The basic problem is that you are confusing two totally different types of acoustic device. You are looking at absorbers, which work very well as broadband bass traps down to very low frequencies, and telling us that they wont work because they are not panel traps, which work on totally different principle. Absorbers work on the velocity component of a sound wave, panel traps work on the pressure component. They do the exact opposite thing from each other, but they both work.
Panel traps are TUNED treatment, which is sometimes what you need in a room and sometimes not. They work on specific frequencies, and should be designed for each room to deal with the problematic frequencies of that specific room. Absorbers are "broadband", meaning that they work across a range of may frequencies, and will therefor work in any room. If you put a panel absorber tuned to 125 Hz in a room that does not have any problems at 125 Hz, but actually has an problem at 90 Hz, then not only did you not help things, you actually made them WORSE: You took out energy at a frequency that was just fine, and you DIDN'T take out energy at the frequency that needed it most! So now your room will sound worse than if you had done nothing at all. That's what you get from trying to fix things through ignorance (no offense) without actually understanding what you are doing, or what people are telling you.
Panel traps should go right up against the walls for maximum efficiency, because that's where the pressure component is highest: they are pressure-based devices, not velocity based. Space them away from the walls and they LOSE efficiency. Absorbers SHOULD be spaced away from the walls for maximum efficiency, because that's where the velocity component is highest: they are velocity-based devices, not pressure based. If you put the up against the walls, they lose efficiency.
Acoustics 101.
The reason I am being so harsh here is because you came into the forum, jumped on the end of a great thread that has been around for years and teaches people how to do things RIGHT, and you start yelling about how it is all wrong and won't work. I cannot allow that to pass unchallenged. This forum is well regarded and well respected precisely because the people who post here actually do know what they are talking about: some of the best experts in the industry drop in from time to time to offer their thoughts. So I'll do my best to ensure that no myths, legends, half-truths or plain old wrong information are spread here. As a moderator, that's part of what I'm supposed to do.
If you aren't sure about how things work, then ask, and folks here will be more than happy to explain how things work. But please don't come barging in trying to teach the experts when you don't even understand the principles.
The absorbers described in this thread actually do work, and they work very well when built and positioned correctly. If you enclose them in "sealed boxes spaced away from the wall" then they will do nothing useful at all (at best) or will even add additional problems to rooms (at worst).
I really do suggest that you buy MHoA. It explains all of these concepts (and many others) very clearly, and gives you the acoustic principles on which they operated, and mathematical equations for calculating their frequencies and performance.
I came in here to learn and when I saw pictures of everybody
building the same exact thing, it conflicted with something else
I learned from a very reliable source.
They only trouble is that you did not understand what your reliable source was trying to tell you, and nor did you understand the devices described here. Out of ignorance you confused the two, and then carried on insisting, over several posts, that you were right and everyone else was wrong, even though I already explained it to you.
Not Winer (though Winer agrees).
No he does not. Ethan sells both absorption based devices and panel traps (among other things). I'm pretty sure he knows the difference, and understands how they both work!
He even elaborared on a few principles I was doubting as far as sealed membranes.
It's a pity you didn't ask him about absorption-based treatment. Maybe you should go visit him again, and ask him what he thinks about superchunks, and what principle they operate on...
But I'm pretty confident the guys I met today had practial working knowledge.
They very likely do! But if you want the correct answers from them, you have to ask the correct questions, and you have to have the basic understanding to grasp what they are ACTUALLY telling you, not what you THINK they are telling you.
If you really did come here to learn, then great! There is a huge amount of information here, most of it solid, sound, correct and based on the real principles of physics and acoustics. There is way more than you could ever hope for, on practically every issue of small-room acoustics. Spend a few months reading over it, like most newcomers do here, and I'm sure you will learn a lot.
- Stuart -