Grear video, precise, direct, full of information, all that is hard to get out there. Many UA-camrs want to sell something, create so many long videos, and some times we just want the raw information. This make all the diference
By far the best video I've watched on the subject. Thanks man, your delivery is clear and concise, without the exasperating mannerisms a lot of UA-camrs regurgitate for engagement. Cheers 💪🏽
This is filled with disinformation. The best channel that I have found that gives the best advice and articulates how to treat a room is Acoustic Fields. this guy's room has NOT been treated properly.
@@econautx This is a custom built room that's one of the best I've seen. Look at the thickness of the walls, ceiling, etc. The reasoning behind that is that the structure turns into a low frequency absorption so you only need acoustic foam panels for the mid's and high's. Diffusion from front and rear. ua-cam.com/video/eMLA5h0nh8s/v-deo.html
@@econautx How to deal with low frequencies under 100Hz. I would never put the low frequency absorption in just the corners, as that's not enough surface coverage. What he should have said is to put the room dimensions in AMROC and only look at the Axial Modes and treat those first. Those are going to be the biggest problem area and if you fix the Axial model, you are fixing the other modes at the same time. If you put corner traps, you simply aren't going to fix an Axial mode. Axial modes are unwanted pressure between 2 parallel surfaces. That means the low frequency PRESSURE problem is going to be along the entire surface. So, if the lowest low frequency problem in your room starts at 30Hz, and it's along "an example" the side walls, then you would need to find a product with the highest amount of absorption coefficient at 30Hz and get enough to cover at least 50% to 70% of the entire surface covered. Sticking some "traps" in the corners is NOT going to fix low frequency problems in a room as it's not enough surface coverage. It will a very small amount of difference and that's because they are only covering maybe 5% of the surface coverage, at most. Plus, I'm not sure the units he used are all that good at absorption in the low frequencies in that room. So, wrong product, wrong amount and wrong placement. Also, his terminology seems rather mis leading, and it's not his fault, it's the industries as there's a lot of wrong terminology used. Bass Traps is the incorrect terminology. the industry has practically standardized on that term, but it's simply an incorrect term. The correct term would be low frequency absorption device, and depending on the type of design of the unit. There are three main types of low frequency absorption type devices. Membrane, Diaphragmatic and Helmholtz. Helmholtz is for SPECIFIC frequencies, but the problem is they simply don't absorb enough at the frequency a unit is designed to absorb. then the other problems with Helmholtz is you are going to need a lot of them, and in most cases, the problem is not at one frequency, it's at many DIFFERENT frequencies. Membrane and Diaphragmatic are from a similar family of absorption, but between the two, I would go with Diaphragmatic as if designed properly with the right materials, you'll get much more absorption at lower frequencies than a membrane. Yes, they are typically more costly, but they typically will be heavier as they have more mass to absorb more low frequency energy. So, on a per square foot basis, you'll absorb more per sq foot, so you can fix a problem better. Also, he talks about reflections and they starts talking about ECHO's and Reverberation in a room. Echo don't exist in a room. An echo is a repeating sound. Think of what happens if you go to a large Canyon and you yell out "Hello" and you hear the word "hello" repeating until it fades away. That's an echo. A reverberation you won't hear the word repeating. You'll just hear the energy bouncing off the walls until they die away.
One of the most valuable lesson in the speaker world: your system will only sound as good as your room does. My living room is not treated (can't do it and don't want it either) and understanding this has saved me a bunch of money on upgrading components, since it now sounds pretty much as good as it gests for my space. Nice video!
@@Super-lucky-7777 the sound coming from unwanted reflections from the wall and ceiling, arrives at a different timing to your ears. This echo effect makes things sound muddy and less clear. This has more impact on sound quality than Dacs or amps.
This is one of the most comprehensive videos that I found related to setup a proper listening room, covering all the subjects. Thank you. Got my mic and laptop ready! 😊
Good video, it always astounds me how folk can pay hundreds of £ on useless cables/tweaks and thousands of £ on equipment and sit it in a room with terrible acoustics whilst pontificating about sound quality. I had a budget of £7k for my room/system and spent £3k on gik very similar to yourself and the rest on Dynaudio Lyd 48 + 18s subwoofer and a CXN v2 streamer along with a Umik mic and implementation of roon peq, very happy with the resulting sound.
Excellent primer on the subject. One thing that I have not seen addressed in videos on room optimization/treatment is open floor plans. Most newer homes, at least in the U.S., are build with areas or "moments" rather than rooms, per se. For example, my listening area is about 12' X 12' but it is open to an area (bar/kitchenette) behind it that is about the same size, an area (game/billiards/darts area) to its left that is about 20' X 14' and has a French door to its right. There are no walls on which treatments can be placed. I have installed wood diffusers on the front wall, but don't have side walls, exactly, where additional treatments could be installed. Keep up the good work!
if you don't have walls in a traditional room that might be a good thing since you don't have walls in the listening area off which sound will bounce. You can make sure the floor has rugs or carpet and if you notice reverberation you could add treatments to ceiling. The idea is to block surfaces from which sound will bounce
@@drplot1 but its more often the case the area might have for example wall directly in front, behind and to your left but the right side will open out to the kitchen/dining area. In this case the reverberation is uneven. I guess you could put treatments on the left and rear walls. I would also point out, if you can afford quarter of a million dollar AUD speakers as he has, you can afford to be very selective with your home selection.
Great video! However will just say that flat anechoic frequency response is the ideal, but in-room it sounds more natural and appealing to not have flat so much as a tilting downward-right so the bass is about 5dB~ higher than treble on a straight downward slope. Look at the "Spinorama" graphs for estimated in-room response for an anechoic flat speaker (eg Ascend Sierra-LX) to see what this looks like. Perfectly "flat" in the room can sound pretty "flat" and dull, not very robust.
I believe there's a Harman curve equivalent for speakers that's basically what you say, that is a slope with bass slightly boosted while treble is rolled off.
