Control Room Improvements

[tommy k]

I am looking for some advice as to how to improve my listening environment.
The room is roughly 10x17 with: 2x4 walls insulated and covered with sound board (brown fiber type) and 1/2 drywall. the floor is carpet over concrete and the ceiling is acoustic tile with 6" batts-air space and 6" batts in between joists. As you can see in the attached photo I do have corner traps and some foam but... the placement was not calculated.

I would appreciate any advice some of you may have.

Thanks,
Tommy

[Ethan Winer]

Tommy,

> I am looking for some advice as to how to improve my listening environment. <

It sounds like your ceiling is in good shape, but I'm sure you'll benefit from adding more bass traps in the corners. Other than that it looks like you have the basics covered.

--Ethan

[tommy k]

Thanks for the timely reply! I was considering building some traps based on the RealTraps design or similar to what John Sayers has posted on his site.
Do you feel I would get better performance from one of those designs verses more foam traps?

Thanks again!

Tommy

[Ethan Winer]

Tommy,

> I was considering building some traps based on the RealTraps design <

I can't counsel you on how to build clones of the traps I sell. But I can say that using dense rigid fiberglass four inches thick will do a great job.

--Ethan

[tommy k]

I can appreciate that. But I was refering to the DIY plans you had out there from a while back and, mostly to whether building permanent corner soffits vs. a more poprtable design such as yours, would make a big difference.
Thanks for the advice it is much appreciated!

Tommy

[knightfly]

Tommy, rigid fiberglass or rockwool will always beat foam of the same thickness by quite a bit, including wider range of absorption; if you want portability, here's another choice -

http://www.johnlsayers.com/HR/index1.htm

Unless you have enough room to put several of each range of panel traps, you'd likely get smoother results using broadband traps instead - otherwise, it's too easy to get peaky results with frequency-specific traps... Steve

[Ethan Winer]

Tommy,

> I was refering to the DIY plans you had out there from a while back <

Those plans are still on my personal web site, and that type of trap is completely different from what RealTraps sells.

> whether building permanent corner soffits vs. a more poprtable design such as yours, would make a big difference. <

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. You can make wood panel traps portable, but it's a lot of extra work and you end up with traps that are large and bluky and extremely heavy.

--Ethan

[tommy k]

I am considering recycling some of the acoustic foam from this room. Would the plan below create a broadband absorber? I thought I could improve the asthetics as well as provide some added functionality.

Thanks,
Tommy

[Ethan Winer]

Tommy,

> Would the plan below create a broadband absorber? <

It will absorb to a lower frequency if you reverse the foam so the jagged sides face the wall.

--Ethan

[tommy k]

Ah! Thanks for the tip. So... I assume that you could tailor to higher or lower frequencies depending on which way they face and, the number of layers or thickness.

Thanks so much, for all of your knowledge sharing!

Tommy