "tech-y" too, are you gonna leave the phenolic showing like that? should be pretty neat. I'll get back and clean up all the multiple pix when I can, the f---ing worm left a few "castings" behind. If you edit your own, make sure you have a copy of the pic; when you delete ONE of the dupes, they ALL go away... Steve

Thanks Steve, Couldn't have done it without your help steering me in the right direction. Yes I'm gonna keep the phenolic as is, it's hard to see in the picture but I routed the edges which gave it a really cool effect. The black against the wood looks great, I wish I would have ordered a brown door. I may try to mask that white somehow, but it's not to bad I'll see how it looks when I finish getting everything else up. Good luck fixing the bug and have a great New Year. Arthur

Been working hot and heavy this week, got my slat walls done and they look great. All I have left is my cloth on the remaining walls and trim work. Had a little problem with the cloth deal, I had planned on using burlap but it appears that I'm allergic to the stuff. I started putting the natural colored burlap up in my vocal booth when I first noticed it, I thought after the fibers calmed down a bit I'd be OK but after several weeks everytime I go in to that room I can't breath, not a good thing. :x So it looks like I'm shopping for new cloth. The black didn't seem to bother me, I guess because of the dye in it, oh well. Luckily I bought speaker cloth for my ceiling. Those of you using the burlap might want to think about using the colored kind if you're going to have other people use your room, I'm sure I'm not the only person allergic to it. Two pics were joined together for this one. Arthur

Here's another couple pictures. I had to put a door in my Slat wall to get to my furnace area so the first pic shows the door in place and the second shows open, duhhh. :? When the slat door is closed it becomes a sealed unit, that is after I finish installing my seals for the real door it will. Arthur

Since the worm seemed to have gobbled some of my pictures up, I thought I'd put a couple back up of my soffit build.

Arthur, can you refresh me - what's the center height of your woofers, ceiling height, and proposed head height? Thanx... Steve

Hey Steve, My center of woofer height is 52", and ear height is a tad less, 1/2 inch or so. I'm a tall guy and I was basically shooting for John's recommendation for optimal standing and sitting height. My ceiling is 8' except for my front half which is slopped at 6 degrees. Total room deminsions are roughly 14x17 give or take a few inches. Man, my soffits sound great, thanks again. Arthur

Oh, good; ya had me worried for a minute with the 8' ceilings and woofers only 4" away from 4 feet - but that 6 degree slope of the front half (from your happy face) has apparently pulled your speakers away from being centered vertically, cool... Man, I love a happy ending; I'd say from your description that you haven't made any serious boo-boo's in your build - congrats, I bet pretty soon that we won't be hearing from you unless we're in the pizza delivery business (As in, Arthur's locked in his new studio and won't open the door except for the pizza guy... 8) Later... steve

Well, here are some final pictures I've been meaning to post. They're not great but hopefully you can tell what the place looks like. After working for several months now in my studio, I haven't ran across any major things that I've missed or messed up. The room sounds great, my vocal booth sounds just like I wanted and my mixes translate better than I imagined. I'm very happy with how everything turned out, it sounds good and it feels comfortable. The final cost turned out to be a couple thousand more than my first budget, aside from some extra gear I wanted. I did all the work myself except for the heat and air work, final cost for materials and stuff, around $6500. So all in all it wasn't so bad. I guess my best advice is read and study everything Knightfly has to offer and you won’t go wrong. One thing that I'm glad I did was add extra air to the control room. From experience of working in a lot of HOT control rooms, it takes more cooling than you think to keep comfortable. Thanks again to everyone who had input in my build and good luck with yours. Arthur

Couple more pics...

Great photos! I love to see a project start-to-finish here! (Lots of starts, few finishes!)

Hello fellow builders... Just thought I'd add a couple things I've learned after several years of great service from my build. My only regret is cooling the place... I doubled what I thought and the HVAC guy thought I'd need but I should have doubled it again. It's ok most of the time if I'm working alone or with one or two more people but if you add just a couple more it gets really hard to control the air flow (unless you frost the windows in the rest of the house). I ended up adding an extra unit just for the studio, which would have been alot easier if I'd done it from the beginning. So I thought I'd add this for those that are at that stage to ponder their next move. ADD MORE AIR!!!! Also, an obsevation about my soffit mounted speakers... it's the only way to go. They sounded great from the beginning, about 2 years ago I added a sub to my system and they even sounded better. My advice is to go that route if you have the space. That's it for me, just thought I'd share some real world things that have come up on my end. Other than that it was a great experiance and I ended up with a great studio that I love working in everyday. It's great to get paid for something you'd do for free!!!

Hey Arthur, Thanks for the update, you have convinced me not to wimp out on the the soffit mount and have upgraded my air supply! Your studio looks mint! Cheers Matt