This video was not only helpful and isnightful, but also very entertaining in trying to recognize the album covers behind you. I see: Daft Punk Woodkid Alt-J Tash Sultana Mother Mother Pink Floyd Gorillaz The Script My Chemical Romance Tame Impala Good taste! 🎉
This is incredible information! This has to be about the best 'audio room treatment' information on UA-cam. Thanks for this! Now I have a summer project.
"1. Bass traps don't fix bass modes. As Dr. Toole says in one of his private presentations, "the only thing bass traps do is trap your money!" Wavelengths are way too large for any traditional velocity absorbers to do much good. Often people put a ton of them in there to get results and with it, make their room too dead. In general, few if any people are in a position to use velocity absorbers to make effective changes in their room. Pressure absorbers work better but they are expensive and require skill to design and use (they are very frequency selective). 2. He is optimizing for his eyes, not ears. Two ears and a brain don't work like a single microphone and a graph as Dr. Toole would again say. The notion that reflections are "bad" is folklore as comprehensive peer reviewed has repeatedly shown. Yet, it has become one of the "internet rules" to chase them using measurements. Doing so will lead to a completely dead room when you are done. Ask any high-end acoustician what the #1 problem with DIY acoustic is and they tell you people creating dead rooms because of this mistake. 2A. Use speakers with proper directivity and you will not need to fear reflections. Indeed, this is your #1 tool for good sound in a room. 3. Rooms are never ideal. The calculators for room modes and such for the most part generate incorrect results because your walls are not perfect reflectors. Ditto then for golden ratios, and this and that dimensions not being good. Read Dr. Toole's book for example measurements showing this. For this reason, you can actually fill nulls a bit because cancellation unlike what he claims are way away from ideal (or they would not be down just a few dB). 4. Reflectors need to be broadband. Those skyline diffusers are not. And neither are a lot of what you folks slap on walls. Minimum depth should be 4 inches. 5. DSP is extremely powerful. Get the right speakers, put them more or less where you like, and set your seating position the same. Then measure and apply DSP to pull down peaks. This is the formula which will give you 90% of the results with minimum expense and uglification factor (slapping panels everywhere in the room). Sadly the folklore has gotten so bad that if you don't have a room full of acoustic panels, folks think something wrong with your room. What is really wrong is that people haven't spend $35 on Dr. Toole's book and a few days of reading and learning about real sound acoustics. Please, please do not follow the Internet consensus on this. They are just wrong." - Amir, audiosciencereview.com
@@Patagoona it’s ridiculous, you read one book and you think you’re an expert! You are what’s wrong with the internet mate 😂 the sheer ignorance is astounding
Except DSP usually sound shit above 500hz and can’t address decay time (ok ok, the bleeding edge hardly out yet is starting too, especially if you have more than 2 speakers). But sure, lets all listen to the 🙉🙈
Kudos for making this video! I do have one item to point out. The modes between parallel walls start at a frequency that has a wavelength 2 times the distance between them and at the integer multiples of that lowest frequency. So, instead of 7m for the room described, one would want to use 14m for the wavelength of the first modal frequency.
Fantastic! I've attempted room treatment many times but never had the cool tools like in this video. It was tough and at times, took months for me to figure things out. I think it might be an interesting series if you guys did Room treatment challenges. Choose people with oddly shaped rooms or unique furniture layouts and do a room treatment and see what kind of challenges you had, etc. Also knowing how much it cost each time to get to a certain level would be very interesting to see. Oh and also doing comparisons with other products that claim auto room correction too and measuring those and seeing the difference. I was quite impressed with Sony's HT-A9 when it auto adjusted everything in a few minutes for the size of the speakers but it's also a different experience. Room Treatment is hard and expensive.. which is why I usually stick to headphones. LOL
If you have to ask how much it costs; you can't afford it. Seriously, I looked into purchasing room treatments for my office, which is the size of most people's bathroom. I was looking at a minimum of $2k when all was said and done.
Do mine! A mezzanine with stone floors below and stone walls. Reflection heaven. The hifi is on the elevated level and the ceiling is a triangle. Reflectiontastic!
@@astorbeijer9424this is just a guess, I I would surmize that 10 to 20% of your entire audio budget be spent on room treatment and the gear necessary to get accurate readings. It really depends on what the room is.
Very nice! I am in audio hell in a 4x4m room were I am not even able to use it symetrical. There was only one solution -> DSP (in my case a minidsp 2x4 with dirac live = ddrc24) and an additional subwoofer.
In normal living spaces for normal people without dedicated rooms, furniture like couches, chairs, bookshelves, etc. functions as the treatments. Yes, starting with an empty room and no furniture means you'll need other ways to make it less echoy. And remember that it's subjective and the amount of echo that is acceptable is a very subjective personal preference. Some people want "dead" sounding rooms that are more like headphones. Some people don't mind or even prefer varying level of liveliness left in the room.
I can relate to the latter. There's no way I can stand sitting inside of a mini anechoic chamber for long. Cozy theme and furnitures are a must as well.
Is your recommended RT60 time derived from the two commonly used standards for such - ISO 3382 and EBU/ITU? The ISO standard specifies an RT60 of ~500 ms and EBU/ITU specifies between 200-400 ms. Also, you should have mentioned that furniture can actually act as room treatment if you have enough of it. My bedroom, untreated, has a RT60 of around 350 ms with only a king size bed, a desk, and a dresser in it.
I own B&W 801 matrix series 3 speakers. My room is 10'H x 14.5'W x 27.5L. I cannot use any front wall treatments as I will suck the life out of the mid-range and treble. Also, I have only one 4 ' x 2' absorption panel on the ceiling. Two panels sucked the life out of my speakers. So, listening is very important in optimizing the sound of your room.
Did you actually ended up making that video about room correction? I couldn't find it scrolling through your timeline. Great video on the matter btw. One you can share with others too get them understanding it.
I've got a question about 'perfect' frequency response. You've shown a flat one, but I found theories that perfect harman target in room looks more like +5dB bass, flat mids -5dB trebles
You are correct, MOST will not prefer a flat in room response! He should have mentioned this so as not to confuse people! It will sound bass light, and bright to most. We dont hear the flat response as flat and even.
