relative perofmance of DIY and commercial bass traps

[baadc0de]

Hi all.

lately I've been thinking about tearing down the DIY bass trapping that I did for my recording room and start over, the reasing being lackluster performance. I made them based on my own significantly flawed understanding on how bass traps work and what they provide to the listening or recording environment. In short, the wool I used is very fluffy, has low mass and the cardboard shell followed by fluffy felt is probably not the best of ideas on how to dress your bass trap. Also, instead of creating modular, detachable pieces, I decided to cover all of the walls with this treatment, fixing a wooden construction to them and then screwing the actual wool to the construction with the cardboard keeping it in place. The sound is very dull and low bass is evidently still bouncing around (and there's no diffusion going on). There are bumps that I haven't measured yet, but the prominent one is probably around 100-odd Hz. So, this is my situation, and soon I would like to address it with a more elegant, rational solution.

That said, there are two main ways one may take - DIY or premade. Both options provide a significant number of possibilities of execution and instead of leaping in as I did before, I'd like to objectively evaluate them this time. The first question is most intriguing however. There seem to be many companies that produce products for controlling acoustics and more specifically so, room acoustics and even more specifically so, control rooms and recording spaces. How do these measure up to the DIY "products" and vice versa? Is it worth the money, or put the other way, is the hassle of DIY worth the savings? Are commercial products, being more expensive, also better in the performance department?

Thanks for reading through all this

Cheers,
B.

[Ethan Winer]

Whether you DIY or buy premade depends on a lot of things, including what you can afford. DIY can be highly effective if you know what to do. Pre-made is more expensive, but you know it will be optimal assuming you buy from a company that knows their stuff. I may be biased, but one big advantage of buying pre-made traps is you also get expert advice. So it comes down to the classic advice that applies to everything, not just acoustic treatment: If you're not an expert yourself, hire someone who is.

--Ethan

[baadc0de]

Thank you Ethan. This is certainly encouraging if one thinks in similar terms as with DIYing recording gear, which I didn't know much about, but I now have quite a collection of finished and working tube and solid state projects. I understand if this isn't a question you're particularly comfortable with, but of all the projects and DIY modules that one can find on the internet, which one in your opinion comes closest to the performance of your own products? I suppose you probably didn't try them all in a direct, practical comparison, but, theoretically?

[Ethan Winer]

There are so many DIY bass trap plans and forum threads out there, I don't even try to follow them all. But this will give you a clue:

Density Report

--Ethan