QUESTION; I have very good audio (b&w diamonds-devaliet power -REL subs) how do I find and hire a guy like you??? I now have a dedicated audio room, I have excellent musical ears from being a session player and producer in LA, but I have low technical skills on the mathematics and analyzing room acoustics. I can Google but whom am I looking for with such excellent skills as yours? I have a budget for acoustic treatment and to hire an expert. Are you referred to as an acoustician? I really need someone like you with your knowledge base to set my room up properly or else I will only be getting 50% of what my gear is capable of. SUGGESTION PLEASE. I would be quite grateful if you can point me in the right direction. I now live in Georgia USA.
Your final measurements after dsp seem to indicate a very linear response which looks great but shouldnt that have a downward tilt as such a linear response at the MLP is considered bright? Was this a personal choice to try emulate a typical recording studio response? Also, the very slight dip between 200hz to 300hz wasnt fixable with DSP?
How about Foam Panels, i see many uses them. And how about placing them behind the speakers on the wall, some say that removes sound that bounces back to the wall
Both ideas are sound. Acoustic Foam has different properties than packing foam. The panels in video are better than acoustic foam, acoustic foam is better than bare walls. Neither of these products sound proof but rather sound absorb. Their main purpose is to reduce the amount and strength of reflections. Different thickness foams are better for different frequency ranges. Incorporate bass traps and diffusers into your setup as your space and budget allow.
People don’t realise the chair you sit on affects the sounds substantially. I have Meridian speakers which sounds amazing but sitting on my leather chesterfield causes major problems in sound unfortunately particularly in the bass.
Question. I have a 120” projector screen on the main wall and have my speakers (Dynaudio Heritage) in same area (I can pull them out quite far). Would the screen be good for sound treatment or would you say I should get panels to put on wall as well? Also I have curtains on one side wall. Would that be fine for that side? Thanks!!
I have a couple 100 pound dogs, things get very dusty and dirty fast. I want to avoid foam and fabric that will become disgusting allergen traps. What are my treatment options?
I only need 10 minutes with my Swan OS10 inside my room to understand that I've been missing a lot from my 7 years of headphone hobby. After that I stopped looking much into headphones and IEMs deals and just buy a KEF LSX and a sub for it. It's just doing something all three of my over 1000 usd headphones and IEMs can't ever do.
Well done! Most of everything you said is correct, but the advice on the best Listening Position being at 38% is incorrect. The so-called 38% rule was ONLY ever meant to be a general guideline. It doesn't work universally because it doesn't take the room LENGTH into account. For smaller length rooms a Listening Position of 45.8% is going to be a common position. For a medium-length room, it might be closer to 39.6%, and for a longer room, it might be closer to 32.8%, etc. And technically 38% is a bad position because it's very close to the 4th null located at 37.5%. The correct position is 39.6% which is located between the 4th null at 37.5% and the 6th null at 41.7% (37.5 + 41.7 /2 = 39.6%).
Hi, can i use this way of measuring to find my ideal subwoofer position by playing pinks noise in my sub at hearing position the using the mic at posible sub location?
Wow very nice room. I bet it is hard to go back to headphones. I have JBL 4367s on McIntosh gear with JL subs highpassed at 60hz and my headphones get very little use these days. Great video
Tbh it can be done for almost nothing. I have a pair of absorbers behind my speakers that I build from an old mattress, a few planks of wood and some subtle but good looking fabric. Cost me around 10 euro. A whole room will of course cost more, but if you're into diy then you can still do it for a very low cost :)
@@gurratell7326 I do not agree. Look at recording studios, and you'll see that good treatment is costly. I mattress here and there will not make a room any way near perfect.
@@gurratell7326 If you DIY don't forget to take fire hazard precautions and research materials properties. You don't want to burn everything down because you've used the wrong material. I see quite dangerous advice all the time.
i have glass wall on my left side of the room pretty much all rooms have glass on corners or a whole wall and i have no clue how will it work in my room if i treat it will the sound bounce back lol what does a glass do
I placed my speakers with the window between them. I figured....it's acoustic properties are different from the other walls....so it'll be uneven....it really was. I rearranged mt speakers and the center image tightened up, no more off balance Soundstage.
I was very interested in this video, as my home theater is in my basement, which is not ideal. I had a water issue a while back, so the carpeting and furniture had to be removed. I now have an old tiled floor, which was under the wall to wall carpet that got ruined, no furniture, except a recliner, old wood paneling walls, and a less than 7 foot ceiling. It sounds absolutely horrendous. Since I'm on a tight limited budget, and I didn't see anything in the video that addressed using drapes on the walls, or other similar products, could that be a solution? Any other types of treatment suggestions?
Those aren't solutions. Thick curtains will absorb high frequency sound but to a very narrow degree. There are two problems in a room: pressure and reflections. Drapes don't solve either of those because they're simply not designed for that. You have to look at the rate, level, and material in acoustics. And for a home theater system, you require more pressure based treatment because of the high amounts of low frequency energy being released by subs. The more drivers there are the more energy there will be and the more problematic your room will be.
Really a great lecture about room treatment and its effects! I enjoyed it. It seems you are not only a headfi guy but also a hifi guy. That's great 🙃 Would like to watch more of you testing hifi gear too. This beautifull snow white Sopra 3 and your equipment in the rack could be the interception of this second path 🤗
I have very good speakers cables (Audioquest Rocket 88). If I change the room setup I wont be able to put series cables but regular ones (one speaker will require 50ft long cable) Is it worth it to change? Cables are not more important than setup, right
Your speaker cables are not important at all unless they are too thin to properly carry the required current. Their length doesn't matter much either as long as you're not in the hundreds of meters range. It's been demonstrated several times.
The new Dirac Active Room Treatment correction could potentially replace big bass absorbers. It uses all speakers to basically cancel any unwanted reflections up to 150Hz. It also will support higher frequencies in the future.
Great video! Looking forward to watching the acoustic development of your room. I'm particularly interested to see your acoustic treatment of your back wall. Keep up the good work!
Great video. This video does a really good job illustrating exactly why I invested more money into my headphones than speakers. Speakers are superior to headphones IMO, but not in the rooms in my house!
Trinnov is the golden standard of EQing your speakers. Proper acoustics can not be replaced with a dsp box, no matter how much people want to believe that 🤣
@@lrama6999 Aw bless you and your pseudo flex. Everyone knows that you treat a room before applying correction. Pat on the head. I was talking about the bit where he was listing various DSP room correction software specifically.
@@lrama6999 Firstly, EQ speakers ≠ EQ room / room correction. Second, having speaker low in directivity errors that have good off-axis linearity will behave well in otherwise challenging rooms such that treatments are largely pointless. Even then, the only real point in doing corrections per REW/Dirac/etc is to tidy up what's below the Schroeder/transition frequency
@@slofty … Ok bud 1. No that is still incorrect 2. You are right that the best use for any EQ is in the low end (Schroeder frequency explanation highly inaccurate but nice try) however every speaker will cause reflections and reverberation issues, directivity errors or not. I see hundreds up to thousands of speakers measured in rooms every year, you are wrong. 3. This is really funny because I am exactly one of those people and have miles more expertise when it comes to practical acoustics than both mentioned. Not to discredit them but last I checked none of them treat rooms for a living ;) I am exactly that, I am a practicing doctor / surgeon, I fix rooms with all sorts of tools, I produce music on a professional level. I have worked in the studio world for over a decade. Thank you
Wow! That’s an impressive room setup and the information in this video is extremely valuable. Thank you Cameron, as well as @TheHEADPHONEShow for providing such high quality contend! I’am very much looking forward to these upcoming videos in this series. Enjoy the fruits of your labor @GoldenSound 🎶
Very good advise! I would add... every room is different. In my professional studio, I'm set up pretty like in this video. In my living room (where I can't put absorption where I want) the speakers are a lot better in the other way. Because the room is very large, there is less first reflection to the left and right of the speakers and fortunately my back wall have intrusion (stairways, kitchen and entry)
My "room" is my living room in an open style house with an angled ceiling, a square room to the left, a rectangular room to the right, a bird house shaped dining room and a square kitchen. All mixed between carpet and hardwood 🤦♂️
I think it’s sad that the listening room is designed for just one person to listen! My room, not a dedicated listening room, has a sofa and chairs in it so it’s a shared pleasure of listening to good music on a good system! 😃👍
I once watched a program where a professional chef demonstrated the correct way to make mashed potatoes. “Peel the potatoes and dump into a tub of iced water. 2 to 4 hours later, remove the potatoes from tub of iced water and place in a pan of boiling water for 10 minutes. Then return the potatoes to a tub of fresh iced water for a further 2 to 4 hours. Then empty the potatoes into a pan of boiling water. Allow the potatoes to boil for a further 10 minutes, or soft. Drain. Add seasoning, milk and butter to taste. Mash using a fork, then serve”! I, peel the spuds. Place in a pan of water. Bring to the boil. Simmer for 20 minutes or until soft. Add seasoning milk and butter. Then use a potato masher to Finnish the job. I challenge anyone to sample the finished product and be able to differentiate between my offering and that of the professional chef. I think you get the point!!!
Tip: a set of furniture floor sliders (can be bought at any decent hardware store) are very useful when making frequent moves of bigger speakers during a process like this.
Thanks for the video. I see that the room has a lot of acoustic treatment. Can you comment on how many panels there are, what model they are and what is the total investment? Written with translator Greetings
It all started with reading comments that iems sounded better than airpods. Now you’re rearranging speakers in your bedroom.
Dankpods ruined my wallet
a fiio btr5 and some 50 dollar iems can sound amazing. airpods are convenient tho
Grear video, precise, direct, full of information, all that is hard to get out there. Many UA-camrs want to sell something, create so many long videos, and some times we just want the raw information. This make all the diference
By far the best video I've watched on the subject. Thanks man, your delivery is clear and concise, without the exasperating mannerisms a lot of UA-camrs regurgitate for engagement. Cheers 💪🏽
This is filled with disinformation. The best channel that I have found that gives the best advice and articulates how to treat a room is Acoustic Fields.
this guy's room has NOT been treated properly.
@@Oneness100Please give an example, thanks.
@@econautx This is a custom built room that's one of the best I've seen. Look at the thickness of the walls, ceiling, etc. The reasoning behind that is that the structure turns into a low frequency absorption so you only need acoustic foam panels for the mid's and high's. Diffusion from front and rear.
ua-cam.com/video/eMLA5h0nh8s/v-deo.html
@@econautx How to deal with low frequencies under 100Hz. I would never put the low frequency absorption in just the corners, as that's not enough surface coverage. What he should have said is to put the room dimensions in AMROC and only look at the Axial Modes and treat those first. Those are going to be the biggest problem area and if you fix the Axial model, you are fixing the other modes at the same time.
If you put corner traps, you simply aren't going to fix an Axial mode. Axial modes are unwanted pressure between 2 parallel surfaces. That means the low frequency PRESSURE problem is going to be along the entire surface. So, if the lowest low frequency problem in your room starts at 30Hz, and it's along "an example" the side walls, then you would need to find a product with the highest amount of absorption coefficient at 30Hz and get enough to cover at least 50% to 70% of the entire surface covered. Sticking some "traps" in the corners is NOT going to fix low frequency problems in a room as it's not enough surface coverage. It will a very small amount of difference and that's because they are only covering maybe 5% of the surface coverage, at most. Plus, I'm not sure the units he used are all that good at absorption in the low frequencies in that room. So, wrong product, wrong amount and wrong placement.
Also, his terminology seems rather mis leading, and it's not his fault, it's the industries as there's a lot of wrong terminology used. Bass Traps is the incorrect terminology. the industry has practically standardized on that term, but it's simply an incorrect term.
The correct term would be low frequency absorption device, and depending on the type of design of the unit. There are three main types of low frequency absorption type devices. Membrane, Diaphragmatic and Helmholtz. Helmholtz is for SPECIFIC frequencies, but the problem is they simply don't absorb enough at the frequency a unit is designed to absorb. then the other problems with Helmholtz is you are going to need a lot of them, and in most cases, the problem is not at one frequency, it's at many DIFFERENT frequencies. Membrane and Diaphragmatic are from a similar family of absorption, but between the two, I would go with Diaphragmatic as if designed properly with the right materials, you'll get much more absorption at lower frequencies than a membrane. Yes, they are typically more costly, but they typically will be heavier as they have more mass to absorb more low frequency energy. So, on a per square foot basis, you'll absorb more per sq foot, so you can fix a problem better.
Also, he talks about reflections and they starts talking about ECHO's and Reverberation in a room. Echo don't exist in a room. An echo is a repeating sound. Think of what happens if you go to a large Canyon and you yell out "Hello" and you hear the word "hello" repeating until it fades away. That's an echo.
A reverberation you won't hear the word repeating. You'll just hear the energy bouncing off the walls until they die away.
One of the most valuable lesson in the speaker world: your system will only sound as good as your room does. My living room is not treated (can't do it and don't want it either) and understanding this has saved me a bunch of money on upgrading components, since it now sounds pretty much as good as it gests for my space. Nice video!
Help me understand why
@@Super-lucky-7777 the sound coming from unwanted reflections from the wall and ceiling, arrives at a different timing to your ears. This echo effect makes things sound muddy and less clear. This has more impact on sound quality than Dacs or amps.
This is one of the most comprehensive videos that I found related to setup a proper listening room, covering all the subjects. Thank you. Got my mic and laptop ready! 😊
Good video, it always astounds me how folk can pay hundreds of £ on useless cables/tweaks and thousands of £ on equipment and sit it in a room with terrible acoustics whilst pontificating about sound quality. I had a budget of £7k for my room/system and spent £3k on gik very similar to yourself and the rest on Dynaudio Lyd 48 + 18s subwoofer and a CXN v2 streamer along with a Umik mic and implementation of roon peq, very happy with the resulting sound.
Best room treatment video on UA-cam. You manage to explain complex principles in a simple manner . Where is the room corection video?
Yes, and setting up a subwoofer to fill in gaps/peaks !
Great video. Cant deny im a little envious that your listening room is about the size of athird of my entire house.
And that the speakers are as expensive as all your furniture.
@@pablohrrg8677he could have just gotten objectively better gear for a fraction of the money as well and spend more on room treatment
Not to mention his quarter of a million AUD dollar speakers.
This is buy far the best explanation on acoustic analysis, speaker setup and room treatments I’ve come across.
Excellent primer on the subject. One thing that I have not seen addressed in videos on room optimization/treatment is open floor plans. Most newer homes, at least in the U.S., are build with areas or "moments" rather than rooms, per se. For example, my listening area is about 12' X 12' but it is open to an area (bar/kitchenette) behind it that is about the same size, an area (game/billiards/darts area) to its left that is about 20' X 14' and has a French door to its right. There are no walls on which treatments can be placed. I have installed wood diffusers on the front wall, but don't have side walls, exactly, where additional treatments could be installed. Keep up the good work!
if you don't have walls in a traditional room that might be a good thing since you don't have walls in the listening area off which sound will bounce. You can make sure the floor has rugs or carpet and if you notice reverberation you could add treatments to ceiling. The idea is to block surfaces from which sound will bounce
@@drplot1 but its more often the case the area might have for example wall directly in front, behind and to your left but the right side will open out to the kitchen/dining area. In this case the reverberation is uneven. I guess you could put treatments on the left and rear walls. I would also point out, if you can afford quarter of a million dollar AUD speakers as he has, you can afford to be very selective with your home selection.
Great video! However will just say that flat anechoic frequency response is the ideal, but in-room it sounds more natural and appealing to not have flat so much as a tilting downward-right so the bass is about 5dB~ higher than treble on a straight downward slope. Look at the "Spinorama" graphs for estimated in-room response for an anechoic flat speaker (eg Ascend Sierra-LX) to see what this looks like. Perfectly "flat" in the room can sound pretty "flat" and dull, not very robust.
I believe there's a Harman curve equivalent for speakers that's basically what you say, that is a slope with bass slightly boosted while treble is rolled off.
Absolutely one of the best room correction videos on UA-cam! Well done!!!
This video was not only helpful and isnightful, but also very entertaining in trying to recognize the album covers behind you. I see:
Daft Punk
Woodkid
Alt-J
Tash Sultana
Mother Mother
Pink Floyd
Gorillaz
The Script
My Chemical Romance
Tame Impala
Good taste! 🎉
This is incredible information! This has to be about the best 'audio room treatment' information on UA-cam. Thanks for this! Now I have a summer project.
"1. Bass traps don't fix bass modes. As Dr. Toole says in one of his private presentations, "the only thing bass traps do is trap your money!" Wavelengths are way too large for any traditional velocity absorbers to do much good. Often people put a ton of them in there to get results and with it, make their room too dead. In general, few if any people are in a position to use velocity absorbers to make effective changes in their room. Pressure absorbers work better but they are expensive and require skill to design and use (they are very frequency selective).
2. He is optimizing for his eyes, not ears. Two ears and a brain don't work like a single microphone and a graph as Dr. Toole would again say. The notion that reflections are "bad" is folklore as comprehensive peer reviewed has repeatedly shown. Yet, it has become one of the "internet rules" to chase them using measurements. Doing so will lead to a completely dead room when you are done. Ask any high-end acoustician what the #1 problem with DIY acoustic is and they tell you people creating dead rooms because of this mistake.
2A. Use speakers with proper directivity and you will not need to fear reflections. Indeed, this is your #1 tool for good sound in a room.
3. Rooms are never ideal. The calculators for room modes and such for the most part generate incorrect results because your walls are not perfect reflectors. Ditto then for golden ratios, and this and that dimensions not being good. Read Dr. Toole's book for example measurements showing this. For this reason, you can actually fill nulls a bit because cancellation unlike what he claims are way away from ideal (or they would not be down just a few dB).
4. Reflectors need to be broadband. Those skyline diffusers are not. And neither are a lot of what you folks slap on walls. Minimum depth should be 4 inches.
5. DSP is extremely powerful. Get the right speakers, put them more or less where you like, and set your seating position the same. Then measure and apply DSP to pull down peaks. This is the formula which will give you 90% of the results with minimum expense and uglification factor (slapping panels everywhere in the room).
Sadly the folklore has gotten so bad that if you don't have a room full of acoustic panels, folks think something wrong with your room. What is really wrong is that people haven't spend $35 on Dr. Toole's book and a few days of reading and learning about real sound acoustics. Please, please do not follow the Internet consensus on this. They are just wrong."
- Amir, audiosciencereview.com
@@Patagoona Dr Toole is a Tool and your comment is absolute nonsense as anyone from the pro audio world knows you’re absolutely wrong 😂
@@Patagoona it’s ridiculous, you read one book and you think you’re an expert! You are what’s wrong with the internet mate 😂 the sheer ignorance is astounding
Except DSP usually sound shit above 500hz and can’t address decay time (ok ok, the bleeding edge hardly out yet is starting too, especially if you have more than 2 speakers). But sure, lets all listen to the 🙉🙈
Kudos for making this video! I do have one item to point out. The modes between parallel walls start at a frequency that has a wavelength 2 times the distance between them and at the integer multiples of that lowest frequency.
So, instead of 7m for the room described, one would want to use 14m for the wavelength of the first modal frequency.
Fantastic! I've attempted room treatment many times but never had the cool tools like in this video. It was tough and at times, took months for me to figure things out. I think it might be an interesting series if you guys did Room treatment challenges. Choose people with oddly shaped rooms or unique furniture layouts and do a room treatment and see what kind of challenges you had, etc. Also knowing how much it cost each time to get to a certain level would be very interesting to see. Oh and also doing comparisons with other products that claim auto room correction too and measuring those and seeing the difference. I was quite impressed with Sony's HT-A9 when it auto adjusted everything in a few minutes for the size of the speakers but it's also a different experience. Room Treatment is hard and expensive.. which is why I usually stick to headphones. LOL
No idea if it would be doable, but that room treatment challange idea is amazing tbh
If you have to ask how much it costs; you can't afford it. Seriously, I looked into purchasing room treatments for my office, which is the size of most people's bathroom. I was looking at a minimum of $2k when all was said and done.
Do mine! A mezzanine with stone floors below and stone walls. Reflection heaven. The hifi is on the elevated level and the ceiling is a triangle. Reflectiontastic!
Excellent idea
@@astorbeijer9424this is just a guess, I I would surmize that 10 to 20% of your entire audio budget be spent on room treatment and the gear necessary to get accurate readings. It really depends on what the room is.
I need this for headphones
Underrated comment here lol
Very nice! I am in audio hell in a 4x4m room were I am not even able to use it symetrical. There was only one solution -> DSP (in my case a minidsp 2x4 with dirac live = ddrc24) and an additional subwoofer.
Step 1: choosing your room
Me who has to flat share: "I guess this one room that's not even mine will do"
In normal living spaces for normal people without dedicated rooms, furniture like couches, chairs, bookshelves, etc. functions as the treatments. Yes, starting with an empty room and no furniture means you'll need other ways to make it less echoy. And remember that it's subjective and the amount of echo that is acceptable is a very subjective personal preference. Some people want "dead" sounding rooms that are more like headphones. Some people don't mind or even prefer varying level of liveliness left in the room.
I can relate to the latter. There's no way I can stand sitting inside of a mini anechoic chamber for long.
Cozy theme and furnitures are a must as well.
Is your recommended RT60 time derived from the two commonly used standards for such - ISO 3382 and EBU/ITU? The ISO standard specifies an RT60 of ~500 ms and EBU/ITU specifies between 200-400 ms. Also, you should have mentioned that furniture can actually act as room treatment if you have enough of it. My bedroom, untreated, has a RT60 of around 350 ms with only a king size bed, a desk, and a dresser in it.
Nice picture of cheers with western Electric tubes, when I can find it? ...or only the image.
Thanks!
EXCELLENT video! Thank you. More like this please!
I own B&W 801 matrix series 3 speakers. My room is 10'H x 14.5'W x 27.5L. I cannot use any front wall treatments as I will suck the life out of the mid-range and treble. Also, I have only one 4 ' x 2' absorption panel on the ceiling. Two panels sucked the life out of my speakers. So, listening is very important in optimizing the sound of your room.
I get absorption sucking the life out of your music, but diffusion should not suck the life out.
20:08 The acoustic panel is interfering with the smoke alarm!
Really really superb explanation… many thanks🎉
Did you actually ended up making that video about room correction? I couldn't find it scrolling through your timeline.
Great video on the matter btw. One you can share with others too get them understanding it.
I've got a question about 'perfect' frequency response. You've shown a flat one, but I found theories that perfect harman target in room looks more like +5dB bass, flat mids -5dB trebles
You are correct, MOST will not prefer a flat in room response! He should have mentioned this so as not to confuse people! It will sound bass light, and bright to most. We dont hear the flat response as flat and even.
Is there a video how to use (a) subwoofer/s to "correct" standing waves (and nulls) from (the woofers of the) main speakers? /Best regards
Hey. Great video. Where did you get that 300b poster at the end?
QUESTION; I have very good audio (b&w diamonds-devaliet power -REL subs) how do I find and hire a guy like you???
I now have a dedicated audio room, I have excellent musical ears from being a session player and producer in LA, but I have low technical skills on the mathematics and analyzing room acoustics. I can Google but whom am I looking for with such excellent skills as yours?
I have a budget for acoustic treatment and to hire an expert. Are you referred to as an acoustician? I really need someone like you with your knowledge base to set my room up properly or else I will only be getting 50% of what my gear is capable of. SUGGESTION PLEASE. I would be quite grateful if you can point me in the right direction. I now live in Georgia USA.
You're awesome dude. Good job on the video. Viva la treatment!!
Awesome awesome video! Gave me everything I needed to start my room treating journey. Thank you so much!
1:20 cool poster! Where did you get it?
Your final measurements after dsp seem to indicate a very linear response which looks great but shouldnt that have a downward tilt as such a linear response at the MLP is considered bright? Was this a personal choice to try emulate a typical recording studio response? Also, the very slight dip between 200hz to 300hz wasnt fixable with DSP?
Great review but how can one add all room treatment in a family room, please what's the minimum section of treatment?
How about Foam Panels, i see many uses them.
And how about placing them behind the speakers on the wall, some say that removes sound that bounces back to the wall
Both ideas are sound. Acoustic Foam has different properties than packing foam. The panels in video are better than acoustic foam, acoustic foam is better than bare walls.
Neither of these products sound proof but rather sound absorb. Their main purpose is to reduce the amount and strength of reflections. Different thickness foams are better for different frequency ranges.
Incorporate bass traps and diffusers into your setup as your space and budget allow.
Gik acoustic treatment, goat
People don’t realise the chair you sit on affects the sounds substantially. I have Meridian speakers which sounds amazing but sitting on my leather chesterfield causes major problems in sound unfortunately particularly in the bass.
Question. I have a 120” projector screen on the main wall and have my speakers (Dynaudio Heritage) in same area (I can pull them out quite far). Would the screen be good for sound treatment or would you say I should get panels to put on wall as well?
Also I have curtains on one side wall. Would that be fine for that side? Thanks!!
How would it sound if you put thick carpet on the floor, all the walls, and the ceiling?
Great explanation although I’ve always found I get the best results by setting up the speakers on the longest wall.
This was perfectly told 🎉
I have a couple 100 pound dogs, things get very dusty and dirty fast. I want to avoid foam and fabric that will become disgusting allergen traps. What are my treatment options?
This is by far the best explanation I’ve seen out there. Thanks!
What are those things on the wall, behind you. Obviously, they are album art but what, exactly are they? And where can I get some?
Very well done!
@goldensound your wall with music looks cool. Can you share how you did this?
So place your speakers in the ideal position and position furniture where you can fit it.
I only need 10 minutes with my Swan OS10 inside my room to understand that I've been missing a lot from my 7 years of headphone hobby.
After that I stopped looking much into headphones and IEMs deals and just buy a KEF LSX and a sub for it.
It's just doing something all three of my over 1000 usd headphones and IEMs can't ever do.
Killer set up and room
Great explanations!
Well done! Most of everything you said is correct, but the advice on the best Listening Position being at 38% is incorrect. The so-called 38% rule was ONLY ever meant to be a general guideline. It doesn't work universally because it doesn't take the room LENGTH into account. For smaller length rooms a Listening Position of 45.8% is going to be a common position. For a medium-length room, it might be closer to 39.6%, and for a longer room, it might be closer to 32.8%, etc. And technically 38% is a bad position because it's very close to the 4th null located at 37.5%. The correct position is 39.6% which is located between the 4th null at 37.5% and the 6th null at 41.7% (37.5 + 41.7 /2 = 39.6%).
How do you treat a ceiling when you use it to bounce atmos signals?
Amazing, thanks !!!!!!
Hi, can i use this way of measuring to find my ideal subwoofer position by playing pinks noise in my sub at hearing position the using the mic at posible sub location?
Very good. Just the video needed.
Wow very nice room. I bet it is hard to go back to headphones. I have JBL 4367s on McIntosh gear with JL subs highpassed at 60hz and my headphones get very little use these days.
Great video
Amazing video! Quick question: How large a percentage of the entire system price is the room treatment? Thanks!
Tbh it can be done for almost nothing. I have a pair of absorbers behind my speakers that I build from an old mattress, a few planks of wood and some subtle but good looking fabric. Cost me around 10 euro. A whole room will of course cost more, but if you're into diy then you can still do it for a very low cost :)
@@gurratell7326 I do not agree. Look at recording studios, and you'll see that good treatment is costly. I mattress here and there will not make a room any way near perfect.
@@gurratell7326 If you DIY don't forget to take fire hazard precautions and research materials properties. You don't want to burn everything down because you've used the wrong material. I see quite dangerous advice all the time.
i have glass wall on my left side of the room
pretty much all rooms have glass on corners or a whole wall
and i have no clue how will it work in my room if i treat it
will the sound bounce back lol what does a glass do
I placed my speakers with the window between them. I figured....it's acoustic properties are different from the other walls....so it'll be uneven....it really was. I rearranged mt speakers and the center image tightened up, no more off balance Soundstage.
What are the dimensions of the room?
I was very interested in this video, as my home theater is in my basement, which is not ideal. I had a water issue a while back, so the carpeting and furniture had to be removed. I now have an old tiled floor, which was under the wall to wall carpet that got ruined, no furniture, except a recliner, old wood paneling walls, and a less than 7 foot ceiling. It sounds absolutely horrendous. Since I'm on a tight limited budget, and I didn't see anything in the video that addressed using drapes on the walls, or other similar products, could that be a solution? Any other types of treatment suggestions?
Those aren't solutions. Thick curtains will absorb high frequency sound but to a very narrow degree. There are two problems in a room: pressure and reflections. Drapes don't solve either of those because they're simply not designed for that. You have to look at the rate, level, and material in acoustics.
And for a home theater system, you require more pressure based treatment because of the high amounts of low frequency energy being released by subs. The more drivers there are the more energy there will be and the more problematic your room will be.
Really a great lecture about room treatment and its effects! I enjoyed it.
It seems you are not only a headfi guy but also a hifi guy. That's great 🙃
Would like to watch more of you testing hifi gear too. This beautifull snow white Sopra 3 and your equipment in the rack could be the interception of this second path 🤗
I have very good speakers cables (Audioquest Rocket 88). If I change the room setup I wont be able to put series cables but regular ones (one speaker will require 50ft long cable) Is it worth it to change? Cables are not more important than setup, right
Your speaker cables are not important at all unless they are too thin to properly carry the required current. Their length doesn't matter much either as long as you're not in the hundreds of meters range. It's been demonstrated several times.
thanks alot, great video
Very detailed.
Great video with good, practical advice. When you talk about what was intended, do you mean intended by the speaker makers?
The new Dirac Active Room Treatment correction could potentially replace big bass absorbers.
It uses all speakers to basically cancel any unwanted reflections up to 150Hz.
It also will support higher frequencies in the future.
Nope.
@@MODAC yes
@@juliangst not nearly as effective
@@MODAC we don't know much yet but the waterfall graphs look very promising
Nope and it only takes an understanding of physics and a look at other active bass trapping devices 🤷♂️
Whats the name of that chair? it looks really nice!
Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, for 6k it should be nice chair. Yes I'm jealous.
Sweet guide!
13:35 they never made that subwoofer and dsp video...
That FR does not look like it sounds great to me but if you like it good for you.
Great video! Looking forward to watching the acoustic development of your room. I'm particularly interested to see your acoustic treatment of your back wall. Keep up the good work!
Great video. This video does a really good job illustrating exactly why I invested more money into my headphones than speakers. Speakers are superior to headphones IMO, but not in the rooms in my house!
Why didn't Trinnov get a mention? Isn't it still the gold standard of room correction? Or has that been suplanted?
Trinnov is the golden standard of EQing your speakers. Proper acoustics can not be replaced with a dsp box, no matter how much people want to believe that 🤣
@@lrama6999 Aw bless you and your pseudo flex. Everyone knows that you treat a room before applying correction. Pat on the head. I was talking about the bit where he was listing various DSP room correction software specifically.
@@codgerfiasco it’s not a pseudo flex it’s a very important difference 🤷♂️
@@lrama6999 Firstly, EQ speakers ≠ EQ room / room correction.
Second, having speaker low in directivity errors that have good off-axis linearity will behave well in otherwise challenging rooms such that treatments are largely pointless. Even then, the only real point in doing corrections per REW/Dirac/etc is to tidy up what's below the Schroeder/transition frequency
@@slofty … Ok bud
1. No that is still incorrect
2. You are right that the best use for any EQ is in the low end (Schroeder frequency explanation highly inaccurate but nice try) however every speaker will cause reflections and reverberation issues, directivity errors or not. I see hundreds up to thousands of speakers measured in rooms every year, you are wrong.
3. This is really funny because I am exactly one of those people and have miles more expertise when it comes to practical acoustics than both mentioned. Not to discredit them but last I checked none of them treat rooms for a living ;)
I am exactly that, I am a practicing doctor / surgeon, I fix rooms with all sorts of tools, I produce music on a professional level. I have worked in the studio world for over a decade. Thank you
should actually try different degrees of toe in as not all speakers recommend toe in
Exactly!
Very well done! I would give 2 thumbs up if I could.
Wow! That’s an impressive room setup and the information in this video is extremely valuable.
Thank you Cameron, as well as @TheHEADPHONEShow for providing such high quality contend!
I’am very much looking forward to these upcoming videos in this series.
Enjoy the fruits of your labor @GoldenSound 🎶
Very nice video. But... A flat in room frequency response? Must be sounding very bright! Try aiming for -0.8 dB/octave instead.
Best video you have made.
Great video, but you definitely cannot fix a room mode with DSP. DSP cannot affect decay times.
Very good advise! I would add... every room is different. In my professional studio, I'm set up pretty like in this video. In my living room (where I can't put absorption where I want) the speakers are a lot better in the other way. Because the room is very large, there is less first reflection to the left and right of the speakers and fortunately my back wall have intrusion (stairways, kitchen and entry)
My "room" is my living room in an open style house with an angled ceiling, a square room to the left, a rectangular room to the right, a bird house shaped dining room and a square kitchen. All mixed between carpet and hardwood 🤦♂️
Holly, I've dreamt of a guide like that coming from you guys! Great video Golden, this will come in handy, thank you!
Wow!
I'm a total beginner, so this is probably a stupid question: why have speakers at all? Why not just use your headphones?
So, when are you coming to persude my wife to let me do some of this in the living room 😢? Nice video!👍
Did u work for it 😊
I love that 300B picture.
That’s awesome. I need that too where can I get it GS?
Renting is a pain in the ass with a home studio. Honestly... If you or anyone could throw out some tips on that, it would be cool.
I think it’s sad that the listening room is designed for just one person to listen!
My room, not a dedicated listening room, has a sofa and chairs in it so it’s a shared pleasure of listening to good music on a good system! 😃👍
Excellent video.
I once watched a program where a professional chef demonstrated the correct way to make mashed potatoes.
“Peel the potatoes and dump into a tub of iced water. 2 to 4 hours later, remove the potatoes from tub of iced water and place in a pan of boiling water for 10 minutes. Then return the potatoes to a tub of fresh iced water for a further 2 to 4 hours. Then empty the potatoes into a pan of boiling water. Allow the potatoes to boil for a further 10 minutes, or soft. Drain. Add seasoning, milk and butter to taste. Mash using a fork, then serve”!
I, peel the spuds. Place in a pan of water. Bring to the boil. Simmer for 20 minutes or until soft. Add seasoning milk and butter. Then use a potato masher to Finnish the job. I challenge anyone to sample the finished product and be able to differentiate between my offering and that of the professional chef. I think you get the point!!!
Big thanks to Jesco, Music city acoustics and the folks at HPS for making this topic accessible!
ThanksMuch!..yes sir
Tip: a set of furniture floor sliders (can be bought at any decent hardware store) are very useful when making frequent moves of bigger speakers during a process like this.
14:46 bro's clapping differently in each clip 🤣come on guy be a bit more honest
Thanks for the video.
I see that the room has a lot of acoustic treatment.
Can you comment on how many panels there are, what model they are and what is the total investment?
Written with translator
Greetings
Good video but ... rt60 is not usable in small rooms. Its intended for MUCH larger spaces. Just focus on waterfall in small rooms